A walk down the history lane of CBD
In this day and age, we can observe the rapid growth of CBD popularity. It comes in countless types of products, from CBD gummies to CBD vape juices. What is CBD, you ask? CBD, short for cannabidiol, is a compound found in hemp plants that belong to the Cannabis Sativa plant family. There are a lot of doubts and prejudice related to hemp-derived products given the stigma of anything that can be associated with marijuana or weed, which are also a part of the Cannabis Sativa. Since school years people are afraid of marijuana because we are used to putting labels of illegal status on such products and are taught to stay away from them. What people don’t always realise is that cannabis has a number of different types that differ in their properties. Marijuana is indeed often used as a drug in the form of joints or edibles and is rich in a compound called Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. This compound is responsible for creating the “high” effect that is the mere reason for using such narcotics. However, not all understand that hemp has a low amount of THC and high in CBD. While both compounds have a similar molecular structure, CBD triggers different receptors in a human brain that leads to a number of positive impacts. Such effects include the potential for pain relief, alleviation of cancer symptoms, depression management, and many more. Hopefully, having a little bit of a background context, it is now more clear why hemp and CBD infused products are becoming so popular yet have to put up a fight against the sceptics and the prejudice of people that are not yet educated on the topic of CBD.
Interestingly enough, a vast amount of people assume that CBD is a novelty or a marketing tool to create something unique and unseen before to drive up the sales. However, the history of CBD dates back thousands of years. It was used not only as a medicament but also in creating building materials, textiles and even paper. In this article, we would like to demonstrate how far back the history of CBD goes, and provide you with a few examples of famous people known to be CBD advocates hundreds of years ago. We will also dive into studying the alternative ways where hemp plants came in handy in more ways than solely in remedies for treating ailments as we know it now.
China
The first mention of the hemp plant in written sources dates to 1250 BC. It was referred to as a primary plant called «ma» and used in everyday life. The hemp plant was an inconsequential raw material for manufacturing textiles. The ordinary people could not afford to wear Chinese silk and wore clothes made out of hemp instead. Later, when the Mongols conquered China around 1200 AD, hemp materials were called cotton.
Another use of the CBD was to produce paper. At that time, the paper was made by crushing hemp fibres together with mulberry bark to make a pulp, which was submerged with water. Once they had risen to the surface, the tangled threads were removed, placed in a mould and dried to become paper. Traces of textiles and paper made from cannabis were found in Emperor Wu’s tomb in the first century B.C. He was the Emperor of the Han Dynasty.
Furthermore, hemp flowers were used in cooking with rice and wheat. The evidence of hemp seed flowers use was found in a 2100-year-old tomb in the Hunan province. It is hard to say which meals were cooked with CBD, but undoubtedly, porridge was one of them. Also, it was considered to be food for the poor and used to treat skin diseases, wounds, and hair loss. Later on, in the 10th-century, hemp seed became a major crop in China. Interestingly, it is still used in Nepal’s cuisine.
It is still unclear whether the Chinese observed the psychoactive effects of cannabis.
Medical use of cannabis in China can’t go without a mention. It was first featured in the pharmacological book «The Herbal». The original book was lost, and the evidence suggests that it was probably written around 2500 BC. It describes that CBD has two contradictory characteristics: feminine (Yin) and masculine (Yang). It is said that «ma» treated both sides of the human; it was believed that hemp could keep the body in peace and harmony with the person.
In Ancient China, people were not ashamed of using cannabis. They were proud that they had found so many ways to use it. The Chinese were the first to discover the medical benefits of the hemp flower. CBD was also used for reducing pain domestically and in hospitals after surgeries. A vast majority of ancient texts were rediscovered only in 1980. Nowadays, cannabis is illegal in China, but documents were translated into western languages providing a chance to gather more information about the benefits and uses of this plant.
The middle of the 1800s
Queen Victoria is still shrouded by mysteries and strange habits. She had a passion for the so-called «freak shows». This passion dates back to her childhood when the future Queen first saw a short man called Charles Stratton and his stage name was Tom Thumb. Charles and Victoria did weird things; for example, he mesmerised the Queen by performing tricks and skits. Also, he had a ceremonial sword battle with her royal spaniel. The royal crowd considered these acts funny, but in fact, it was the beginning of the Queen’s enthusiasm for «circus freaks».
One of the unbelievable parts of the CBD history is that it has a relation to Queen Victoria. This great person was a symbol of power, conservatism, and intellect. Apart from being a strong country leader, she was also a woman with ordinary female problems. The Queen used to take CBD to relieve her menstrual spasms. Sir J. Russell Reynolds, the royal family doctor, prescribed Queen Victoria a tincture of cannabis. It was taken sublingually using a dropper. The tincture used by Queen Victoria had a small concentration of CBD to relieve the pain. CBD drops and other forms of CBD products were legal at the time.
Here is one more person that has to be mentioned in a conversation of CBD history. This man was an assistant surgeon in the East India Company. He failed to acquire a license under the London College of Physicians but made an impressive contribution to the history of medicine. His name was William Brooke O’Shaughnessy.
At Calcutta, Mr O’Shaughnessy published his first article on the topic of cannabis. He was very attentive to folk CBD usage. William discovered new applications and started to recommend CBD for a variety of therapeutic purposes. The doctor knew that he could not treat tetanus, but he noticed that the cannabidiol mixture reduced the symptoms of spasticity. After these practices, real fame came to William Brooke O’Shaughnessy. In 1839, he did the research in India and introduced cannabis indica to Western medicine in England in 1841. He continued his research and has written many books and articles about the use of CBD. Unfortunately, in 1911 numerous states started to ban CBD or «Indian hemp». This prohibition put an end to William Brooke O’Shaughnessy’s career.
The 1940s
After a long time of being banned, CBD was re-discovered around the 1940s thanks to Roger Adams. He was an American organic chemist who graduated from Harvard and was the first to successfully isolate CBD from the rest of the hemp plant compounds. The interesting fact is that Mr Adams did not even realise what a discovery he had made back in 1940. Only years later, Roger Adams and other scientists realised the scale of the contribution he made to the CBD research. It sparked curiosity among scientists and led to a lot more studies and research.
Modern CBD history began in 1946 when the first CBD tests took place. Only after six years, Dr Walter S. Loewe went ahead with animal lab tests. These tests were vital because they were documented and allowed future research to use the methodology and theories. Dr Loewe established the first documented effects of cannabinoids on rabbits and mice. Also, he proved that CBD doesn’t cause an altered mental state.
The next step was in 1940 when Dr Raphael Mechoulam distinguished three-dimensional structure of CBD. This moment is described as «the most important moment in the history of CBD», hence why he is often referred to as a person that discovered it.
Dr Mechoulam worked on researching CBD in his lab at the University of Jerusalem in Israel. This place is considered the founding home of marijuana and the CBD industry.
Later on, Dr Mechoulam started conducting research on the closest animal to a human, a primate. He noted that the hemp flower extract does not affect the animal from the first try. Later on, he discovered that THC is the compound that caused the “high” psychoactive effect rather than CBD.
The year of cannabidiol legalisation is important for the history of CBD. In 1978, the state of New Mexico officially recognised cannabis as a medicine accessible to the citizens. The thing is that the public highly protested against legalisation because they did not know all the benefits of the CBD oil and assumed that it would cause easy access to marijuana. The government was closely watching the cultivation and the production processes to ensure that people were not abusing the new law. In 1996, cannabis was identified as medical marijuana in California. It was the first important step in bringing into existence solid cannabis and CBD cultivation.
In 1980, Mr Mechoulam made a step forward in CBD history because he showed that cannabidiol could be an essential compound in treating epilepsy. He didn’t get much social approval or recognition for his work until he encountered a medical case of Charlotte Figi.
Charlotte was an ordinary little girl who suffered from epilepsy, or Dravet syndrome, to be exact, which caused her to have 300 grand mal seizures every month. These grand mal seizures continued until Charlotte’s parents reached out to some medical cannabis growers. After taking CBD as a treatment, she began to feel much better and had only 2 or 3 seizures per month instead of 300.
Her case finally showed the world that CBD is not a danger but a cure and can help in various cases and different diseases.
Speaking of female figures that left a footprint in the history of CBD as it happened with Charlotte Figi, there are a few more women that have been associated with CBD. Let’s take a walk down the history lane to highlight some of them and what do they have in common with cannabinoids.
Female figures in the history of CBD
There are a lot of famous people who coped with problems with the help of CBD. The surprising fact is that they were not ashamed of talking about it. Let’s discuss a few famous women that used cannabis for different purposes.
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott is an author of the «Little Women». She wrote a fascinating short piece about hashish that can be interpreted as if she had written it using her own experience. Also, in the story «Perilous Play» there is a part that involves two lovers getting “high” because of «the Indian stuff which brings strange and awesome visions». The history reveals that Louisa tried hashish candies. There is a possibility that Alcott herself was a bit uncertain about the positive effects of cannabis, but it seems to have influenced her in a positive way.
Maya Angelou
Marguerite Annie Johnson was born on April 4, 1928, and passed away on May 28, 2014. Mrs Angelou was an American poet, memoirist and singer. She published several autobiographies, books of poetry and three books of essays. Also, this great woman received quite a few awards and nearly 50 honorary degrees.
Maya Angelou is best known for her seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experience.
One of the best authors did not have a habit of being quiet and always had a lot to say about herself. Her bravery was not lost even when she started to talk about her relations with marijuana. Angelou officially documented in her second autobiography «Gather Together In My Name» that she had long ties with this drug. According to Maya, her life became more colourful because she could not only taste her mother’s food but also feel it. She would become easily amused and find her son especially hilarious even while having an ordinary walk outside.
Hildegard von Bingen
She is well known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, who was born in 1098. It was the time when women were discriminated against, disrespected and weren’t welcomed to express opinions or thoughts openly. It is no exaggeration to say that Hildegard was a writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath. Given the context, it is hard to believe that she was actually a respected woman at such a difficult time when women discrimination was seen as acceptable behaviour.
Hildegard von Bingen was a Benedictine abbess and polymath in Germany who experienced visions, composed amazing music and wrote plays, and addressed everything from natural philosophy and theology to medicine in her written work. Hildegard’s thoughts and work brought her to the idea that hemp had a significant role to play in medicine.
Hildegard’s medical work «Physica» discloses hemp’s potential medical accomplishments, the cultivation of the plant and different methods of usage. She mentions the following methods:
- when someone has a headache, he or she may eat the plant to reduce pain;
- a warm towel made from hemp applied to wounds and sores also relieves pain sensations.
The alleviate idea of cloth made with hemp persisted in female medicine for a long time. And it is not a surprise that there was a law for midwives from 1480. It stated that the mother should be bandaged with a plaster made from hemp.
Hildegard von Bingen is also a unique person because her writings were full of a positive view of sexual relations and her description of some sides of people’s relationships.
Margaret Mead
The governor of Florida called her «a dirty old woman», but in fact, Margaret Mead was an outstanding American anthropologist. In 1969, she announced that she was a cannabis fiend and made a speech about the need for hemp legalisation. Mead declared that marijuana is not harmful unless it is taken in enormous and excessive amounts. She believed that people damage the relations between each other and ruin children’s lives by the prohibition of marijuana.
Isak Dinensen
The real name of the author is Karen Blixen. According to the memoir of her life on a coffee plantation in Africa (Kenya), it looks as if the hemp flower was a part of Isak’s arsenal of imagination. The evidence for that case is found in the part of her book «Tokin’ Women: A 4,000 Year Herstory of Women And Marijuana» where she wrote about an experiment with hashish, miraa or opium. Also, in these descriptions, Dinensen told stories sitting on the floor and “flying high”.
Hatshepsut
This part of history is based on the evidence. It is suggested that the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut who lived around 1508 to 1458 BC used to take CBD.
The Ebers Papyrus mentioned that cannabis was used as an aid for childbirth and fumigation. It was mixed with honey and inserted into the vagina. Also, some ancient Egyptian women used CBD to reduce menstrual pain.
Here we can mention dozens of famous people who took CBD because it helped them to reduce pain, to be calm, to see the world in more colourful ways. CBD is not the placebo and not a cure-for-all, but still, as you can see, it has existed for centuries, and people have been widely using it ever since its discovery.
Five hemp uses from history
Hemp is a useful plant due to the following reasons:
- hemp can grow nearly anywhere in the world. Even in dry regions and short-growing seasons;
- hemp can grow without pesticides;
- hemp is a high-yield crop. One acre of hemp produces twice as much oil as one acre of peanuts.
People noted these benefits from the very beginning and used hemp products to produce clothes, rope, food, paper and also used the flower in religious ceremonies.
Clothes
The hemp was used as a textile fibre. Archaeologists found a piece of clothes on the territory of Ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Iran) dating as far back as 10.000 years ago.
Marijuana was essential in China because the Chinese used it also to manufacture shoes, not only clothes. As a result, China became known as the land of mulberry and hemp.
The earliest settlers in America used hemp for clothing in the same way. That proves that the unique plant was prevalent and widely used from the very beginning.
2. Rope
The first mention about hemp rope was made 29.000 years ago. It was used all over the world. The string came to light in southern Russia in 600 BC and Greece in 200 BC.
It is noteworthy that Vikings brought hemp rope and seeds with them to Iceland in the 9th century A.D. Italian ships started to use hemp rope in the 10th century.
A lot of materials were used to make ropes, but the hemp was one of the safest and most reliable.
3. Food.
Hemp seeds have a mild nutty flavour and can be used to make cheese, oil, milk, and protein powder. The plant seeds contain:
- zinc;
- calcium;
- vitamins A, E, C, B;
- protein;
- iron;
- potassium;
- phosphorus;
- omega-3 and omega-6.
Most likely, the ancient civilisations did not know as much about the CBD’s usefulness as we know now, but they actively ate it raw, cooked, roasted, or even grounded into a powder.
4. Paper
Paper is one of the most important Chinese inventions. Their legend tells that an insignificant court Ts’ai Lun invented the paper-making process in 105 AD.
Before paper, people in China used wooden tablets or bamboo slights for writing.
It may come as a surprise, but the details around the paper inventions are uncertain. The historians know that Lun used mulberry tree bark and hemp fibres which were smashed into a pulp. The combination was placed into the water. After some time, when the fibres rose up they were twisted together. Ts’ai separated the debris and put it into a mould. The texture was formed into sheets, once the substance dried. The Chinese kept this secret for years. Only in 751 AD, the Arabs learned the paper secret from Chinese prisoners after the Battle of Talas.
Throughout history, the hemp paper was actively used. There is a belief that drafts of the Declaration of Independence and Gutenberg’s Bible were written on hemp paper.
5. Religious ceremonies
In India bhang concoction which was created from cannabis flowers and leaves was safe to eat. It was combined with milk, yoghurt, spices, and water. Indians used this mixture as analogous to modern Western alcohol. Bhang was an essential part of weddings and religious events because people thought that without prepared cannabis flowers, evil spirits would come and destroy every good thing in humans’ lives.
In Tantric religion, the hemp plant played a huge role in the same way as in India. This religion developed in the 7th century in Tibet. One of the first Taoist monasteries was established by three persons famous for using industrial levels of marijuana. Even in today’s world in China, people still worship a «hemp goddess» Ma Gu.
As we can see from these historical fragments, CBD has a long history. For centuries, people have been using marijuana in various spheres of everyday life. It was banned and legalised, used in the paper and clothes industry, in medicinal practices, and many more. Only recently it became an outlaw because of drug abuse. On June 25, 2019, 14 states and territories have approved adult-use of cannabis. On November 1, 2018, the law was changed in Britain to allow clinicians of the General Medical Council’s (GMC) Specialist Register to be prescribed unlicensed cannabis products. By the way, hemp cultivation does not need fertilisers or pesticides. There is no waste during the hemp growing process because all parts of the plant from seeds to stems find use in the production of various goods. In other words, this plant can be a happy future of agriculture and continue to appear in history textbooks in years to come.
Verified by a Healthcare Professional
Anastasiia Myronenko
Anastasiia Myronenko is a Medical Physicist actively practicing in one of the leading cancer centers in Kyiv, Ukraine. She received her master’s degree in Medical Physics at Karazin Kharkiv National University and completed Biological Physics internship at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, Germany. Anastasiia Myronenko specializes in radiation therapy and is a fellow of Ukrainian Association of Medical Physicists.
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References:
https://cannigma.com/history/the-history-of-medical-cannabis-in-ancient-china/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Brooke_O%27Shaughnessy
https://www.cbdcentral.com/the-history-of-cbd/
https://ministryofhemp.com/blog/cbd-history/
https://www.marijuanabreak.com/the-history-of-cannabidiol
https://www.cbdschool.com/cbd-myths-and-facts/
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cbd-oil-benefits
https://www.foriawellness.com/blogs/learn/cbd-oil-risks-side-effects-safety-contraindications
