When Did Ancient Humans Start Smoking?

[00:00:00]Archaeologists cracked open a 2,700year-old tomb in the deserts of western China.

[00:00:07]Inside, a man, blue-eyed, about 45 years old, buried with a harp, a set of horse bridles, and almost 2 lb of marijuana that had somehow stayed green for 27 centuries underground. He was a shaman, and whoever buried him made absolutely sure he'd have enough for the other side. But here's the thing. He wasn't even close to the first. This plant has been with us for 12,000 years. It's been illegal for 90. That gap is the whole story. Go back 12,000 years. East Asia, humans are just starting to figure out farming. And one of the very first plants they looked at and thought, "Yes, let's grow this." was cannabis. Think about what this plant could do. You could twist it into rope, weave it into clothes, eat its seeds, press them into oil, use it as medicine. It wasn't a crop. It was the ancient equivalent of a Swiss army knife growing out of the ground. One of the earliest written records comes from an ancient Chinese medical handbook, the Penoqing.

[00:01:19]Traditionally attributed to the legendary emperor Shen Nong. The book recommended cannabis for joint pain, malaria, and dozens of other conditions.

[00:01:29]Then it started moving. High in the Premier Mountains of Central Asia at a burial site called Jersen Call Cemetery, researchers opened eight ancient tombs from around 500 BC. Inside, wooden brazers, charred stones, cannabis residue. But not just any cannabis. This stuff was potent, way stronger than anything growing wild in the area. These people were specifically selecting the strongest plants, heating the stones, laying the cannabis on top, and breathing in the smoke together while they buried their dead. They were hotboxing funerals 2500 years ago.

[00:02:11]Around the same time, a Greek historian named Heroditus was traveling through Central Asia and watched a group of nomadic warriors called the Cyians do the same thing. Small tents, red hot stones, cannabis smoke. He wrote the entire ritual down in detail. For centuries, historians assumed he was exaggerating. Then in 1947, a Soviet archaeologist excavated frozen cythian tombs sealed in perafrost for over 2,000 years. Inside, tent frames, heated stones, and cannabis seats. Exactly what Herodotus described. He wasn't exaggerating. He was reporting. And then in 2013, another Cythian tomb turned up.

[00:02:57]This time with 7 lb of solid gold cups inside. When scientists tested the residue at the bottom of those golden cups, they found cannabis and opium.

[00:03:07]Ancient warriors were mixing substances out of solid gold 2400 years ago. Here's the part that explains everything. Your body naturally produces a molecule called anandmide, named after the Sanskrit word for bliss. Cannabis produces a chemical that fits into the exact same receptor, like a spare key to a lock your body already had built in.

[00:03:32]You weren't wired to resist this plant.

[00:03:34]You were wired to respond to it. Which is why in India, they didn't just use it, they worshiped it. The Atarva, one of the oldest sacred texts on earth, lists cannabis as one of five sacred plants. Lord Shiva, one of the most powerful gods in Hinduism, is called the Lord of Bong, a drink made from cannabis leaves and milk. The story says when he swallowed a poison that could have ended the world, it was Bong that brought him back. People still make the same drink today during Holi and Shivaratri, 3,000 years of continuous use. Same plant, same ritual. In China around 200 AD, a physician named Huao mixed cannabis with wine, gave it to his patients, and performed surgery while they felt nothing. 1,800 years before modern anesthesia, but being ahead of your time has always been dangerous. Huato was eventually summoned by Tao Sao, one of the most powerful warlords in Chinese history, to serve as his personal doctor. Hatwwell refused.

[00:04:43]He wanted to treat ordinary people, not spend his life serving a warlord. Sao had him arrested and executed. In his final days, Huato tried to pass his medical writings to a prison guard. The guard was too afraid to take them, so Huo burned everything himself. The formula died with him. Nobody has recovered it since. And then there's the story that sounds completely made up. In the Congo, a warlike tribe discovered cannabis and stopped fighting, reorganized their entire society around the plant, renamed themselves the Bay Riyamba, the sons of hemp. Their territory became a place called Labuku, which means friendship. Their greeting became a single word, moyo. It meant hemp. It also meant life. They used one word for both because to them there was no difference. Cannabis had been part of human civilization for 12,000 years when a man named Harry Anslinger became head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1930. He held the job for 32 years.

[00:05:50]Anslinger tied cannabis to black Americans, Mexicans, and immigrants.

[00:05:54]Said it made minorities forget their place. He stopped calling it cannabis and started calling it marijuana because the word sounded foreign and scaring people was the point. He kept a folder called the Gore files, fabricated police reports linking weed to violence and insanity. He consulted dozens of doctors. Most said cannabis was not dangerous. He ignored all of them and used the one who agreed with him. In 1937, the Marijuana Tax Act passed. In 1970, Nixon placed it on schedule one, the same legal category as heroin. A plant humans had grown since before writing existed was now by law one of the most dangerous substances on Earth.

[00:06:38]Years later, Nixon's own domestic policy adviser, John Erligman, gave an interview and said this directly. The administration wanted to go after two groups, anti-war protesters and black communities. We could not make it illegal to be against a war or to be black. But we could tie marijuana to one and heroin to the other, criminalize both, and arrest whoever we wanted. That is not a conspiracy theory. That is a direct quote from the man who helped build the policy. In 1988, the DEA's own judge reviewed all available medical evidence and formally recommended removing cannabis from schedule 1. The DEA rejected his recommendation, kept it exactly where it was. Cannabis has been part of human life for 12,000 years.

[00:07:23]It's been illegal for about 90. That's less than 1% of its history. For virtually all of recorded time, this plant was just there. You made rope from it in the morning. You burned it at a funeral in the evening. A tribe rebuilt their entire world around it and used one word for both hemp and life because they saw no difference.

[00:07:48]And that shaman in the desert, the one buried with his harp and his two lb of weed, he didn't know about drug schedules or political agendas. He just knew this plant did something worth keeping. And the people who loved him made sure he'd never run