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PL THE PLANT
Cannabis has travelled with humans for at least ten thousand years. One of the oldest cultivated plants, cannabis has been used for fibre, food, medicine and ritual across most of recorded history. Its story is inseparable from human trade, migration and, more recently, prohibition.
Deep origins
Cannabis is thought to have evolved on the steppes of Central Asia. Archaeological and pollen evidence points to human use stretching back roughly 10,000 years, making it one of humanity’s earliest crops, first valued for its strong bast fibre and nutritious seed.
Spread across the world
From Asia, cannabis followed trade routes outward: into China for fibre and seed, into India where it took on a central ritual and medical role, across the Middle East and Africa, and eventually to Europe and the Americas.
As it spread it diversified into the landrace populations that later breeders drew on.
Medicine, then prohibition
Cannabis appears in Chinese, Indian, Greek and Arabic medical texts over thousands of years. In the 19th century it entered Western pharmacopoeias.
In the 20th century a wave of prohibition, led by the United States and formalised in international treaties, pushed cannabis out of legal medicine and research for decades.
The modern turn
From the late 20th century onward, medical use, decriminalisation and legalisation spread across many countries and US states, reopening research and a legal industry. The plant’s long history is now meeting modern science.
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