For about 100 years, we have been banishing a goddess who has been with us since the beginning of our culture. It is time to restore her to her former glory. We should revere her, honor what she has done for us humans.
Cannabis was around when we became settlers. Some 12,000 years ago, we stopped roaming the forests as hunter-gatherers. We started living as farmers and herders. And cannabis was one of the first plants we cultivated.
So we could make clothes, ropes, oils and medicine.
And we could dream our way back to the days when we were free. Cannabis was the connection to our primal state. It still is today.
RITUALS.
For thousands of years, this plant has accompanied us through our rituals: even the Greek scholar Herodotus described burials among the equestrian people of the Scythians. They would gather in a tent, throw hemp seeds onto glowing stones, and then purify themselves in the smoke.
The Chinese Gushi culture gave their dead highly psychoactive cannabis flowers to take to the grave, sustenance for their journey to the other worlds.
And in the Old Testament of the Bible, God commands the prophet Moses to make a holy oil. In addition to cinnamon and myrrh, Moses was to use "kaneh bosm" - cannabis.
MEDICINE.
For thousands of years, this plant has healed our sick: Already, about 2300 years ago, cannabis was used in Asia against malaria and rheumatism.
Pliny the Elder and Pedanios recommended the holy plant to the Romans against various types of pain.
And since the Middle Ages, millions of women in Europe have given birth to their children under the calming influence of cannabis.
CULTURE.
For thousands of years, this plant has helped us in our cultural development: Venice could never have become such a trading power without its quality hemp ropes and sails.
The Vikings would never have made it to America without hemp sails and clothing: in 1909, a 1,000-year-old Viking tapestry was found in a Swedish church, woven from hemp.
Charlemagne had "canava" grown throughout Europe in 812.
And Gutenberg printed the first German Bible on hemp paper in 1455. And here, too, the sacred plant was helpful to us: its paper is much more durable than today's paper made from wood pulp.
The first draft of the US Declaration of Independence was also sketched on hemp paper.
Unfortunately, the smear campaign and the wave of prohibition against mankind's oldest companion also came from this country:
In the 1930s, FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics) head Harry J. Anslinger unleashed a war on cannabis. He had lunatic, racist stories spread about "reefer madness" and agitated for U.S.-wide cannabis prohibition.
Anslinger was supported financially and politically by chemical corporations such as DuPont, which were thus able to multiply sales of their new inventions, e.g. polyester and nylon.
In 1960, the modern witch hunter even instrumentalized the UN to enforce a worldwide ban.
We have almost forgotten her, our companion of the first hour. We have accepted that she is seen as a dangerous drug. We have lost our self-respect, hiding with her in dark corners, denying and hiding her.
It's time to give it back the status it deserves. Not as a legalized "recreational drug", as a "relaxation drug". Not with any compromises. Her status is that of a friend we have known for a very long time. And who has known us for a very long time.
Cannabis is part of our culture.
It has calmed us, uplifted us, inspired us, satisfied us and put us in touch with ourselves. She does not deserve to be banned, degraded and treated so disrespectfully. She is a goddess of primitive times, when mankind was still young.
