Scientists discover that marijuana was smoked 2500 years ago

Scientists have found in a 2500-year-old grave evidence that the population of that time was already smoking cannabis. The discovery took place in a complex of sophisticated tombs in the Pamir Range, a region near the borders of present-day China, Pakistan and Tajikistan, where excavators found 10 wooden containers and several stones with burned residues of cannabis. .

Using new chemical badysis techniques, the scientists in the study evaluated the waste and found evidence of THC, the active ingredient of marijuana. Most wild cannabis plants have a low level of THC, so researchers believe that those who built the graves deliberately chose or cultivated plants in high doses.

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Scientists believe that in ancient times Hot stones were used to burn marijuana and people then inhaled the smoke as part of a funeral ritual. "It's the strongest and oldest evidence that people have been" drugged "with marijuana, said Mark Merlin, a botanist from the University of Hawaii who does not have a doctor. did not participate in the research published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

Two theories could explain the gradual emergence, over the centuries, of a cannabis with the increase in THC concentration. Either cannabis has been methodically selected by producers seeking to increase THC levels, or developed by "hybridization", by transport and human exchanges, favoring crosses between different varieties.

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The history of drug use in antiquity has long intrigued researchers. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the peoples of Central Asia smoked cannabis around 440 BC.. In the last century, archaeologists have discovered seeds and cannabis plants buried in graves in mountainous areas of central Asia, particularly in southern Siberia and in the Xinjiang region of western China.