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what was the smoke like back in the 20s n30s

shmalphy

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Veteran
Flat chested flappers were doing the Charleston every-which-where you took a look-see

5540036.jpg
 

Tom Hill

Active member
Veteran
it was all killer sally's, haven't you seen reefer madness? I am sure those dudes were smoking some hazy shit
 
I

Iron_Lion

it might have been better then we might think, below is a history of hashish.

and a quote from Abe Lincoln, sounds like he was smoking hemp.

"Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica." - Abraham Lincoln

I thought I read or heard before that a lot of varieties from the middle east and asia hadn't made it to the US until around the vietnam era.




Hashish History

6000 B.C. Cannabis seeds used for food in China
2000 B.C. - 1400 B.C. Cannabis mentioned in the Atharvaveda (Science of Charms) as "sacred grass". Refered to as bhang or bhanga. The legend of Shiva, Lord of Bhang. (link)
1500 B.C. Cannabis cultivated in China for food and fiber, but not hashish
1500 B.C. Scythians cultivate Cannabis and weave fine hemp cloth from it. (Sumach 1975)
700 B.C. - 600 B.C. The Zoroastrian Zend-Avesta, an ancient Persian religious text of several hundred volumes, and said to have been written by Zarathustra (Zoroaster), refers to bhang as Zoroaster's "good narcotic" (Vendidad or The Law Against Demons) (link to zoroaster evidence? texts?)
700 B.C. - 300 B.C. Scythian tribes leave Cannabis seeds as offerings in royal tombs
500 B.C. Scythian couple die and are buried (at grave site in Pazryk, nothwest of the Tien Shan Mountains in modern-day Khazakstan) with two small tents covering censors. Attached to one tent stick was a decorated leather pouch containing wild Cannabis seeds. Unknown whether this was for purely ritual or also intoxicating use of Cannabis. (link to info about the discovery?)
430 B.C. Herodotus reports on both ritual and recreation use of Cannabis by the Scythians (Herodotus The Histories 430 B.C. trans. G. Rawlinson) (link)
100 B.C. - 0 A.D. The Pen Ts'ao mentions Cannabis for medical use
0 A.D. - 100 A.D. Construction of Samartian gold and glass paste stash box for storing hashish, coriander, or salt, buried in Siberian tomb
70 A.D. Dioscorides mentions the use of Cannabis as a medicament (Roman)
170 A.D. Galen alludes to the psychoactiity of Cannabis seed confections (Roman)
500 A.D. - 600 A.D. The Jewish Talmud mentions the euphoriant properties of Cannabis (Abel 1980)
900 A.D. - 1000 A.D. Scholars debate the pros and cons of eating hashish. Use spreads throughout Arabia
1090 A.D. - 1256 A.D. In Khorasan, Persia, Hasan ibn al-Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain, recruits followers to commit assassinations...legends develop around their supposed use of hashish. These legends are some of the earliest written tales of the discovery of the inebriating powers of Cannabis and the supposed use of Hashish. 1256 Alamut falls (links)
1155 A.D. - 1221 A.D. Persian legend of the Sufi master Sheik Haidar's of Khorasan's personal discovery of Cannabis and it's subsequent spread to Iraq, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria. Another of the ealiest written narratives of the use of Cannabis as an inebriant. (link)
Early 12th Century Hashish smoking very popular throughout the Middle East.
12th Century A.D. Cannabis introduced in Egypt during the reign of the Ayyubid dynasty on the occasion of the flooding of Egypt by mystic devotees coming from Syria (M.K. Hussein 1957 - Soueif 1972)
1231 A.D. Hashish introduced to Iraq in the reign of Caliph Mustansir (Rosenthal 1971)
1271 A.D. -1295 A.D. Journeys of Marco Polo in which he gives second-hand reports of the story of Hasan ibn al-Sabbah and his "assassins" using hashish. (link)
13th Century A.D. The oldest monograph on hashish, Zahr al-'arish fi tahrim al-hashish, was written. It has since been lost.
13th Century A.D. Ibn al-Baytar of Spain provides a description of psychoactive Cannabis
1378 A.D. Ottoman Emir Soudoun Scheikhouni issues one of the first edicts against the eating of hashish. (link)
1526 A.D. Babur Nama, first emperor and founder of Mughal Empire learned of hashish in Afghanistan.
mid 16th Century A.D. The epic poem, Benk u Bode, by the poet Mohammed Ebn Soleiman Foruli of Baghdad, deals allegorically with a dialectical battle between wine and hashish.
17th Century A.D. Use of hashish, alcohol, and opium spreads among the population of occupied Constantinople
Late 17th Century A.D. Hashish becomes a major trade item between Central Asia and South Asia
1798 Napoleon discovers that much of the Egyptian lower class habitually uses hashish (Kimmens 1977). He declares a total prohibition. Soldiers returning to France bring the tradition with them.
19th Century A.D. Hashish production expands from Russian Turkestan into Yarkand in Chinese Turkestan
1809 Antoine Sylvestre de Sacy, a leading Arabist, reveals the etymology of the words "assassin" and "hashishin"
1840 In America, medicinal preparations with a Cannabis base are available. Hashish available in Persian pharmacies.
1843 Le Club des Hachichins, or Hashish Eater's Club, established in Paris
after 1850 Hashish appears in Greece
1856 British tax ganja and charas trade in India
c 1875 Cultivation for hashish introduced to Greece
1870 - 1880 First reports of hashish smoking on Greek mainland
1877 Kerr reports on Indian ganja and charas trade.
1890 Greek Department of Interior prohibits importance, cultivation and use of hashish.
since 1890 Hashish made illegal in Turkey
1893-1894 The India Hemp Drugs Commission Report is issued. (link to schaffer)
1893-1894 70,000 to 80,000 kg of hashish legally imported into India from Central Asia each year.
Early 20th Century Hashish smoking very popular throughout the Middle East.
1920 Metaxus dictators in Greece crack down on hashish smoking.
1920s Hashish smuggled into Egypt from Greece, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Central Asia
1926 Lebanese hashish production peaks after World War I until prohibited in 1926
1920's - 1930s High-quality hashish produced in Turkey near Greek border
1930 Yarkand region of Chinese Turkestan exports 91,471 kg of hashish legally into the Northwest Frontier and Punjab regions of India
1930s Legal taxed imports of hashish continue into India from Central Asia
1934-1935 Chinese government moves to end all Cannabis cultivation in Yarkand and charas traffic from Yarkand. Both licit and illicit hashish production become illegal in Chinese Turkestan.
1938 Supply of hashish from chinese Turkestan nearly ceases.
1940s Greek hashish smoking tradition fades.
1941 Indian government considers cultivation in Kashmir to fill void of hashish from Chinese Turkestan
1941-1942 Hand-rubbed charas from Nepal is choicest hashish in India during World War II
1945 Legal hashish consumption continues in India
1945-1955 Hashish use in Greece flourishes again
1950s Hashish still smuggled into India from Chinese Central Asia
1950s Moroccan government tacitly allows kif cultivation in Rif Mountains
1966 The Moroccan government attempts to purge kif growers from Rif Mountains
1962 First hashish made in Morocco
1963 Turkish police seize 2.5 tons of hashish
1965 First reports of C. afghanica use for hashish production in northern Afghanistan
1965 Mustafa comes to Ketama in Morocco to make hashish from local kif
1967 "Smash", the first hashish oil appears. Red Lebanese reaches California.
late 1960s and early 1970s The Brotherhood popularizes Afghani hashish.
early 1970s Lebanese red and blonde hashish of very high-quality exported. The highest quality Turkish hashish from Gaziantep near Syria appears in western Europe.
early 1970s Afghani hashish varieties introduced to North America for sinsemilla production. Westerners bring metal sieve cloths to Afghanistan. Law enforcement efforts against hashish begin in Afghanistan
1970 - 1973 Huge fields of Cannabis cultivated for hashish production in Afghanistan. Last years that truly great afghani hashish is available
1973 Nepal bans the Cannabis shops and charas export
1973 Afghan government makes hashish production and sales illegal. Afghani harves is pitifully small.
1976-1977 Quality of Lebanese hashish reaches zenith
1978 Westerners make sieved hashish in Nepal from wild Cannabis
late 1970s Increasing manufacture of "modern" Afghani hashish. Cannabis varieties from Afghanistan imported into Kashmir for sieved hashish production.
early 1980s Quality of Lebanese hashish declines
1980s Morocco becomes one of, if not the largest, hashish producing and exporting nations
1980s "border" hashish produced in northwestern Pakistan along the Afghan border to avoid Soviet-Afghan war
1983-1984 Small amounts of the last high-uality Turkish hashish appear.
1985 Hashish still produced by Muslims of Kashgar and Yarkland
1986 Most private stashes of pre-war Afghani hashish in Amsterdam, Goa, and America are nearly finished.
1987 Moroccan government cracks down upon Cannabis cultivation in lower eleations of Rif Mountains
1993 Eradication efforts resume in Morocco
1994 Heavy fighting between rival Muslim clans continues to upset hashish trade in Afghanistan
1994 Border hashish still produced in Pakistan
1995 Introduction of hashish-making equipment and appearance of locally produced hashish in Amsterdam coffee shops.
 

Crusader Rabbit

Active member
Veteran
Of course the quality strains of the past were just that, ... quality. Cultures around the Old World have been breeding cannabis for its psychoactive traits for countless generations now. Why should what we have today be somehow better?

The tropical and semitropical regions of North and South America were colonized by the Spanish, who themselves had once been semi-colonized by the Moors who were Arabians. So Spaniards would have brought Mideastern genetics across the Atlantic with them. The slave trade might have brought Central African genetics to Brazil and the Caribbean.
 

purple_man

Well-known member
Veteran
i guess there was MUCH more variation, since as stated above the UN/USA anti-drug policy was not yet enacted. plus if i remember right, decades earlier weed/hemp/hasj/opium trade was a BIG thing... (uk and the dutch earned a golden nose with it by the way). as well the "one hitter quitter" hasj described in that article, id suggest might be the old REAL DEAL turkish hasj (another country with a long weed/hasj tradition), since couple of years ago, i recieved some turkish hasj, which was very pliable, dark brown on the outside and yellow/orange inside, sweet taste, first 2-3 puffs made you feel sorta "high" but after 15 - 30 mins, i always fell asleep... so go figure :)

blessss
 
M

MrSterling

No details, but a couple little family stories. My uncle said he used to "smoked reefer" back in the '30s when he was a jazz musician. On the other side of the family my grandfather laughed about how non-plussed he was by pot in the '60s(as in not being worried about the kids smoking it), because he'd smoked hash as a sailor in Alexandria at the turn of the century. It's nice to know it's a good old family tradition.
 
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Cannabis was sold as an extract in multiple forms by the Pharmaceutical Industry. Prior to 1937. As stated it was legal and distributed via Drug Stores. I would guess that they had a supply other than mexican dirt weed. From an old guy that smoked in the 60's-70's My personal opinion is the Cannabis was better than what is found today.
 

jayjayfrank

Member
Veteran
ok so old phrama grew fields back in the late 1800s and early 1900s... what happened to the seeds? is there an old shack in kentucky with a million seeds from india?
 

Al Botross

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My grand grand pappy used to own a squab farm in the SFV, 50-60% of the pigeon food was hemp seed and once a year the FEDs came out with a few men and would clear the weed that was growing wild around his hutches, but grandpappy would move the really good ones a mile down the creek.but it used to look alot like green supreme's bud - good but under nutriance
 
My grand grand pappy used to own a squab farm in the SFV, 50-60% of the pigeon food was hemp seed and once a year the FEDs came out with a few men and would clear the weed that was growing wild around his hutches, but grandpappy would move the really good ones a mile down the creek.but it used to look alot like green supreme's bud - good but under nutriance

was it smokable
 

Crusader Rabbit

Active member
Veteran
This is post #46 from Congo: A study

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=5125041#post5125041

Nice story for a sale but Colombian strains were brought by American pharmaceutical companies in the early 1930s for developing strong pharmaceutical strains.Originally those strains were from Kalimantan.After the prohibition in 1937 those strains never left Colombia and found their way to other countries like Brazil or Panama.

Keep on growing


Kalimantan is the Indonesian portion of Borneo
 
N

noluv

Midnight Hour said:
Cannabis was sold as an extract in multiple forms by the Pharmaceutical Industry. Prior to 1937. As stated it was legal and distributed via Drug Stores. I would guess that they had a supply other than mexican dirt weed.
Not just extracts, also weed. From the S.B. Penick 1927 Catalog:

Penick-E.jpg


The weed was sold so you could brew a tincture at home yourself, hence boxes like this being called "home brew packages":

front-bottom.jpg


But...

According to the DEA in 1917 (known as the “Bureau of Chemistry” back then), the contents were also used by “Mexicans and whites of the lower classes” for smoking purposes.

In fact even pre-rolled Cannabis cigarettes existed:

C03CCigarigoIndio.jpg

C03ECigarigoIndiop.jpg


Apart from the commercial scale cultivation, pharmacists also grew Cannabis themselves and got local farmers to grow it for them. As they did with all kinds of medicinal plants. Worldwide trade also took place and imports were available (for example in the catalog above the Indica is "Imported" and the Sativa "Amer. cultivated").

In 1937 the Marihuana Tax Act was put into place and it fucked everything up. Except for the dealers of course, here's an interesting quote from those times:

A few years before the passage of the anti-Medical Marihuana laws, an ardent anti-narcotics crusader, by the name of Earle Rowell, wrote about a conversation he had had with a drug dealer. The conversation went as follows:

DRUG DEALER: I tell you, Marihuana is the coming thing.
ROWELL: But, I protested in surprise, "marihuana is not a habit-forming drug like morphine or heroin; and, besides, it's too cheap to bother with."
DRUG DEALER: He laughed. "You don't understand. Laws are being passed now by various states against it, and soon Uncle Sam will [also] put his ban on it. The price will then go up, and that will make it profitable for us to handle."

This quote also suggests that, despite the portrayal in the 1930's classic Reefer Madness, Cannabis wasn't really distributed by street dealers ("narcotics peddlers") back when it was still readily available in pharmacies (I don't think any kind of prescription was needed).

G.O. Joe said:
"The market price in January 1927 for domestic cannabis USP [sinse] was 23 to 33 cents a pound."

Where did those Mexicans get their genetics from?

Is the [sinse] your own addition? I have a very hard time believing they would have been growing it seedless at that time. Especially since, as you say, it was primarily for making tinctures. Although maybe they removed the seeds to sell them separately:
Penick-F.jpg



The images and quotes are from http://antiquecannabisbook.com. Fascinating site check it out.
 

G.O. Joe

Well-known member
Veteran
Some googled contemporary writing indicated that for the short time the American product was legally sold, males were pulled same as everyone else growing pot, and quality material had no seeds. Maybe they didn't grow their own seeds, maybe they greenhoused if they did. I doubt indica drug race seeds would have been sold as sativa hemp seeds, I wouldn't think the drug companies would want indica seeds available at all.

On actually looking up the USP standards that were referred to, the specification is for under a total of 10% seeds, stems over 3 mm diameter, and large leaves. Sounds like 1983. There is nothing that says take out the seeds.

http://antiquecannabisbook.com/Appendix/USP1926.htm
 
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