Marijuana has a long history of usage for a variety of purposes, and it can be argue that it has been the world’s oldest medicine. Cannabis strains were grown from seed and used by humans for at least 12,000 years, initially in Southern and Central Asia. Holy men and women (shamans) prized the plant as a necessary ingredient to achieve spiritual transcendence.
Its aromatic buds were also used for perfumes, medicines, and intoxicants. Eventually the seeds of this indigenous plant were transplanted from the foothills of the Himalayas to the rest of the world, ranging from China to Europe and eventually to the New World.
Cannabis is arguably the world’s oldest medicine, with evidence of such use from 3000-year-old tombs in Egypt and Siberia.
