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Did man create cannabis?

I feel cannabis was created by nature - but not the cannabis we see and use today. I believe man did to cannabis what man did to dog.
When wolves figured out they could help man for food and shelter (and other benefits) a relationship was formed. Over the course of thousands of years mankind was able to shape the wolf into the domestic dog we see today. When new wolf puppies were born, humans would only keep the cute cuddly ones; ones that would be good companions to the children of the community. The mean ones that would bite and be viscous would be thrown back into the wild. ( I learned that from "The Cosmos" with NGT - see not all tv is bad :laughing:)
We were able to selectively breed the wolf into a completely new animal with all sorts of different species - eventually we even created small breeds such as the Chihuahua!

Do you think the same thing happened with cannabis that was found in the wild years ago by ancient humans? I know there is evidence of humankind using cannabis for all sorts of needs when you reach into human antiquity. However, I truly believe that humans shaped cannabis into what we know it as today. Therefore, one could assume humans created cannabis the same way we created the domesticated animals we have such as dogs.

What is really fascinating is how strong cannabis is getting. Some breeders will pop thousands of seeds to pick out a winner, and then breed with that. In essence we are throwing out the bad dog and keeping the good. The headache inducing plants with bad smells that would deter predators were thrown out - while those with good smells and pleasant highs were kept to create offspring. Plants that I believe naturally would not survive in the wild were kept.

I do know of a thing we like to call "landrace" strains. One could compare the selective breeding of nature to that of our own. One idea I struggle with however, is how different climates can dramatically alter a strain. For this reason I struggle with the aspect that we could have a plant bred by nature alone today. Most landraces out today have had some human interaction. I am afraid we will not be able to experience the true landrace variety of those in our past, ancestrally.

I have a strong feeling that man has actually created the cannabis we have today, although mostly from selective breeding - something nature would have done without our input. I image what nature could have made of cannabis into without human interaction - perhaps it could have even become poisonous?

How do you feel about this, and what do you think about the nature of the origin of cannabis? I know there have been studies about this I have not brought in to this argument - feel free to bring what ever information you have to the table.
:tiphat:
 
Cannabis Domestication, Breeding History, Present-day Genetic Diversity, and Future Prospects
Robert C. Clarke & Mark D. Merlin
Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences
Pages 1-35 | Published online: 02 Mar 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07352689.2016.1267498

Check out this paper (can use sci-hub.cc for free access). It's a comprehensive review covering many of the topics you mentioned.
 

St. Phatty

Active member
Indica, Ruderalis, and Sativa probably existed before Homo Sapiens.

Seems like the significant breeding started in maybe the 1960's with the development of Skunk #1. (Columbian, Mexican, Afghani mixed together.)

Pot being what it is ... there were probably Cannabis users hundreds or thousands of years ago who saved seeds and did what we do, without the Attitude if you know what I mean. :peacock:
 

burningfire

Well-known member
Veteran
significant breeding started a lot earlier than that, there's still a number of wild cannabis plants out there, you can find some pictures of nepalese junglis which barely look like cannabis. they're similar but don't look like plants grown for hash, seed/oil, the closest plant they will resemble are the pure fiber types. I wouldn't call skunk#1 significant breeding in the grand scheme of things
 

Bud Green

I dig dirt
Veteran
Man did not create cannabis.
But we certainly nurtured it.

I am almost certain there were cannabis merchants in Abraham's day.. They would have traded it for wine, grain, cattle and silver.
Of course, there was no internet 4000 years ago, so you had to do the old-fashioned networking to find your local dealer...:biggrin:
 

WelderDan

Well-known member
Veteran
Man didn't create cannabis. Man did, however, selectively breed cannabis. Much like teosinte (the predecessor to corn), man selectively bred for desirable traits.

Tomatoes, carrots, wheat (whose predecessor is spelt) are other crops man has selectively bred.
 
Cannabis Domestication, Breeding History, Present-day Genetic Diversity, and Future Prospects
Robert C. Clarke & Mark D. Merlin
Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences
Pages 1-35 | Published online: 02 Mar 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07352689.2016.1267498

Check out this paper (can use sci-hub.cc for free access). It's a comprehensive review covering many of the topics you mentioned.
wow - that's a great resource thank you!
 
Man didn't create cannabis. Man did, however, selectively breed cannabis. Much like teosinte (the predecessor to corn), man selectively bred for desirable traits.

Tomatoes, carrots, wheat (whose predecessor is spelt) are other crops man has selectively bred.

very well put - I think though that man has changed the plant so much it is almost something entirely different - like how we changed wolves into dogs.
 
Man did not create cannabis.
But we certainly nurtured it.

I am almost certain there were cannabis merchants in Abraham's day.. They would have traded it for wine, grain, cattle and silver.
Of course, there was no internet 4000 years ago, so you had to do the old-fashioned networking to find your local dealer...:biggrin:
It is hard to believe that there were not cannabis merchants at that time
 

rolandomota

Well-known member
Cannabis has created humans to be what we are today as we have done the same to it too. A huge example is the ships and ropes we made from weed to travel the world and reach the "new" world a little over 500 years ago. What we have today has a lot to do with cannabis cultivation can you imagine if north and south america were still "undiscovered"?think about How much different the world could have been.
 

Guy Brush

Well-known member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Cannabis Domestication, Breeding History, Present-day Genetic Diversity, and Future Prospects
Robert C. Clarke & Mark D. Merlin
Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences
Pages 1-35 | Published online: 02 Mar 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07352689.2016.1267498

Check out this paper (can use sci-hub.cc for free access). It's a comprehensive review covering many of the topics you mentioned.

Sorry, for me it's not clear how to use this for free. Can you explain?
 

englishrick

Plumber/Builder
Mentor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
also try the inheritance of chemical phenotype....just Google it if you want to check it..done by my one of my fave dudes in the weed game..

chemotypes are very interesting!!
 

MJPassion

Observer
ICMag Donor
Veteran
very well put - I think though that man has changed the plant so much it is almost something entirely different - like how we changed wolves into dogs.

Wolves weren't changed into dogs.
Wolves are dogs.
The other breeds may have been derived from wolves but a dog is a dog is a dog.

Also, folks should really learn what the terms they're using are defined as.
Sativa is a term that simply means cultivated. It is NOT a type of cannabis by any stretch of the word. All cannabis grown by man is sativa.
Indica is name that denotes a region that Cannabis Sativa was collected from.
 

tleaf jr.

Came up off 75w
Veteran
We did not evolve seprately from the plant hence the reason from thc receptors built in our brains...funny fact, dogs or domesticated wolves watever you want to call them has also has the receptors :tiphat:
 
^^^There are endogenous cannabinoid receptors in sea squirts; the ECS pre-dates us, is wide spread throughout nature, and existed even before animals walked on land.
 
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Popice

Member
I think there are still so many kinds of cannabis, just not as high thc drug type cultivars. I thought places like China or Russia had wild and cultivated areas that people like monks have just kept for basically ever. it just seems it's always been an important symbiosis with humans for certain groups, like any other medicinal herb. and then seriously the idea of aliens and cannabis... somewhere, in the creation of things for the planet probably having to do with gold and oxygen/water.., not saying us or the plants were the same physically, but interactively, the mind body connection of realization of thought and function.
 
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