Cannabis use is becoming increasingly mainstream, but before widespread legalization, there were
literary giants, physicians, philosophers, and revolutionaries going back centuries who partook
of the herb. These are some historical figures who may have dabbled in cannabis.
While we probably wouldn't take his medical advice today, in the first century, Pliny the Elder was
one of Rome's top scientific and medical voices. Pliny was a savant whose discoveries and writings
would influence scientists for generations. His best-known work was the 37-volume Natural History,
which deals with the world's physical, geological, zoological, botanical, and medicinal history.
In particular, books 10 to 32 detail Pliny's thoughts on contemporary medical literature
and the use of drugs, and it's here that we find references to cannabis and marijuana.
He refers to a type of cannabis drink or tea that's helpful for things like pain
reduction and gout. And in book 24, Pliny refers to the "gelotophyllis" plant that,
when mixed with myrrh and wine, causes laughter and visions.
"Roman red. [...] A whole field of wacky weedus!"
The translation for "gelotophyllis" is "laughing leaves," and is thought
by some to mean hashish – a form of marijuana derived from the plant's
resin. Pliny's use of "gelotophyllis" was a little different than the medical marijuana
of today, though it does seem to have produced similar effects on patients.
Few writers are as highly esteemed as Englishman William Shakespeare. Even today, more than 400
years after his death, he's arguably considered the greatest playwright of all time. Yet,
when people talk about Shakespeare, his possible connection to cannabis is rarely mentioned.
"I prithee, gentle mortal, sing again!"
To be fair, there wasn't really any evidence that he'd used marijuana,
outside of his colorful imagination, until early in 2001. That's when researchers
published evidence in the South African Journal of Science that indicated he may
have been a pot smoker back in the day. The researchers tested 24 different pipes found
at locations where Shakespeare lived, and they showed some surprising results. One-third of
the pipes they tested had residue indicative of burnt cannabis. In addition to marijuana,
researchers found potential evidence of myristic acid and cocaine, as well as tobacco.
To be clear, no proof directly attaches Shakespeare to the pipes. So even though
we'll probably never know if it was Shakespeare himself blazing up, it is an intriguing thought.
Long before marijuana dispensaries dotted the landscapes of major cities like Denver
and Los Angeles, some physicians in the medieval Islamic world were
apparently prescribing cannabis to their patients. One such physician was Ebn Sina,
more widely known as Avicenna. Avicenna lived in the 10th and 11th centuries in what is today Iran
and Uzbekistan. He was probably most well known for his book The Canon of Medicine.
Though he published the text in the 11th century, Western medical students in the 1600s were still
reading it, which is pretty extraordinary. Of the huge list of things that Avicenna would prescribe
to his patients, cannabis sativa was used for a variety of ailments. These included headaches,
infections, degenerative bone disease, eye inflammation, swelling, and gout. Avicenna used
cannabis for its anti-inflammatory properties, and would administer it locally to his patients.
Today, doctors recommend marijuana for a wide variety of ailments, but not for things like
degenerative bone disease. However, a 2004 study in Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology
did find it useful for helping combat edema, so maybe Avicenna was onto something after all.
One of the most famous figures of the Mexican Revolution, Pancho Villa led an interesting
life. Born in 1878, Villa joined the revolution in 1910 to fight the corrupt Mexican government,
led by Porfirio Diaz. By 1914, he was a fugitive, but he had an army of 5,000 men by his side.
Following the Second Battle at Torreon in March, where they defeated the government,
Villa's exploits with marijuana were lionized in a song called "La Cucaracha."
According to High Times, the chorus of "La Cucaracha" is translated as:
"The cockroach, the cockroach, Can no longer walk;
Because he hasn't, because he hasn't, Marijuana to smoke."
Villa is the cockroach who needs marijuana so he can fight while under the influence,
which was supposedly something he and his army did with frightening regularity. In
addition to Spaniards and Mexicans, there were many Yanqui Natives in Villa's army. Many of
the Yanquis are said to have smoked marijuana before going into battle,
using its psychoactive properties to make them formidable and dangerous.
Villa's other troops may have also smoked, too, in addition to drinking psychedelic
whiskey and mezcal. It's somewhat terrifying to think of a THC-fueled army running wild,
but luckily, Villa has been dead for a hundred years.
His name isn't very well known today, especially in the West, but Hua Tuo was
an important physician and surgeon who lived in Ancient China during the second and third
centuries. While we don't think of our ancient ancestors doing complex medical procedures,
the first surgeries actually date back as far as 8,500 years ago.
Nowadays, when someone gets major surgery, they're often put to sleep with a powerful
anesthetic. However, back in Hua Tuo's day, the process was a little more difficult,
and his preparation involved an anesthetic he referred to as "mafeisan." We don't know
exactly what Hua Tuo put in his mafeisan cocktail, but some speculate it could have
been a combination of cannabis resin and wine, or cannabis and the datura plant.
The author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers,
Alexandre Dumas père, was quite the marijuana connoisseur back in the day. The French author
lived from 1802–1870 and was a major force in the French Romantic literary movement.
As it turns out, from 1844–1849, Dumas, was part of the mysterious French Club des Hachichins,
or the "Hashish Club." Other great French writers of the day, like Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire,
and Theophile Gautier, were also part of the group. They smoked in a hotel on
the left bank of the Seine River. The gothic building had gargoyles. While at the house,
members dressed in Arab garb and drink coffee infused with hashish they called dawamesk.
"Maybe I'm high or something, man."
"Or maybe you're in the present."
The leader of the group, Dr. Jacques-Joseph Moreau, had been smoking hash since the 1830s,
when he visited the Middle East, and brought the drug back home with him to
France. Though Dumas never wrote about his personal experiences with hashish,
his book The Count of Monte Cristo mentions the use of dawamesk during the scene with
Sinbad the Sailor, and he published it just as he joined the hash club, coincidentally or not.
Few women in history are as famous as Queen Victoria,
who had an entire era named after her. Yet, while the Victorian Era is thought of as
prudish and excessively modest, marijuana use may have been an important part of the
Queen's life. There's no direct evidence that Victoria ever actually smoked pot,
though there is a ton of circumstantial evidence that leaves the possibility very open.
Much of the speculation comes from a letter her physician, J. Russell Reynolds,
wrote in 1890. The letter was quoted in an article, published in the Lancet,
titled "Therapeutical Uses and Toxic Effects of Cannabis Indica." In it, Reynolds suggested the
use of marijuana, referred to as Indian Hemp, for all kinds of things. These included neuralgia,
senile insomnia, and even epilepsy. Throughout the article, Russell is spirited about the
positive effects of marijuana, making it clear he thinks Indian hemp is a very viable medicine.
"I'm just going to write a prescription for you for two huge bags of weed."
Though he never mentioned Victoria in the article, people assumed that,
as his patient, she may have been prescribed Indian Hemp for menstruation. There was even
an Indian Hemp Drugs Commission in the 1890s that recommended it for menstrual pain. We may
never know for sure if Victoria used it, but it was definitely a hit with her physician.
Even today, writing a play that largely revolves around the use of hashish would be pretty bold,
which is what makes Louisa May Alcott's 1869 Perilous Play such an audacious
decision. Published just a few years after the Civil War, the play deals with a group
of friends who take hashish bonbons together and have a vivid experience.
"Don't worry. It'll just give us trippier visuals. Buckle up, buttercup."
It has dark moments of terror and near-assault, and ends with one of the main characters saying,
"Heaven bless hashish."
Not exactly your typical 19th-century love story.
In fact, the author of the play, Louisa May Alcott, who served as a nurse during the
Civil War, was known to use hashish in her personal life. And Perilous
Play wasn't the only story she wrote that referenced cannabis. Another one from 1877,
A Modern Mephistopheles, also sees the main characters eating edibles infused with hashish,
and she even references her own personal use through her writing in the story. It seems
that Alcott was more into smoking hash than doing edibles, and she also drank beer and used opium.
At the time, her drug use was completely legal, and her substance use was far from
unique among those who'd experienced the Civil War. Today, Alcott is best known for her 1868
book Little Women, and its sequel Little Men, neither of which mention cannabis.
Of all the medical uses of cannabis recognized by doctors today,
it's unlikely you'll find many who recommend it to help ease symptoms of passing gas.
"We're trying to have a meal and you gonna start
breaking gas. Don't break gas and destroy our meal."
Yet, if you had been alive and gassy during the ninth and tenth centuries,
and were living near Rayy in what was then called Persia,
you may have had access to the famous physician Al-Razi. In which case, you'd have been in luck.
Al-Razi used cannabis to treat multiple issues,
including flatulence and epilepsy, as well as dandruff and earaches.
[farting]
He suggested that, when taking cannabis seeds or hashish orally,
it was important to drink fresh water and eat acidic fruits to avoid a bad reaction.
Al-Razi was also an alchemist, and his medical knowledge may have been influenced by earlier
Greek physicians like Claudius Galen and Pedanius Dioscorides, who had experimented
with medical cannabis centuries prior. Al-Razi wasn't just a practitioner of
medicine; he was also an intellectual who studied other cultures' medical practices,
and as a result of his extensive studies, he continually recommended marijuana.
The impression one might get after reading the works of Claudius Galen
of Pergamum, a second to third-century Greco-Roman physician and philosopher,
is that the ancient Romans were big fans of pot.
"Good stuff."
One of his most famous works was De Alimentorum Facultatibus, in which Galen suggested toasting
marijuana and eating it to enhance certain meals. "Hey, hey, hey, hey. Smoke weed every day."
He may have been referring to marijuana-infused cakes, a widespread delicacy around ancient
Italy that he and his compatriots would eat for dessert. But in addition to consuming cannabis
recreationally, Galen also saw medicinal potential in the plant. He considered its use for earaches,
as well as inflammation, upset stomach, gout, and muscle soreness. Importantly, Galen was cautious
not to overuse marijuana, suggesting that too much could make you impotent or result in a headache.
Galen was an influential physician in his time,
and his impact was felt well over 1,000 years later by physicians and intellectuals. He
influenced later Arabic and Muslim scholars, potentially including figures like Al-Razi.
who later experimented with medical cannabis.
When Theophile Gautier and Dr. Jacques-Joseph Moreau created the Hashish Club in the 1840s,
they invited many leading literary figures of the day. In addition to Alexandre Dumas,
Gautier and Moreau also brought along Charles Baudelaire, another famous French
poet. Ironically, even though Baudelaire may have written most prominently about the use of
hashish and was known to occasionally indulge, he wasn't a frequent user.
"Baudelaire claimed to have an analytical interest in wine, cannabis,
and opium as elasticators of the imagination."
Baudelaire was a member of the hash club as an observer rather than a user of hashish,
but he was known to have tried it at least a few times, and he may have previously
used it when he contracted an STD as a young law student. But by middle age,
he reportedly found hashish to be socially isolating and preferred wine.
"After a while, [...] they would start behaving very erratically
and very hilariously, and then fall into a stupor."
Nonetheless, Baudelaire wrote the book Les Paradis Artificiels or Artificial Paradise,
which included "The Poem of Hashish."
In the poem, Baudelaire describes how some people feel under the influence — both
the negative and positive — and gives a brief history of hash, as well as its use by various
cultures throughout the world. Even though he may not have been a heavy cannabis user,
Baudelaire provided some valuable and interesting insight into its use during the 19th century.
Pedanius Dioscorides was an ancient Greco-Roman physician and pharmacologist,
who referred to cannabis as a cure for several ailments. Born in the year A.D. 40,
and passing away at the age of 50, Dioscorides wrote about hundreds of medicinal plants,
including the cannabis plant. His contemporaries included Pliny the Elder — another proponent of
the medicinal use of cannabis. Dioscorides' seminal work is as De Materia Medica, which
translates to On Medical Matters, and that's where his references to marijuana are largely contained.
Dioscorides suggested the use of cannabis for inflammation,
earaches, and — dubiously — as a form of birth control.
"Do not try that at home, kids. Do not try that at home."
For inflammation, Dioscorides suggested taking the root of the cannabis plant
and boiling it in water to form a curative medicinal concoction. But considering the
massive numbers of plants Dioscorides writes about, cannabis wasn't too high on his list.
Oscar Wilde was a 19th century poet and novelist originally from Ireland.
A highly educated man who went to several prestigious colleges in the United Kingdom,
his poetry was well received by the late 1800s. He even toured the United States
and Canada, though not everyone was a fan of his work or his idiosyncratic dress.
"I'd do anything to regain my lost youth except take up exercise or get up early in the morning."
Tragically, Wilde would later be imprisoned due to his homosexuality,
which happened around the time that he was known to use hashish.
According to a letter Wilde sent his friend Robert Ross from Algiers, in late January 1895,
Wilde and his companion Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas were engaged in copious
hashish smoking while on vacation. He went on about how much he enjoyed smoking, writing:
"Bosie and I have taken to [hashish]:
it is quite exquisite: three puffs of smoke and then peace and love."
They seemed to have been buying the hashish from
locals, and apparently had better luck finding it than they did a tour guide.
In 1881, researchers studying ancient Egyptian mummies made a stunning discovery. When they
were uncovering the tomb of the 19th-dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II, they found evidence
of cannabis not just within the burial site, but on the embalmed pharoah himself. In all,
they found seven different grains of cannabis pollen on Ramses II. It was speculated the
cannabis was not native to Egypt, but had traveled some distance to get there.
Ramses II is thought to have passed away in the early 13th century B.C.,
meaning the cannabis had been there for over 3,200 years by the time the researchers found it — a
testament to the preservation properties of the tomb's environment. Looking back,
it's actually not that far-fetched that Ramses II could have been a marijuana user.
Cannabis was used in Egypt for medicine centuries before Ramses II was even born,
as recorded on the Ebers Papyrus. Unfortunately, there are no clues as to why the marijuana was
inside Ramses II tomb or whether he used the plant for medicinal or psychoactive purposes.
Pablo Picasso is widely regarded as one of the most influential painters and artists of the
20th century. He was also a brief user of hashish in the early 1900s. Picasso was born in Malaga,
Spain, in 1881, and by the 1890s, he was already making a name for himself as a painting prodigy in
Madrid. At the turn of the century, Picasso made his way to Paris, which was followed by his Blue,
Rose, and Analytical Cubism periods. It was during the latter that he is said to have used hashish.
In Patrick O'Brian's Picasso: A Biography, he claims that Picasso would ingest hashish pills
with friends, though it was largely experimental on Picasso's part. Unfortunately for the artist,
it seems as though his experience with the hashish pills was overall negative,
and he didn't want to keep using them. In addition, he found that one of his
friends had died by suicide, potentially as a result of mixing hashish pills and other drugs,
which really turned him off to the idea of further use.
Following his brief flirtation with cannabis, Picasso went on to have his
most successful artistic period, including his major contributions to the Surrealist movement.
Though most people likely have never heard his name, anyone in favor of the use of
medical cannabis ought to be familiar with Sir William Brooke O'Shaughnessy.
O'Shaughnessy was an Irish surgeon who began testing the use of cannabis as early as 1838
on sailors employed by the East India Company. By 1839, he was ready to present his findings,
and his paper "On the Preparations of Indian Hemp, or Gunjah," published in
The British and Foreign Medical Review, immediately made waves, and by 1900 had
inspired at least a hundred other publications also alluding to the use of medicinal marijuana.
In the paper, O'Shaughnessy somewhat erroneously claimed that the use of medicinal cannabis in
western Europe was unknown, but pointed to its widespread use in Arabia and Persia. He remarked
on several different methods for ingesting the cannabis, including mixing it with water to drink,
smoking, and even creating tinctures with resin. He suggested the possibility of
using marijuana to combat cholera and thought it might even work for tetanus.
O'Shaughnessy's work, while primitive, laid the foundation for the future of
medical marijuana study in the West. He was one of the few doctors of his time
to be experimenting with cannabis as a medicine, and without O'Shaughnessy,
the state of medicinal cannabis in the West may have taken a different direction.