People in Asia grew cannabis for cloth, food and medicine for thousands of years. Laws began to call it a narcotic only in the twentieth century. The written evidence for that change is better than most of what you find online.
This is Part 1. It covers where the plant comes from, and its history in China, on the Central Asian steppe and in India. Part 2 covers Thailand, Japan, Korea, the international drug treaties and what has changed since 2018.
1. How to Read This History
Many “facts” about cannabis history are copied from other writers, not checked. A date appears in a magazine article. A book quotes the article, and a website summarises the book. Ten years later, people repeat a claim that nobody can check as if it were fact.
This article does the opposite. Every claim gets one of these labels:
- Documented or corroborated: a dated text, law or report exists, or more than one independent source agrees. These claims are stated plainly.
- Reported: the claim rests on one mention in an encyclopaedia or summary, and it was not checked here.
- Debated: specialists disagree.
- Legend or folklore: the claim traces back to nothing anyone can check.
Most of the material used here is tertiary. A tertiary source is an encyclopaedia or summary that repeats other works rather than reporting new research. These sources show the overall shape of the history well, but they are weak on exact dates and numbers.
One better source could not be consulted: a food-history article on cannabis in Thai cooking. A 2021 study that read the full DNA of many cannabis plants was checked against the published paper for this version. The earlier version of this topic also did not name most of its sources, so any claim that rests on an unnamed reference is marked “reported”.
What you can do: before you repeat a date from cannabis history, look up its label in the timeline in Part 2. When you post a claim, name your source and say whether you read it yourself.
2. Where the Plant Comes From
The older Central Asia view
For most of the twentieth century, writers placed the origin of cannabis in Central Asia. They meant the belt that runs from the Caucasus Mountains through Afghanistan into western China. Reference works still call the plant native to Central or South Asia. That shows how long the idea has lasted.
What a 2021 DNA study shows
Since 2021, many outlets have reported that this view was wrong. The evidence is a whole-genome resequencing study, in which researchers read the complete DNA of many cannabis plants and compared them. The study is by Guangpeng Ren and colleagues, published in Science Advances in 2021.
The study found four groups of plants. One is an older, ancestral group, called basal cannabis. The others are a hemp type, grown for fibre and seed, a drug type, grown for flowers rich in THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the main intoxicating compound in cannabis), and wild-growing (feral) plants of the drug type. The study concludes that cannabis was first domesticated in East Asia in the early Neolithic (the late Stone Age). It dates the split of the early domesticated plants from the ancestral group to about 12,000 years ago. Domestication is when people first began to grow and select a wild plant.
A research paper like this carries more weight than any encyclopaedia. Even so, the 12,000-year figure is an estimate with a wide margin: the paper gives a range of roughly 6,500 to 15,700 years.
What East Asian archaeology shows without the DNA study
Excavations in East Asia show very early use, and they do not depend on the DNA study.
- China: hemp fibre left marks on pottery of the Yangshao culture, an early farming culture of northern China. The pottery dates from the fifth millennium BCE (5000–4001 years before the common era, the same as “BC”). This is corroborated.
- Japan, Oki Islands: achenes, the small hard seed-like fruits of cannabis, from about 8000 BCE. Only one tertiary source mentions them, so this is reported.
- Japan, Torihama: hemp objects from the Torihama shell mound, a prehistoric heap of discarded shells at an early Jomon settlement. The Jomon period is Japan’s prehistoric era of hunter-gatherers.
- Korea: hemp fabric dated as early as 3000 BCE. More than one source gives this date.
The oldest hard evidence is therefore in East Asia. The Central Asia origin is now a hypothesis that researchers are revising.
Translator’s note: none of these early finds comes from Southeast Asia. This list tells you nothing either way about early cannabis in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam or Cambodia. For what is known about local varieties, see the topic on Southeast Asian landraces.
What you can do: if you quote the 12,000-year figure, name the source (Ren and colleagues, Science Advances, 2021) and say it is an estimate. If you need a solid fact, use the Yangshao pottery or the Korean fabric, because more than one source supports each.
3. China: The Longest Unbroken Record
Fibre and seed came first
In China, cannabis was mainly a crop for fibre and seed. It gave cloth, rope, shoes and an early form of paper. Cannabis seed has stayed in the Chinese pharmacopoeia, the official list of medicines, without a break. In other words, the seed has kept official standing for all that time, not the flower.
The word and the early texts
The Chinese word for the plant is ma (麻). It is often joined with the word for “great” to make dama. Ma appears many times in early prose and poetry, including the Shi jing (Book of Odes), an early collection of Chinese poems. In one early song, young women weave ma into clothing. The song is about cloth, not about getting high.
Tao Hongjing (456–536) was a Taoist scholar of medicines. His book Mingyi bielu (Supplementary Records of Famous Physicians) lists hemp seed as a medicine, together with ginseng. This is recorded here as historical practice only, not as medical advice.
The most famous wrong date
Nearly every popular history says that Emperor Shen Nung recorded cannabis in his pharmacopoeia in 2737 BCE. The record does not support this date:
- Shennong is a figure from myth. He is a culture hero, meaning a legendary figure credited with teaching people important skills. He is also a god in Chinese folk religion, and some lists count him among the Three Sovereigns, the mythical first rulers of China.
- He has no recorded reign. Even the Xia dynasty, said to have followed him, has not been proven to exist.
- Researchers describe the book named after him, the Shennong Bencaojing, as oral traditions written down between about 200 and 250 CE (common era, the same as “AD”).
- The book lists 365 medicines, and cannabis is one of them. A separate source dates its description of mind-altering use to around the third century CE.
So the real record is a medicine text from the early common era that legend attributes to a mythical figure. The 2737 BCE date comes from a legendary reign, not from any manuscript.
What you can do: if someone posts the 2737 BCE date, reply with the 200–250 CE compilation date. Explain in one line that Shennong is a mythical figure.
4. The Steppe and the Middle East: When Archaeology Confirms an Old Text
Herodotus and the Scythians
Herodotus was a Greek historian of the fifth century BCE. He wrote about the Scythians, nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppe, the vast grassland that runs from eastern Europe into Central Asia. He said they threw cannabis seeds onto hot stones inside a small closed tent and enjoyed the vapour. This was part of a purification ritual after a funeral.
For a long time, this one passage was the only evidence. Herodotus also wrote it second-hand, about a foreign people.
Pazyryk and Jirzankal
Archaeology later supported his account. The Pazyryk burials in the Altai Mountains were found frozen and excavated in the twentieth century. They contained small tent frames, braziers (metal fire pans) holding stones, and cannabis seeds. This matches what Herodotus described.
In 2019, researchers reported chemical residues from wooden braziers in tombs at the Jirzankal cemetery. This site lies in the Pamir Mountains of western China and is about 2,500 years old. The residues showed that cannabis with a fairly high THC content had been burned there. This suggests people chose those plants for their effect.
Tel Arad: an older find
Jirzankal is no longer the oldest physical evidence. In 2020, researchers reported cannabis residue on a limestone altar at the Tel Arad shrine in Israel. The altar is about 2,700 years old.
The lesson stays the same. A claim based on one ancient text was later confirmed by a different kind of evidence, chemical residue. That is what a sound historical claim looks like.
One fact about words: the English word “canvas” comes from the Latin word cannabis, by way of Old French. The cloth is named after the plant.
What you can do: when you read an old text about cannabis, check whether an excavation or a lab test supports it. If none does yet, call it “one source” when you repeat it.
5. India: Three Preparations and a Colonial Inquiry
The Vedas and the word bhanga
The Vedas are the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism. The Atharvaveda is the fourth and latest of them. It has about 730 hymns in twenty books, and is dated anywhere from around 1200–1000 BCE to later. It deals mainly with healing charms and herbal remedies.
Sources on cannabis in India say the Atharvaveda names bhanga as one of five sacred plants that relieve anxiety. They quote this line in translation: “darbha, hemp, barley, mighty power: may these deliver us from woe”. The same sources add that scholars debate whether bhanga here means cannabis.
A similar debate surrounds soma, a ritual drink in the older Rigveda whose plant source is unknown. Anyone who says the Vedas clearly describe cannabis is claiming more than the language evidence supports.
Bhang, ganja and charas are different products
English writing often uses these words as if they meant the same thing. They do not. In Indian law and practice, they are different products made from different parts of the plant. The “1985 law” in the table is India’s Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of 1985.
| Preparation | Where | Part of the plant | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bhang | India; main centre Varanasi | Leaves and seeds | Left out of the legal definition of cannabis in the 1985 law |
| Ganja | India | Flowering and fruiting tops | Banned under the 1985 law |
| Charas | Himalayan region of the subcontinent | Resin rubbed by hand from a living plant | Not the same as hashish, which is made from dried plant material |
| Hashish | Arabic-speaking world, Central and South Asia | Resin sieved from dried plant material | Word first recorded around 1123 CE |
| Kief | General | Powder of trichomes (tiny resin glands) sifted from leaves and flowers | Pressed to make hashish |
| Ma and dama | China | Stem fibre and seed | Used for fibre and food, not resin |
| Asa and taima | Japan | Stem fibre | Ritual and textile use |
| Sambe | Korea | Woven stem fibre | An ivory-coloured cloth |
Recorded forms of bhang include:
- bhang goli: ground plant material mixed with water;
- bhang thandai: a paste mixed with milk, strained, and flavoured with kusha grass, sugar, fruit and spices;
- bhang lassi: made with curd and whey.
Sources say bhang was used in food and drink in ancient India as early as 1000 BCE. In 1563, Garcia de Orta, a Portuguese physician who worked in Goa on India’s west coast, described it under the name “bangue” in his book Colóquios dos simples e drogas da India, printed in Goa.
Religion and festivals
Bhang is handed out at Maha Shivaratri and Holi, two Hindu festivals. It is linked with followers of the god Shiva. It is prepared on the ghats of Varanasi, the stone steps that lead down to the Ganges River. Sikh Nihangs, a Sikh warrior order, drink it at the Hola Mohalla festival.
Charas is central to some Shaiva sects, the religious groups devoted to Shiva. Naga Sadhus, Aghoris and Tantric Bhairava practitioners, all ascetic followers of Shiva, smoke it in clay pipes called chillums. These religious practices have an unbroken history and are not a modern invention.
The 1798 tax and the 1894–1895 commission
Government policy came before any investigation. A tax on bhang, ganja and charas was introduced in 1798. At the time, officials justified it by concern for the population’s health and sanity.
The British government of India set up the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission in 1893, at the request of the House of Commons in London. It reported in 1894. It is still the largest colonial-era inquiry into cannabis anywhere. It concluded that moderate use was the rule and heavy use was fairly rare. It also found that moderate use caused practically no ill effects.
This was a nineteenth-century government inquiry into social effects. It is reported here as history, not as a modern finding about health.
Translator’s note: in Thailand, flower and extracts fall under different rules. Under the Ministerial Regulation on Cannabis or Hemp Extracts B.E. 2569, in force since 26 April 2026, only three kinds of holder can be licensed for extracts above 0.2% THC. These are Thai juristic persons that are not “foreign” under the Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542, state agencies, and the Thai Red Cross Society. This article does not settle whether hand-rubbed charas or sieved hashish counts as an “extract” under this regulation. Before you make or sell any resin product, ask the authority that issued your licence in writing and keep the reply. That reply is your record if an inspector asks.
What you can do: when you post, use bhang, ganja and charas as separate words with their real meanings. In both Indian and Thai law, the part of the plant used can change the legal status of the product.
1839: how Indian knowledge reached Western medicine
Cannabis entered Western medicine in the nineteenth century by way of India. William Brooke O’Shaughnessy (1809–1889) was an Irish doctor at the Medical College of Calcutta (now Kolkata). He recorded how local practitioners prepared and used the plant.
He then tested the preparations on animals to judge how toxic they were. After that, he tried them on patients whose conditions had no good treatment at the time. These included rheumatism, tetanus, rabies and convulsions in infants.
He published his results in Calcutta in 1839 and brought them to Britain in the early 1840s. He worked in a fixed order: existing knowledge, then toxicity, then patients, then publication. For his time, that was unusually systematic. The knowledge came from Indian practice, and his contribution was the testing and the written report.
In Paris, the psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours used hashish to study the mind. In 1845 he published Du Hachisch et de l’Aliénation Mentale (On Hashish and Mental Illness). The French writers Théophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire joined his hashish sessions at the Hôtel de Lauzun, a mansion in Paris. Their accounts became early classics of drug literature. Read carefully, they describe overwhelming high doses taken by mouth, not pleasant experiences.
For the rest of the century, cannabis tinctures and extracts were ordinary pharmacy products in Europe and North America. Doctors prescribed them for a growing list of complaints. There were no controlled trials. There was also no way to standardise strength, so one bottle could be much stronger than the next.
Because doses were unpredictable, many doctors switched to drugs whose doses they could repeat. Cannabis was removed from the United States Pharmacopeia, the official US list of medicines, in 1942. Prohibition was therefore not the only reason cannabis declined in Western medicine.
Translator’s note: the order O’Shaughnessy followed also works for any new product or method on a farm. Read what is already known, then try it on a few plants. Write down what happens, and only then use it on the whole room. If something goes wrong, you find out on a handful of plants instead of a full harvest.
What you can do: the next time you try a new input, test it first on three to five plants beside an untreated group. Note the date and the dose, and post the result in a grow diary.
6. What to Take From Part 1
- The oldest hard evidence of cannabis use is in East Asia, and it is mostly about fibre and seed.
- The 12,000-year East Asian domestication date comes from a 2021 DNA study (Ren and colleagues, Science Advances). It is an estimate with a wide margin.
- The 2737 BCE Shen Nung date is a legend. The text was compiled around 200–250 CE.
- Herodotus’s account of the Scythians was later confirmed by finds at Pazyryk and residues at Jirzankal. An altar at Tel Arad in Israel is now older still.
- Bhang, ganja and charas are separate products made from different parts of the plant.
- Western medicine took cannabis from Indian practice and later dropped it. Unpredictable strength was one cause, not only prohibition.
None of this is a statement about what cannabis does to the body. Historical medical use is described here strictly as history.
If you find an error, post a correction under this topic, and attach a source if you can.
References for Part 1
- Ren G, Zhang X, Li Y, et al. Large-scale whole-genome resequencing unravels the domestication history of Cannabis sativa. Science Advances, 2021; 7(29): eabg2286.
- Ren M, Tang Z, Wu X, Spengler R, Jiang H, Yang Y, Boivin N. The origins of cannabis smoking: chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs. Science Advances, 2019; 5(6): eaaw1391.
- Arie E, Rosen B, Namdar D. Cannabis and frankincense at the Judahite shrine of Arad. Tel Aviv, 2020; 47(1): 5–28.
- Herodotus, account of the Scythians, fifth century BCE.
- Shi jing (Book of Odes); Tao Hongjing, Mingyi bielu; Shennong Bencaojing.
- Atharvaveda.
- Garcia de Orta, 1563, description of “bangue”.
- Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94 (published 1894).
- W. B. O’Shaughnessy, On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah (Cannabis Indica), Calcutta: Bishop’s College Press, 1839.
- J.-J. Moreau de Tours, Du Hachisch et de l’Aliénation Mentale, 1845.
This article is part of the Asiannabis Community educational series on cannabis history and culture. It is for education in jurisdictions where cannabis is legally permitted.
Continued in Part 2: Cannabis in Asia: Thailand, Japan, Korea, the Prohibition Treaties and the Partial Reversal (Part 2 of 2)