With origins dating back 10,000 years, the psychoactive Cannabis plant, or commonly known as marijuana, has swept the globe as one of the oldest agricultural plants. Stemming from Eastern Asia, using exportation of goods and exploration as a tool to travel the world, it has left roots scattered across every continent (excluding Antarctica). Its use has varied from helping to reach a state of euphoria, to being used in textiles, which has helped countries such as China and Turkestan to develop as a nation. Marijuana is known as being the world’s most versatile plant, as it has shaped the world of science and culture. To begin with, around 500 to 600 C.E, there was a mention of the euphoric properties of cannabis in …show more content…
This law was passed by the Virginia Assembly, as it was deemed as a valuable commodity but a strategic necessity. In 1798, Napoleon declared a total prohibition of hemp after realizing that much of the Egyptian lower class was in fact habitual smokers of marijuana. In 1840, medicines with a cannabis base were available in United States pharmacies. Half a century later, the recreational use of hashish, alcohol, and opium spreads among the population of occupied Constantinople. Hashish became a major trade item between Central Asia and South Asia. Around 1870-1880, there were reports of hashish smoking on the Greek mainland, but was prohibited a decade later, and also made illegal in Turkey at the time …show more content…
In 1976 Congress passed a law stipulating that the possession of not more than one ounce of marijuana for private use, or for the transfer of not more than once ounce of marijuana without profit for private use, shall not constitute a crime against the U.S. These actions however, only temporary, as the war on drugs was still waging. 97th Congress passed a bill to combat the importation of large amounts of marijuana by increasing penalties for an offense involving the importation of a quantity of marijuana exceeding 1,000 pounds, the first real effort to stop the major import/export of marijuana