Throughout the history of humanity, cannabis, or some derivative of it, became popular for both entertainment and spiritual use. It has been used by everyone from the Africans to the Celts, Chinese, Egyptians, Indians, and the Romans. The Rastafarians, a religious sect with roots in Jamaica, and the Zion Coptic Church of Ethiopia, believe cannabis was grown on King Solomon’s grave.
“When you smoke herb, herb reveal yourself to you. All the wickedness you do, the herb reveal it to yourself, your conscience, show up yourself clear, because herb make you meditate. Is only a natural thing and it grow like a tree.”
– Bob Marley, Rastafarian and popular reggae musician
“The sacred source of ganja permits a sense of religious communication, marked by meditation and contemplation.”
– 1970 Jamaican study conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health’s Center for Studies of Narcotic and Drug Abuse. The study also concluded “that there is little correlation between the use of ganja and crime, except insofar as the possession and cultivation of ganja are technically crimes.”
Some people believe cannabis allows for the ultimate transfer of intelligence from plants to humans and that the spiritual nature of this is a gift from Divinity. The belief is that the thoughts and feelings a person can experience after smoking or ingesting cannabis is something that should be respected as a communication from the power of Nature, used only under nurturing circumstances in natural surroundings, and used only in a way that will broaden or fine tune talents, skills, and intellect. If used respectfully it can bring about an elevation of consciousness and enlightenment while cultivating wisdom that a person may have been unable or unwilling to explore. But if abused, it can drag a person down, which is why some shamanists frown upon using the substance without intention.
When modern science discovered that the human brain has cannabinoid receptors where the cannabinoid molecules in cannabis can dock, some people began citing this as proof that we humans are physically designed to use cannabis to help our brains function. Maybe this explains why people have been using cannabis for thousands of years, often with the belief that it is a sort of deliverer of messages from the Divine.
“Hashish will be, indeed, for the impressions and familiar thoughts of a man, a mirror which magnifies, yet no more than a mirror.”
– Charles Baudelaire, The Poem of Hashish, 1860
Some people use cannabis for “deep play,” which is a combination of mental and physical exercise, such as yoga exercise sessions interspersed with sessions of such things as creative writing, supportive conversation, massage, and/or ecstatic dance. Deep play is done in a positive, uplifting, nurturing, and nonjudgmental atmosphere. It may involve instrumental music listened to while reading from literature that has to do with personal growth and life transformation. Deep play is exploratory, conducted in groups, is often scheduled as a weekend retreat, and is done with the goal of awakening and strengthening intellect and talent. It does not have to involve the use of cannabis or other drugs.
Cannabis is only one of the introspective substances that shamans, medicine men, medicine woman, and other spiritual advisors of primitive cultures used in their rituals. In every part of the world the ancient societies used substances to alter the mind, often in ceremonial settings. The substances have been treated sacredly and include ayahuasca, peyote, mushrooms, tobacco, coca leaves, the extracts of certain vines, flowers, and other plants, and even the body fluids of certain frogs. Even the land where the substances were found were treated with respect as they too were thought to be connected to the Divine. Many people still use these substances in the same way as the ancients. There is a renewed interest in substances traditionally used by shamans, even so much so that annual gatherings are held for people interested in learning about them. Many of the substances have been made illegal. Hallucinogenic mushrooms have been illegal under international law since 1971.
Interestingly, alcohol is considered by many to interfere with or block spiritual revelations. This was something learned by shamanistic cultures as alcohol was introduced to them by European colonists. Some advised their communities that alcohol would bring them down. As the colonists and Christian missionaries established themselves around the world they often worked to eliminate the “pagan rituals” of ancient cultures, including the substances used for spiritual ceremonies. In North America those who wished to continue living the way of their people were killed off, or forced into “reservations,” and looked to as burdensome pariahs. Unfortunately alcohol has done much damage to Native American peoples, many of whom are genetically susceptible to alcohol addiction. Shamanistic cultures on other continents have suffered similar consequences as their sacramental substances have been outlawed, religions have been dismissed, lands have been taken over, protesters have been killed, and tax revenue-generating alcohol has been brought in.
Today North America has hundreds of thousands of commercial venues selling alcohol while the substances the ancient cultures used in their spiritual practices throughout history have been outlawed. Even during the Prohibition era, America allowed the Catholic Church to continue using wine in the sacrament. While alcohol causes more problems than any drug ever has, the Indigenous peoples who use peyote as well as other people who wish to use magic mushrooms or other substances for spiritual matters are treated as criminals. The spiritual beliefs of the native cultures are often dismissed as nonsense while a variety of religions that came from Europe and other countries are openly practiced in buildings constructed in ways that destroy land the Natives treated sacredly.
The people living in lands where cannabis is believed to have originated still use cannabis in their religious practices.
The Hindus believe that Shiva brought cannabis from the Himalayas over three thousand years ago. They believe that cannabis helps them commune with Shiva, Lord of Bhang. The Hindu religious festival Kumbh Mela and the devotional practice called puja include the use of cannabis.
Cannabis also has a history within the Buddhist religion, with the story being that Buddha survived for several years by eating hemp seeds while on the path to enlightenment.
The Buddhist Tantra sect has a history of using cannabis to become free of consciousness and heighten spirituality. Today the tantric sex practiced by many different people around the world may or may not involve some use of cannabis along with breathing patterns, massage, and intertwined yoga type practices to heighten spirituality and build respect of the sacredness of the act while healing, awakening, and strengthening the soul union.
It is known that THC increases the effectiveness of morphine taken by patients on that prescription pain killer. THC may also heighten the effects of natural drugs produced by the brain, such as the pleasure sensation-inducing neurotransmitter anandamide, which docks with the same cell receptors in the brain and other areas of the body with which THC has been found to dock. In addition to the receptors that are found on the cells of the brain and spinal chord, some of the receptors that receive both anandamide and THC have been found on the cells of the tissues in the sex organs. THC also increases the sensation of touch, making sex more sensual.
Yoga has been practiced for thousands of years. Breathing techniques that can increase sexual energy between two people have been known forever. THC wasn’t identified until the 1960s. The cell receptors weren’t identified until the 1980s. And anandamide wasn’t identified until the 1990s. But for thousands of years people didn’t need the scientific understanding of all this to have incredible sex combined with the feelings of love for their partner that they considered to be spiritually enlightening.
The medieval Catholic church considered cannabis to be a tool used by heretics. When Pope Gregory IX began the Inquisition of the Holy Catholic Church in 1231, those who used cannabis were among those hunted for persecution. Unfortunately, the persecution that the Catholic church doled out during the inquisitions often translated to ruin, imprisonment, torture, maiming, and sometimes death.
In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII banished the use of cannabis because it was thought to be part of witchcraft and used in satanic rituals. The deviant vision people often think up when they hear the word witch is often greatly exaggerated compared to the reality of who was considered to be a witch. A witch could be anyone, including those who used plants as medicine for others, or they could be crazy lunatics. A person who was considered to be a witch was often a shamanistic type of person who used plant substances in his or her work, which may have included being a sort of caretaker for the local community. The medicines used by the healers of the day included simple herbal teas, or plants that were applied to the skin, or plants that were burned, which sometimes included marijuana. Opium also began to have a European presence during this era. These were the days before an understanding of germs and where anything possible would be used to kill pain. A simple cut could result in an infection that could spread to the brain and leave the person mentally disabled; or could lead to an infected limb, which was then amputated in the most barbaric manner. Oftentimes, before people understood germs, infections led to death. When healers applied plant remedies that effectively healed someone the healer could be considered magical. If they weren’t part of the organized church, they could be considered heretics who were getting their power from the devil. Therefore, they were subject to punishment by the church. The punishment often included prison, torture, and/or death.
Pope Innocent VIII issued a precedent declaring marijuana to be an “unholy sacrament.” His view was that Arabic culture and Arabs who smoked hashish were ruining society. Those who used it were to be punished.
All of these actions to demonize cannabis and persecute those who may or may not have used it didn’t stop people from partaking of it. The Celts had used it, and made porridge out of its seeds (or, more specifically, they made porridge from what we now call hemp). But their smoking of cannabis became secretive because of medieval Christianity. As I mention, some of those who were considered to be witches used it. Some people in Europe wrote about it, most notably the satirist Francois Rabelais, a French Benedectine monk who was born in 1483. Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel was published in 1532.
The use of cannabis for spiritual enlightenment continues today. There have been many people claiming that cannabis has benefits just as there have been those who say cannabis causes problems.
Some say marijuana causes mental health problems. Is that so?
“Armed with sound bites reminiscent of the 1936 propaganda film Reefer Madness, the U.S. government recently kicked off yet another smear campaign on the supposed dangers of marijuana. The Fed’s latest charge: Pot causes mental illness.
‘A growing body of evidence now demonstrates that smoking marijuana can increase the risk of serious mental health problems,’ U.S. Drug Czar John Walters announced at a press conference hyping the White House’s latest antipot campaign. ‘New research being conducted here and abroad illustrates that marijuana use, particularly during teen years, can lead to depression, thoughts of suicide, and schizophrenia.’
Those looking for the science behind the White House’s alarm would be hard-pressed to find any. Absent from their campaign was any mention of a recent clinical study published in the April 2005 issue of the journal Psychiatry Research refuting a causal link between cannabis use and behavior suggestive of schizophrenia. ‘The current study… suggest[s] a temporal precedence of schizotypal traits before cannabis use in most cases,’ its authors concluded. ‘These findings do not support a causal link between cannabis use and schizotypal traits.’
Survey data published in the journal Addictive Behavior also puts a damper on the White House’s ‘pot leads to depression’ claims. After analyzing survey results from 4,400 adults who had completed The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (a numerical, self-report scale designed to assess symptoms of depression in the general population), researchers at the University of Southern California found: ‘Despite comparable ranges of scores on all depression subscales, those who used [marijuana] once per week or less had less depressed mood, more positive effect, and fewer somatic (physical) complaints than non-users… Daily users [also] reported less depressed mood and more positive effect than non-users.’
Last, there are the results of a recent meta-analysis published in the journal Current Opinion in Pharmacology. The study’s verdict? Those who use cannabis in moderation, even long-term ‘will not suffer any lasting physical or mental harm… Overall, by comparison with other drugs used mainly for ‘recreational’ purposes, cannabis could be rated to be a relatively safe drug.’ ”
– Cannabis, Mental Health and Context: The Case for Regulation, by Paul Armentano, Senior Policy Analyst, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws/NORML Foundation; January 27, 2006; NORML.org
What marijuana may do is similar to what alcohol or other drugs may do: help expose a pre-existing problem in a person’s life. Who hasn’t been around someone who has had too much to drink who then admits to some life issue that needs attention, or who displays a state of mind that is in need of healing?
As is the case with alcohol and other mind-altering substances, what some people are doing when they smoke marijuana is possibly trying to escape their problems, or to deal with an issue that they are not able to handle otherwise and/or they aren’t managing in the best way. In other words, what they may be displaying is a call for help. Hopefully they will be able to get the help they need and be able to straighten out their life.
Others may simply be using cannabis in a way that is helping them to explore thoughts that can lead to enlightenment on certain issues, finding ways to attain their goals and practice their talents. Artists are often trying to explore their creativity. Art begins in the mind, and mind-expanding drugs have often been used by artists wanting to get into their own minds.
Mind-assisting substances may help a person to utilize areas of the brain that had not been accessed. This can result in opening a person to his or her potential, intellect, talents, and life. But using too often or too much may also close the person off from these very same opportunities and attributes.
“Cannabis serves as a guide to psychic areas which can then be re-entered without it.”
– William Burroughs, Points of Distinction Between Sedative and Consciousness-Expanding Drugs, Evergreen Review, 1964
Cultures throughout the world are known to advance members of their communities by assisting them through a ceremony where substances of some type are taken and the thought processes of the person explored and/or guided. Results of this can be seen in the art, architecture, music, and literature of ancient people. From the intricate patterns on their fabrics to the design of their structures and cities, ancient people expressed what they discovered on substance-assisted adventures of exploratory and/or guided thought. This is why some cultures treat certain plants and mushrooms as sacred substances that should be respected. They understand the potential these substances can aid in releasing. They also understand how misuse and disrespect for certain substances can limit or damage a person. Modern-day partiers could learn a thing or two from studying the way ancient cultures and present-day shamanistic medicine people treat various ceremonial substances.
Great minds throughout history have been known to be under the influence of some sort of substance when they created their landmark works. If you have ever listened to music, enjoyed art, read novels or poetry, observed architecture, and even read religious texts, you have likely observed works that have been created under the influence of something other than pure sobriety.
As the African American culture began to flourish after slavery ended, many African Americans formed social groups, clubs, professional and church organizations, and created their own form of art and music. Jazz and blues and the clubs where they were played helped form the culture. New Orleans was considered the center of these forms of music, and it was also where cannabis not only grew easily, but was also easily available because New Orleans was a port town where cannabis arrived from the islands as well as from Central and South America. While many jazz and blues musicians sang songs about cannabis, others refrained from partaking of the substance and considered it to be something that hampered talent and/or was simply not a good thing.
Jazz and blues aren’t the only types of music influenced by cannabis. At the same time that jazz music was developing in the U.S., the Greeks were developing a type of music called rebetika, which was influenced by Turkish folk songs that they became familiar with during the Greco-Turkish war.
Jamaica became known for its reggae music, its most famous musician being Bob Marley, who just as famously was known for his use of ganja. Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley were obviously influenced by jazz and the blues, which led to rock and roll. While not all rock and roll has been influenced by cannabis, it is no secret that some of it has. As has some American folk music, bluegrass, and other forms of musical expression.
There are a large number of books written by authors known to have experiences with some form of cannabis and/or other drugs, such as opium and an extract first derived from it in 1803, morphine. If you have read any works of the European writers of the 1700s and 1800s, then you have likely read material written under the influence of, or that was influenced by cannabis.
Thomas de Quincey’s autobiographical Confessions of an English Opium Eater was first published in London Magazine in 1821, and the next year in book form. In it he gave a description of what it was like to partake of laudanum, a widely overprescribed medication made of alcohol and opium, and sometimes sugar. “Here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered; happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket; portable ecstacies might be had corked up in a pint bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down by the mail.” While he had been prescribed laudanum for “acute neuralgia pains” in 1804, his addiction to it apparently lasted the rest of his life. In the medical world laudanum was losing favor, after the use of highly addictive morphine was isolated in 1804 and became more common as a painkiller after the 1853 invention of the hypodermic needle, but laudanum is still available today as a prescription drug. The descriptions de Quincey gave of his experiences with laudanum influenced other writers to explore drugs. His book became known in literary circles, including his own circle of friends and acquaintances such as Richard Woodhouse, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (also a laudanum addict), Charles Lamb, and William Wordsworth.
Other drugs of the 1800s included heroin, which was synthesized from morphine in 1874, and cocaine, which was first successfully isolated from the leaves of the South American coca plant by German chemist Friedrich Gaedcke in 1855 (not cacao, which is a different plant with beans harvested to make chocolate).
For centuries the leaves of the coca plant had been used as a mild stimulant by the South American Andean natives. That all changed when science learned to extract the active ingredient in the leaves that provided the slight energy boost. It was quickly understood that the pure powder was very different from the whole leaf, and created health problems never experienced by the natives who chewed the leaves. It has been discovered that coca leaves contain modifying substances that soften the effects of the stimulant.
By 1863 cocaine was being used in Vin Mariani wine in Italy, with Catholic Pope Leo XIII being one of its most outspoken fans.
Cocaine was also used in the original recipe of Coca-Cola™. It also contained caffeine derived from kola nuts, an African rainforest nut that is related to the cacao (chocolate) trees of South America.
Druggist John Pemberton, who invented what became Coca-Cola in the late 1800s, intended the drink to be used as a patent medicine. As his cocaine-laced alcoholic beverage became popular in Atlanta, Pemberton began marketing it in 1885 as Pemberton’s French Wine Coca. The Atlanta-based company had been importing what amounted to tons of cocaine to use in its “soft drinks” that they marketed as “brain food.” Each serving was estimated to contain as much as nine milligrams of cocaine.
After Atlanta placed prohibition on alcohol in 1886, Pemberton omitted alcohol from the recipe and renamed the cocaine- and caffeine-laced beverage Coca-Cola. It was originally sold from fountains in Atlanta’s Jacob’s Pharmacy. Ironically, Pemberton advertised his drink in the Atlanta Journal as a health tonic capable of curing morphine addiction, impotence, and headaches.
By 1887 Coca-Cola was being sold by a number of companies. The first bottled product was sold in the 1890s. In 1899 a bottling factory was opened in Chattanooga, Tennessee. By that time, a whole lot of people had become addicted to the cocaine-laced drink and distribution was expanding throughout the U.S. The mass-produced bottle was mistakenly based on the cacao nut pod (chocolate) when the designer was trying to find out what one of the ingredients, coca, looked like in its natural state. Coca-Cola bottles, cans, and packaging have become some of the most recognizable forms of land and water pollution in the world.
After Atlanta placed cocaine on a list of prescribable medications, in 1903 Coca-Cola omitted the cocaine from the recipe and kept the caffeine, which is also addictive.
In 1911, the U.S. government seized 40 barrels and 20 kegs of Coca-Cola syrup from the Chattanooga bottling company. Trying to prove that caffeine was injurious to children’s health, the government took case against the company with United States vs. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola. The case was dismissed, but the next year the Pure Food and Drug Act was amended to require that the “habit-forming” and “deleterious” substance of caffeine be listed on any substance meant for human consumption.
The Coca-Cola sold in the modern day still contains extract of the coca leaves. Tons of these leaves are legally imported from Peru and Bolivia by Stepan Company of Maywood, New Jersey. The cocaine extracted from the leaves is turned into medical grade cocaine by Mallinckrodt Incorporated of Missouri. Mallinckrodt also imports opium from India, and turns uses it to make medical grade morphine.
Today, the coca-leaf extract containing, kola caffeine-laced beverage made with high fructose corn syrup and/or artificial sweeteners, dye, and flavorings makes billions of dollars around the planet, and the Coca-Cola Company is one of the lead sponsors of sporting events, including the Olympics.
Among those who experimented with cocaine was Sigmund Freud, who shared it with his wife, and wrote an upbeat essay about it in 1884. Apparently his use of cocaine left Freud with permanent damage to his sinuses. Some say this is why he liked to sit out of view of his patients as they reclined on a sofa.
But warnings of cocaine’s addictive qualities began surfacing, and were written about in the November 28, 1885, edition of Medical Record journal, which stated, “Continuous indulgence finally creates a craving which must be satisfied; the individual then becomes nervous, tremulous, sleepless, without appetite, and he is at last reduced to a condition of pitiable neurasthenia.”
While those other highly addictive drugs made their rounds, cannabis and its extract, hashish, was becoming more common. Cannabis was becoming known as a safe drug because, unlike cocaine, heroin, morphine, and opium, people learned that they could do it without becoming physically addicted. Poets, including Earnest Dowson, Arthur Rimbaud, John Addington Symonds, Baylor Taylor, and Paul Verlaine were known to use hashish.
“External objects acquire, gradually and one after another, strange new appearances; they become distorted or transformed. Next occur mistakes in the identity of objects, and transposals of ideas. Sounds clothe themselves in colours; and colours contain music.”
– Charles Baudelaire, describing his experiences on hashish
In the 1840s a group of writers in Paris formed a club they called The Hashish-Eaters Club (Le Club des Hachichins). Among the first members was Theophile Gautier, author of Mademoiselle de Maupin and writer of Art for Art’s Sake. In addition to Gautier, members of the club included the writers Honore de Balzac (Lost Illusions), Charles Baudelaire (The Flowers of Evil), Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo; The Three Musketeers), Victor Hugo (Les Miserables; The Hunchback of Notre-Dame), and Gerard de Nerval (Journey to the Orient). The members of the club gathered at the Hotel Pimodan apartment of painter Fernand Boissard de Boisdenier. Some of the writers, including Dumas, mentioned hashish or cannabis in their novels. A French doctor, Jacques-Joseph Moreau, was also associated with the Club des Hachichins and kept records of his meetings with the members, exploring the effects of hashish on their imaginations and minds. Because the writers were eating hashish, which is much stronger than simply smoking a few puffs of it, and because the club members were known to partake of opium and other drugs, Moreau’s notes are unreliable as a study on cannabis.
Another person of note in this era was author, playwright, poet, philosopher, and doctor Charles Robert Richet. In 1877 he observed that under the influence of hashish, “in the space of a minute we have fifty different thoughts; since in general it requires several minutes to have fifty different thoughts, it will appear to us that several minutes are passed, and it is only by going to the inflexible clock, which marks for us the regular passage of time, that we perceive our error. With hashish the notion of time is completely overthrown, the moments are years, and the minutes are centuries; but I feel the insufficiency of language to express this illusion, and I believe, that one can only understand it by feeling it for himself.” In 1887 Richet was named a professor of physiology at the College de France in Paris. He won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1913 for his work on anaphylaxis (shock that can result in death when a person is exposed to an antigen).
American novelists, artists, and musicians of all sorts during the Bohemian era were outspoken about their use of cannabis, and/or included some reference to it in their art. Perhaps the most popular was a good friend of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Fritz Hugh Ludlow, whose The Hasheesh Eater: Being Passages from the Life of a Pythagorean was published in Putnam’s magazine in 1850, than as a book in1857. The book has been read by famous writers, including the Beat Poets, and it is still being published 150 years later.
The British version of The Hasheesh Eater was published in 1903 and featured illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley, who famously partook of hashish for the first time before having dinner at a Paris restaurant in 1896 with poet Earnest Dowson, Leonard Smithers, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Dowson wrote, “Beardsley’s laughter was so tumultuous that it infected the rest of us – who had not taken haschish and we all behaved like imbeciles.”
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky’s 1870s book, Secret Doctrine, originally published as Isis Unveiled, was strongly influenced by her hashish use.
It is apparent that Little Women author Louisa May Alcott was familiar with cannabis. Characters in her short story Perilous Play used hashish. She wrote that hashish would give a young bashful man “the courage of a hero, the eloquence of a poet, and the ardor of an Italian.”
Anyone who has read Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland read about the main character eating what are clearly hallucinogenic mushrooms. Afterwards Alice came across “a large blue caterpillar” “quietly smoking a long hookah” while sitting on a mushroom so large that Alice had to spring up on her tiptoes to peep over the edge of it. It is quite apparent that the author was well aware of not only cannabis, but also the events that can play out in one’s mind upon consuming a certain type of mushroom.
Britain had its own group of writers and artists in the late 1800s that were quite familiar with cannabis. They were known as “The Tragic Generation” and as “The Decadents.” They included artist Aubrey Beardsley, poet Earnest Dowson, Havelock Ellis (Psychology of Sex), Richard Le Gallianne (My Ladies’ Sonnets and Other Vain and Amatorious Verses), artist Selwyn Image, Arthur Symons (The Symbolist Movement in Literature), Oscar Wilde (Importance of Being Earnest; An Ideal Husband), and poet and playwright William Butler Yeats.
Another group, of whom Yeats was a founding member, was the Rhymers Club. This London group of writers formed in 1890 and included novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright Ernest Rhys, and Yeats’ lover, the actress, activist, and writer Maud Gonne (A Servant of the Queen). They met at Cheshire Cheese, a tavern near Fleet Street. Yeats’ The Secret Rose was influenced by his experiences with hashish and opium.
On the American continent some of the Beat Poets were influenced by books about people or cultures that used cannabis. Ludlow’s The Hasheesh Eater and Milton Mezz Mezzrow’s autobiography, Really the Blues, were books that strongly influenced The Beats.
Jack Kerouac had read Really the Blues and went on to write On The Road. That book contains a number of references to tea (cannabis) and jazz clubs.
Some of the Beats had traveled to visit the Santa Fe and Taos writing communities that had formed in the 1910s-1930s. There they attended lively dinner parties. During their exploration of local culture some of the writers gained first-hand experience with the peyote cactus used in the local Native American ceremonies, and with the hallucinogenic alkaloid extract of peyote, mescaline (which was first isolated and identified by German chemist Arthur Heffter in 1897).
Some of the Beat Poets and other American writers of the early and mid 1900s traveled to countries where hash was commonly used, such as Morocco. It was there that author and composer Paul Bowles lived as an expatriate with his wife, author and playwright Jane Auer. An outspoken proponent of the influence cannabis could have on creativity, Bowles wrote a book The Sheltering Sky that included characters who smoked hashish or took majoun, which was a type of jam consisting of fruits, honey, nuts, spices, and cannabis. In his writings Bowles mentioned that some of the local people carried a pouch with different pockets to keep separate grades of cannabis that they shared, with the best grade being for those they respected.
Among the writers and other artists who visited Bowles in Tangier were Cecil Beaton, William Burroughs, Truman Capote, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Brian Gysin, Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, Joe Orton, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, and David Herbert, the son of the Earl of Pembroke – who also lived in Tangier.
Within this group of famous American writers it was Alan Ginsberg who was perhaps the most outspoken about cannabis and the laws against it. Or, at least it appears that he received the most media attention.
“I was somewhat disappointed later on, when the counterculture developed the use of grass for party purposes rather than for study purposes. I always thought that was the wrong direction.”
– Alan Ginsberg, who thought cannabis was a useful mind tool for “aesthetic study” and “deepened” “aesthetic perception.” His famous book Howl was published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights bookstore in San Francisco. The police charged Ferlinghetti with publishing and selling obscene material. A landmark legal battle ensued. The publicity the case received helped attract attention to the book, the Beats, and the lifestyle they led, which involved jazz clubs, marijuana, and free thought. It also helped to make Jack Kerouac’s 1957 book On the Road a hit, bringing Beat culture into public consciousness. In 1961 J. Edgar Hoover declared, “The three biggest threats to America are the Communists, the beatniks, and the eggheads.”
“Marijuana is a useful catalyst for specific optical and aural aesthetic perceptions.”
– Alan Ginsberg, in The Great Marijuana Hoax: First Manifesto to End the Bringdown, Atlantic Monthly, November 1966
“I think that marijuana should not only be legal, I think it should be a cottage industry. It would be wonderful for the state of Maine. There’s some pretty good homegrown dope. I’m sure it would be even better if you could grow it with fertilizers and have greenhouses.”
– Author Stephen King
“I was a heavy drinker, but the alcohol affected my heart rather than my liver. So I stopped. I smoke grass now. I say that to everybody, because marijuana should be legalized. It’s ridiculous that it isn’t. If at the end of the day I feel like smoking a joint I do it. It changes the perception of what I’ve been through all day.”
– Film director Robert Altman
“I’m not a great pothead or anything like that… but weed is much, much less dangerous than alcohol.”
– Actor Johnny Depp, Film Review Magazine, June 2001
“I used to smoke marijuana. But I’ll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening – or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening, and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early midafternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning… But never at dusk.”
– Comedian and actor Steve Martin
“There’s been no top authority saying what marijuana does to you. I tried it once but it didn’t do anything to me.”
– Actor John Wayne
“I drink moderately, I’ve tried drugs. I do like weed. I have a different outlook on marijuana than America does. I’ve never been a major smoker, but I think America’s view on weed is ridiculous. I mean – are you kidding me? If everyone smoked weed, the world would be a better place. I’m not talking about being stoned all day, though. I think if it’s not used properly, it can hamper your creativity and close you up inside. My best friend Sasha’s dad was Carl Sagan, the astronomer. He was the biggest pot smoker in the world and he was a genius.”
– Actress Kirsten Dunst, quoted in England’s Live magazine; April 2007
“Though the laws regarding the use of alcohol and recreational drugs vary from country to country, we remind you that the policies of Ocean’s Twelve, Warner Bros Productions, and Warner Bros Entertainment Italia strictly prohibit the use of these substances during work hours.”
– May 8, 2004 memo from the studio to the cast and crew of the film Oceans Twelve while they were filming scenes in Amsterdam; May 8, 2004. The cast included George Clooney, who once said he could never run for president because he had done everything that people could pick apart as making him a bad candidate, including drinking the bong water. While appearing on the Howard Stern cable TV show, the film’s co-star, Julia Roberts, said she had smoked weed at one time in her life, but said she didn’t need it because she already laughs and has fun without using pot.
“Brad (Pitt) and I would stand around in the morning and get stoned out of our minds waiting for the van to come take us to the set.”
– Actor Michael Madsen describing the start of his days working on the film Thelma & Louise; Premier magazine, 2001
A lot of amazing people have been known to partake of cannabis or hashish. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is said to have eaten cannabis chocolate with his lovers. If anyone could be considered a great artist it is Mozart. This is not to say that all great works have been influenced this way, nor am I saying that all artists should try some sort of mind-assisting substance. All I am saying is that doing things to assist the mind in exploring may not always be a bad thing. Even many prescription drugs have some influence on the mind, as do coffee and some types of food. Many things can be considered to be drugs when their influence is compared to the definition of the word. Are we going to outlaw chocolate?
Among the popular contemporary authors who apparently have an understanding of marijuana culture is P.T. Boyle. Among his novels that include pot smoking characters are Budding Prospects: A Pastoral, and Drop City.
“Myth: Marijuana kills brain cells.
Fact: Allegations that marijuana smoking alters brain function or has long-term effects on cognition are reckless and scientifically unfounded. Federally sponsored population studies conducted in Jamaica, Greece, and Costa Rica found no significant differences in brain function between long-term smokers and nonusers. Similarly, a 1999 study of 1,300 volunteers published in The American Journal of Epidemiology reported ‘no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users, and nonusers of cannabis’ over a 15-year period. More recently, a meta-analysis of neuropsychological studies of long-term marijuana smokers by the National Institute on Drug Abuse reaffirmed this conclusion.”
– Marijuana: Myth vs. Fact, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, NORML.org; quoting from Cannabis use and cognitive decline in persons under 65 years of age, American Journal of Epidemiology 149: 794-800
Recent studies have shown that cannabinoids not only can protect brain cells, especially from the ravages of alcohol, but may even spur brain cell growth. (Cannabinoids promote embryonic and adult hippocampus neurogenesis and produce anxiolytic and depressant-like effects; The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2005. Comparison of cannabindiol, antioxidants and diuretics in reversing binge ethanol-induced neurotoxicity, Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, 2005. Cannabidiol prevents cerebral infarcation, Stroke, 2005. Cannabidiol and Delta9-tetrahydrocannabionol are neuroprotective antioxidants, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1998.)