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Drugs and ThugsThe History and Future of America's War on Drugs$
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Drugs and Thugs: The History and Future of America's War on Drugs

Russell Crandall

Print publication date: 2020

Print ISBN-13: 9780300240344

Published to Yale Scholarship Online: May 2021

DOI: 10.12987/yale/9780300240344.001.0001

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PRINTED FROM YALE SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.yale.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Yale University Press, 2022. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in YSO for personal use.date: 02 July 2022

Cannabis

Cannabis

Chapter:
(p.66) 5 Cannabis
Source:
Drugs and Thugs
Author(s):

Russell Crandall

Publisher:
Yale University Press
DOI:10.12987/yale/9780300240344.003.0006

This chapter considers psychoactive cannabis as the most popular illicit drug in the United States. It explains how the consumption of cannabis has become a prevalent, mainstream practice that users are apt to forget they are committing a criminal act every time they smoke a joint. It also points out that cannabis is a resilient and adaptable botanical that thrives in all sorts of climates, sprouting serrated, diagonally veined leaves that spread like the fingers of an open hand. The chapter clarifies cannabis as one of humanity's most ancient crops that is native to Central Asia as it has been cultivated by humans since the “dawn of agriculture” some ten thousand years ago. It talks about the first medicinal application of cannabis that dated as far back as 4500 B.C.E. in China and the first written reference to medicinal cannabis that was recorded in the Pen Ts'ao Ching, the pharmacopeia of Emperor Shen Nung in 2700 B.C.E.

Keywords:   psychoactive cannabis, illicit drug, Central Asia, medicinal cannabis, pharmacopeia

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