Albania is the first country in Europe for marijuana production since the '80s at least, what are the origins of the cannabis strains that they produce? Local selected hemp varieties, plus varieties from near Greece, plus modern transnational strains introduced more recently. Albania under communism was very isolated and totalitarian country, it's very unlikely that marijuana strains were introduced there from distant countries.
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greek landrace strains
- Thread starter zerozero
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Calabrian red is not a legend either - hemp cultivation was common in those areas since at least the middle ages before prohibition in the '50s, and the southern varieties were different from northern italian landraces. Sativish plants traditionally utilized for textiles with some THC, as we know from physicians that studied them, after '68 and the boom of drug cannabis popularity in Italy farmers and/or mafiosos recuperated some traditional plants to make money, in a rugged region with scarce law enforcement was easy, hence the fame of calabrian weed, at the time apart from this there was only hashish, today cannabis is still cultivated there but there are much more police seizures and modern hybrid strains are dominant.
sure, but I think a more likely explanation for most of what I've seen online as alleged Greek strains is plants introduced since the 60s from places like Asia and Africa
you're right that a lot of eastern European Cannabis is at a frontier between Asian drug types and European hemp types
Hungarian hemp landraces have notable levels of THC too
the Albanian plants I saw in the 90s were not much like hemp
I think a much more likely explantation is that they arrived in the Ottoman era with Sufis and other cannabis-using Muslim groups
but there's not much direct evidence for this
still, it's more plausible than them being selected from hemp, I think
Probabily some mixtures of local hemp and old middle eastern varieties, very unlikely some exotic strain, apart from those introduced recently
I wasn't meaning to imply it was something exotic, but from what I have seen of Albanian landraces they are more akin to Middle Eastern types, which are relatively short
it's entirely possible they've been affected by hemp, but the idea they're developed from hemp is unlikely
Sufi groups like the Bektashis were a significant presence in Albania from the Ottoman era onwards, and they were certainly closely associated with even more unorthodox qalandar-type groups who were known for using a lot of hashish, e.g. the Abdals
Yes the Bektashis utilized hashish and diffused the hash plants, the Bektashis were present also in Greece and Crete before the modern ethnic cleasings
BobMarley99
Member
Can we please stay on topic guys?
BobMarley99
Member
This thread is about Greek landraces only!
which bit do you see as off topic?
the discussion above is about how Cannabis cultivation came to the Balkans
Greece is in the Balkans
(the only vaguely tangential bit is about Italian hemp, but that's relevant to the question of whether some Balkans drug strains are derived from hemp or hemp hybrids)
yep, a lot of Greek hashish slang is derived from antinomian Sufi groups
cannabis culture in Greece certainly predates the 19th century and arrived with the same cultural movements that brought it to the rest of the Balkans
the Middle Eastern x hemp theory is plausible as an explanation for these big plants I'm seeing on the forums
but one guy who contacted me claiming to have a real Greek landrace said he planted in March and harvested very late (iirc late Oct or early Nov)
there's no way a hemp x Middle East hybrid would be so late
you'd expect a September harvest
that's what I saw with Albanian landraces
do you have any direct evidence for this though?
No, but is reasonable to suppose that since they used hashish and come from Anatolia had some familiarity to hash plants
D
DNM1
@hempy
The Haze Whisperer
The Ward cannabis comes from the Greeks and Greeks have a long history of using Cannabis. Greece like many country's in Europe mostly used hash friends going there in the 70s 80s so on found it hard to get fresh flower it was mostly only hash.
You get sativa strains in set areas of Greece and you get indicas in other parts of Greece were my Father came from you got indicas.It grew wild in the Mountains that was before WW2.
You get sativa strains in set areas of Greece and you get indicas in other parts of Greece were my Father came from you got indicas.It grew wild in the Mountains that was before WW2.
the Greeks got the word cannabis from the Scythians
the Greeks first encountered the crop when they colonised the northern coast of the Black Sea, but if we're talking hashish etc. there's no strong evidence for the Greeks using or cultivating cannabis themselves until the 19th century
sure, it's very likely to have estalished itself there after many decades of large scale commercial cultivation
D
DNM1
Evidence pre 19th,are the secrets people are after.
Under the rule of the Ottoman Empire,for around 400yrs,revolution took place 1821,Greeks kept their seeds(landraces) to themselves,and,mid 19th century, then yes,you are right,cultivation/trading becomes evident historically.
It was a source of income after all
Three greek strains, three secrets........
Attachments
@hempy
The Haze Whisperer
Cannabis was identified as being called Asterion, the gift of Poseidon. His mother was a pharmakoi Goddess, Pasiphae. The ritual use of cannabis was the catalyst of Enlightenment
“Pausanias continues that above the Argive Heraion flowed the river Asterion, on whose banks grew the asterion plant. The vines and leaves were woven into garlands for the statue of Hera, and the plant was made an offering to Her. Asterion was one of the ancient names for cannabis, according to the first century C.E. Greek physician named Dioscurides.” (Rigoglioso, M. The Cult of Divine Birth in Ancient Greece)
https://caveoforacle.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/asterion-the-god-of-cannabis/
The Heraion of Argos (Greek: Ἡραῖον Ἄργους) is an ancient temple in Argos, Greece. It was part of the greatest sanctuary in the Argolid, dedicated to Hera, whose epithet "Argive Hera" (Ἥρη Ἀργείη Here Argeie) appears in Homer's works.
Yep, I'm familiar with this claim, and it's not backed up by any serious evidence, imo.
I mean the "Asterion" claim and alleged ritual use of cannabis to get high.
Bennett and others discuss it. There's also a semi-serious book from an American academic that discusses alleged Greek and Roman use.
Don't quite understand how supposed Dionysian cannabis orgies would link to the Enlightenment either, given the Enlightenment happened about two millennia later and was all about reason and empiricism....
I mean the "Asterion" claim and alleged ritual use of cannabis to get high.
Bennett and others discuss it. There's also a semi-serious book from an American academic that discusses alleged Greek and Roman use.
Don't quite understand how supposed Dionysian cannabis orgies would link to the Enlightenment either, given the Enlightenment happened about two millennia later and was all about reason and empiricism....
@hempy
The Haze Whisperer
ngakpa Why would Pausanias write about cannabis if it was not true ?.
Hemp rope dated to circa 200 BCE has been discovered in tombs in northern Greece, and it is believed that textiles for garment-making were also produced. Cannabis fibre was widely used in the manufacture of rope, sailcloth, and other textiles—in rope-making, cannabis was specifically used to make nautical ‘reefing ropes’ known in ancient Greek as kaloi.
Ancient recreational use of cannabis appears to have been fairly limited, although some sources describe the seeds being occasionally used as an intoxicant (it appears that ‘seed’ in this case refers to the whole flowering tops). In around 460 BCE, the philosopher Democritus described a concoction known as potamaugis or potamasgis, which was a blend of wine, cannabis and myrrh that was said to cause hallucinatory, visionary states.
In 70 CE, the physician Dioscorides recorded cannabis in his pharmacopoeia; it is thought that cannabis was extensively used in Greek medicine by this time. Cannabis leaf was commonly prescribed as a cure for nosebleeds, and the seeds were used to treat tapeworms, earache and inflammation.
