Marijuana
Cannabis has been used by people for at least two and a half thousand years. Mourners burned it in braziers in the Pamir mountains around 500 BC, Chinese herbals listed it, Indian texts made it sacred, and for most of recorded history the same plant was rope, sailcloth, paper and medicine. Then in the twentieth century a plant became a crime. Harry Anslinger built a bureau on it, Hollywood made Reefer Madness, a 1937 tax act ended the legal trade, and in 1970 the United States placed cannabis in Schedule I alongside heroin, where, formally, it largely remains. The war that followed filled prisons unequally and never removed the plant from a single city. Alongside all of it, cannabis kept doing what it had always done: it ran through jazz and reggae and hip-hop, it built its own cinema and its own comedy, and it became the subject of real science after Raphael Mechoulam isolated THC in 1964 and researchers found the receptor system it acts on. Then the law began to move, California in 1996, Colorado and Washington in 2012, Uruguay, Canada, Thailand, Germany. This is the whole arc: the plant, the archaeology, the propaganda, the records, the films, the raids, the research and the votes.
A chronological documentary of 571 moments spanning 4800 BC–2026 on Loreline.
Curated by Olivier · last updated 2026-08-22
Eras
- Ancient Roots, The oldest evidence there is. Braziers from the Jirzankal cemetery in the Pamirs, the Yanghai tombs in Turpan, Herodotus on the Scythians, the Chinese herbals, the Atharvaveda and bhang in India, and the long westward spread through the Islamic world into Africa and the Americas.
- Plant, What cannabis actually is. The botany and the long argument about sativa, indica and ruderalis; the trichomes that make the chemistry; THC and CBD and the terpenes around them; the genome, the domestication history and the landraces that regional growers shaped over centuries.
- Hemp and Industry, The same plant as a raw material. Rope, sailcloth, canvas and paper; the colonial hemp economy; the 1942 US government film Hemp for Victory made when the war cut off Manila fibre; and the modern industrial crop that the 2018 Farm Bill brought back to American fields.
- Science, What is actually known. Raphael Mechoulam isolating CBD and then THC in the sixties, the discovery of the receptors and of anandamide, the trials behind Epidiolex and Sativex, cannabis for epilepsy and for chemotherapy nausea, and, honestly, the risk side: psychosis research, cannabis use disorder, and what rising potency has changed.
- Reefer Madness, How a plant was turned into a menace. The 1936 exploitation films, Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, the newsreels and the press campaign, and the anti-drug advertising that ran from the fifties through DARE and the frying egg.
- Songs, The records themselves. The viper songs of thirties jazz, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, then calypso, Peter Tosh and reggae, Black Sabbath, Rick James, Cypress Hill, the Chronic era, Willie Nelson and everything after. The music, not documentaries about the musicians.
- Scene, Everything people built around it. The San Rafael students whose meeting time became 420, High Times and the Cannabis Cup, NORML and the marches, the Amsterdam coffeeshops and the Dutch tolerance policy, Rastafari, the counterculture, and the language a subculture invented to talk about itself.
- Drug War, Enforcement and its cost. Nixon in 1971, the Controlled Substances Act placing cannabis in Schedule I, the Shafer Commission that recommended decriminalisation and was ignored, eradication campaigns and raids, mandatory minimums, the deeply unequal arrest record, and the people who spent decades in prison for it.
- Legalisation, The law moving. California in 1996, Colorado and Washington in 2012, the first legal recreational sale on New Year's Day 2014, Uruguay first as a country, then Canada, Thailand, Malta, Luxembourg and Germany, alongside the banking problems, the expungement fights and the illicit market that legal shops never quite replaced.
- Screen and Comedy, Cannabis as a genre. Cheech and Chong inventing an entire kind of film in 1978, Dazed and Confused, Friday, Half Baked, The Big Lebowski, Pineapple Express and Harold and Kumar, the television that followed, and the stand-up comedy that has been working the same material for fifty years.
- - Spinning hemp on a historic wheel. A demonstrator in Schaumburg costume spins hemp fibre into thread on a historic spinning wheel at the Steinhude linen factory.
- - Hashish in Sufism and the first war on cannabis. Covers hashish in Sufi practice, the Thousand and One Nights, the earliest recorded campaigns of suppression, and the plant's movement during the Age of Discovery.
- - The Waldo 420 tapes, part one. Steven Hager's recorded conversations with the Waldos documenting the origin of the 420 code and its passage into cannabis culture.
- - New York's first legal recreational dispensary opens. Report on the 29 December 2022 opening of Manhattan's first licensed adult-use dispensary, run by a nonprofit under the state's equity programme.
- - BBC Reel: the prehistoric origins of the Silk Road. Kazakh and European archaeologists survey the Central Asian steppe for traces of the earliest routes that later became the Silk Road.
- - Comparing sativa, indica and ruderalis morphology in the greenhouse. Side-by-side greenhouse comparison of the three named cannabis types and how their growth habits actually differ.
- - Inside Singapore's deadly war on drugs. Al Jazeera's 101 East investigates Singapore's mandatory death penalty for trafficking, including executions for cannabis, and the government's defence of the policy.
- - Mark Bridgen on the propagation of Cannabis sativa. Cornell horticulture professor's webinar on clonal and seed propagation methods for the crop.
- - Hemp fibre detail. Close-up of processed hemp fibre.
- - Raphael Mechoulam: full unedited CBD Nation interview. Unedited 2018 interview filmed for the documentary CBD Nation, covering Mechoulam's whole research career on cannabinoids.
- - Roswell Park: cannabis and cancer for patients. Comprehensive cancer centre session on the evidence for cannabis in supportive cancer care, including nausea and appetite.
- - Cannabis glandular trichomes and harvest timing. Cornell hemp webinar by graduate researcher Steven Philpott on trichome development and what it means for harvest decisions.
- - Singapore executes a man for cannabis trafficking. TRT World reports Singapore's April 2023 execution of Tangaraju Suppiah for abetting a cannabis shipment, carried out despite appeals from the United Nations and human rights groups.
- - Schumer promotes the SAFE Banking Act. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer argues for legislation to give legal cannabis retailers access to the banking system.
- - Amsterdam bans outdoor smoking in the red light district. France 24 reports on the May 2023 street-smoking ban introduced by Amsterdam's mayor as part of a push against nuisance tourism.
- - Rastafari win sacramental rights to ganja. Associated Press report on Rastafari communities securing legal recognition of cannabis as a religious sacrament.
- - On location at Tel Arad: cannabis and an Israelite cult temple. A walk through the Canaanite city and Israelite fortress at Tel Arad, filmed at the site where cannabis was first identified in Near Eastern religious practice.
- - Hormonal regulation of cannabis prenyltransferase genes. Research presentation on the aromatic prenyltransferase enzymes that produce CBGA, the precursor of THC and CBD.
- - Dana-Farber on cannabis use during cancer treatment. Cancer centre guidance for adults using cannabis alongside cancer treatment, from the oncology care teams themselves.
- - US Botanic Garden: plant science conversations on hemp. National botanic garden discussion with researchers on hemp plant science and its industrial applications.
- - Tissue culture to accelerate propagation and combat pathogens. Technical seminar on using in vitro culture to clean plant stock of viruses and pathogens.
- - Ancient Egyptian medical uses of cannabis. A short survey of cannabis references in Egyptian medical papyri, including the Ebers Papyrus prescriptions and their modes of administration.
- - Agrobiodiversity in cannabis cultivation. A Society for Economic Botany and Society of Ethnobiology conference talk on landrace diversity and traditional cannabis agriculture, recorded at Emory University.
- - Medicinal cannabis and cannabidiol in the treatment of epilepsy. CURE Epilepsy webinar reviewing the clinical evidence for cannabidiol since the first FDA-approved prescription CBD medicine.
- - German Lawmakers Vote to Legalise Cannabis for Private Use. DW News on the Bundestag vote passing the CanG cannabis law, weeks before it came into force.
- - Cornell Keynotes: the versatility of hemp. Cornell keynote on hemp's range of end uses from fibre and grain to construction materials.
- - Reuters: Thailand to ban recreational cannabis. Report from February 2024 on the Thai health minister's plan to re-restrict cannabis to medical use only.
- - On the frontline of Thailand's war on drugs. SBS Dateline reports on Thai enforcement as the country moved to ban recreational cannabis again, two years after becoming the first Asian state to decriminalise it.
- - The Order of Assassins of Medieval Persia. Documentary on the eleventh-century Nizari Ismaili order at Alamut, separating the historical record from the hashish legend attached to them by later European writers.
- - Cannabis history in the Middle East. Traces hashish use across successive Middle Eastern regimes, from the medieval period through the early modern era.
- - Germany to Partially Legalise Cannabis from April 1. Bloomberg previews the German law days before it took effect, setting out what adults would be allowed to possess and grow.
- - CGTN: Germany Has Now Partially Legalised Marijuana. CGTN Europe on Germany's new rules allowing adults to grow up to three plants for personal use.
- - Germany Legalises Limited Amounts of Marijuana. Euronews on the German rules permitting adults 25g of cannabis and three home-grown plants from April 2024.
- - Germany Partially Decriminalises Cannabis. BBC News on the rules that came into force on 1 April 2024 permitting over-18s to possess and cultivate limited amounts.
- - After Germany's Partial Legalisation: The Pros and Cons. DW News from the Berlin celebrations at midnight on 1 April 2024, with debate over what the partial law does and does not permit.
- - Germany's new cannabis rules take effect. Channel 4 News explainer published on 1 April 2024, the day German adults could legally possess and grow small amounts.
- - The history of DARE. A history-podcast episode on Project DARE, launched in 1983 by LAPD chief Daryl Gates with the Los Angeles Unified School District, and the research that found it ineffective.
- - The Hazy Evolution of Cannabis. PBS Eons on the deep evolutionary origins of the cannabis plant, where it was first domesticated, and why it produces cannabinoids.
- - Did ancient people smoke cannabis? An archaeologist answers. Archaeologist Smiti Nathan reviews the material evidence for ancient cannabis consumption, from seed finds to residue analysis, and what each type of evidence can and cannot show.
- - Stefano Amaducci on hemp agronomy, quality and yield. Italian agronomist's 2024 Cornell hemp webinar on how field practices shape fibre and seed quality.
- - Forbes: what rescheduling would mean for the cannabis industry. Business analysis of how a move to Schedule III would relieve cannabis companies of the punitive federal tax treatment under section 280E.
- - The Congolese communities living off cannabis. VICE reports from the Democratic Republic of Congo on cannabis growing as a survival economy.
- - Teen marijuana use and psychotic disorders, NBC report. NBC News report with medical contributor Dr Vin Gupta on a study associating adolescent cannabis use with elevated psychotic disorder risk.
- - Plant tissue culture in cannabis production. Molecular biologist Shannon Smith on why tissue culture matters for clean stock and genetic preservation in cannabis.
- - Inside the Amsterdam coffeeshop supply problem. VICE's Weediquette on the Dutch 'back door' paradox: coffeeshops may sell cannabis but cannot legally be supplied with it.
- - Cannabis Clubs Allowed to Open in Germany. BBC News on the second stage of the German law, the non-profit cultivation associations permitted from July 2024.
- - Glandular trichome structure and biosynthesis. Lecture on the anatomy of cannabis glandular trichomes and the biosynthetic pathway operating inside them.
- - Cannabis use and psychosis risk: what we need to know. Washington Poison Center clinical webinar on cannabis-induced psychosis presentations in emergency departments and subsequent risk.
- - German Conservatives Threaten to Reverse Cannabis Legalisation. Euronews on the political backlash against the German law and the licensing problems facing cannabis clubs.
- - Inside the USDA hemp germplasm laboratory. Zach Stansell of USDA-ARS at Cornell AgriTech on the national hemp germplasm collection and what its accessions reveal about the crop's diversity.
- - Kurzgesagt: we have to talk about weed. Science-communication film reviewing the current evidence on cannabis harms, including psychosis risk and dependence.
- - Italy's cannabis-light trade threatened by a law change. Reuters report from November 2024 on the Meloni government's bill to shut down Italy's low-THC hemp flower industry.
- - Jibran Khokhar on cannabis, vaping and the teenage brain. Talk at the 2024 Amazing Brain Science Talks by a Western University neuroscientist on adolescent cannabis exposure.
- - How cannabis is regulated across Europe. Euronews explainer mapping the patchwork of European cannabis laws, from decriminalisation to regulated sale.
- - Could German legalisation change European drug policy?. Euronews interview with an EU drugs agency analyst on whether Germany's law shifts policy across the bloc.
- - Ontario records study links cannabis and schizophrenia. Report on research covering the medical records of 11.5 million Ontarians after recreational legalisation, finding an association with schizophrenia diagnoses.
- - Cannabis use and cardiovascular health: NHANES, MESA and CARDIA. UC San Diego Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research seminar of February 2025 by Jamie Corroon on cardiovascular signals in large US cohort datasets.
- - Bhang, India's Sacred Holi Drink. Cultural history of bhang in India, its preparation, its role in Holi and Shiva worship, and its ambiguous legal status.
- - Ian Graham: molecular breeding of hemp seed oil varieties. University of York researcher's 2025 Cornell hemp webinar on breeding industrial hemp for seed oil composition.
- - Scientific American on the science of THC. Science magazine explainer on how THC acts on the body and brain, and why the effects are so varied.
- - Heavy cannabis use in over-45s linked to dementia risk. Report on Canadian research covering six million people aged 45 and older, associating severe cannabis use with later dementia diagnoses.
- - This ancient Israelite altar burned cannabis. Religion scholar Andrew Mark Henry examines the cannabis residue identified on the 2,700-year-old Tel Arad altar and what it implies about Judahite temple ritual and Hezekiah's reforms.
- - Forbes: US cannabis companies chase a green rush in Europe. Report from May 2025 on American cannabis operators expanding into European markets with friendlier regulation and lower taxes.
- - Ann Arbor Hash Bash 2025 with Adam Brook. Archive footage of the 2025 Hash Bash presented by longtime organiser Adam Brook.
- - Thailand Moves to Recriminalise Cannabis. Reuters on the June 2025 order restricting cannabis to prescription-only use, upending a billion-dollar industry built after the 2022 delisting.
- - Thailand Set to Reverse Decriminalisation of Cannabis. ABC Australia on the Thai government reimposing controls and leaving the industry in limbo.
- - CNN: why Thailand reversed its cannabis policy. Report from June 2025 on new Thai rules requiring a prescription, three years after decriminalisation.
- - The Lower Sioux Community Builds With Hempcrete. KARE 11 report on the Lower Sioux Indian Community constructing Minnesota's first hempcrete home using hemp grown on the reservation.
- - The crumbling business of marijuana. Long-form business analysis of why many legal cannabis companies lost money despite legalisation, covering taxation, oversupply and the persistent illicit market.
- - How DARE Was Built and Why It Failed. Long-form investigation of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education programme, its expansion across American schools and the research showing it did not reduce drug use.
- - The cannabis pangenome: diversity, genes and evolution. Explainer walking through recent pangenome studies of Cannabis sativa and what they show about the plant's genetic diversity.
- - Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, extended CBS interview. A long-form 2025 CBS Sunday Morning interview with the duo reflecting on their career and the culture they helped create.
…451 further moments continue the chronology here. Full text archive: /loreline-text/marijuana.md
- - The tomb of the Scythian prince. A French-language archaeology documentary on Scythian burial mounds and the steppe culture Herodotus described inhaling cannabis vapour in closed tents.
- - The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 and its St Louis connection. A local-history presentation on Congressman Thomas C. Hennings Jr and the 1930s legislative push that produced the federal Marihuana Tax Act.
- - The come-down from Thailand's cannabis experiment. SBS report from August 2025 on the Thai government moving to outlaw recreational cannabis after a three-year boom.
- - Thailand's policy U-turn leaves the industry dazed. SBS report on the Thai health minister's order re-restricting cannabis and its effect on thousands of dispensaries.
- - Travelling with Herodotus: The Scythian Nomads. Detailed walk through Herodotus's Book Four on the Scythians of the Black Sea steppe, their customs and their funerary rites.
- - New York cannabis retail sales pass one billion dollars. Local news item from September 2025 reporting New York's legal cannabis retail sales reaching 1.06 billion dollars for the year to date.
- - Todd Michael: mapping cannabis diversity with a pangenome. Salk Institute genome researcher presents a cannabis pangenome capturing variation that a single reference genome misses.
- - The Origins of Cannabis: Deep Roots. Long-form research review of the botanical and archaeological origins of cannabis, drawing on published academic literature.
- - Hemp, the Billion-Dollar Crop That Wasn't. Business history of hemp fibre from the 1938 Popular Mechanics 'new billion-dollar crop' article to its near-absence from modern textiles.
- - NPR: European cannabis back-pain studies will need US replication. Report on European trial findings that cannabis helps chronic back pain, and why the studies must be repeated in the United States for regulatory purposes.
- - Cannabis in Pre-Colonial Africa. How cannabis reached Africa via Indian Ocean trade, its regional names, and the African invention of the water pipe long before modern smoking culture.
- - The National Cannabis Study with Ryan Vandrey and Johannes Thrul. Johns Hopkins researchers present the design and early findings of a large national study of cannabis use and health.
- - What Schedule III would mean for medical cannabis. NBC report from December 2025 ahead of an executive order fast-tracking cannabis reclassification.
- - Lawmakers react to the cannabis rescheduling order. Broadcast report the day after the December 2025 executive order directing that marijuana no longer be treated as a Schedule I drug.
- - What the rescheduling of cannabis actually means. Denver station explainer on the executive order moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III and the limits of that change.
- - New Czech rules on cannabis cultivation and possession. Prague news item from 1 January 2026, the day a Czech criminal-law reform legalising limited home cultivation took effect.
- - Psychedelic posters: a dealers' symposium talk. Ted Bahr of the Bahr Gallery lectures on psychedelic poster art at the International Vintage Poster Dealers Association symposium in New York, December 2025.
- - Cannabis Research Institute: cannabis science and the endocannabinoid system. Inaugural session of the CRI Public Research Series, recorded October 2025, surveying cannabis science for a general audience.
- - Hemp: A Useful Resource. ARTE documentary following a Saxon farmer trying to re-establish hemp fibre production in Germany after centuries of know-how were lost.
- - Rise in psychotic disorder diagnoses linked to cannabis use. CBC report on a Canadian Medical Association Journal study finding a sharp rise in psychotic disorder diagnoses in young people over nearly fifty years.
- - Thailand's push to recriminalise cannabis. Bloomberg report from February 2026, four years after decriminalisation, on the crossroads facing Thailand's cannabis market.
- - Cannabis and psychosis, a NIMHANS lecture. Lecture by Dr Venkata Lakshmi Narasimha of India's National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences on cannabis-related psychotic illness.
- - Are cannabis terpenes therapeutic?. Catherine Cahill of the UCLA Brain Research Institute examines whether terpenes have pharmacological effects beyond their aroma.
- - Inside Thailand's cannabis industry. Documentary following three cannabis farmers in northern Thailand as the country's legal framework shifts under them.
- - ICRS Ethan Russo Trainee Prize webinar, 2026. International Cannabinoid Research Society webinar presenting prize-winning early-career cannabinoid research.
- - Pavel Bém on Czechia's next wave of drug policy reform. Interview with the Czech national drug policy coordinator, a psychiatrist and former mayor of Prague, on the country's regulated-market plans.
- - Sexual strategies and chromosome evolution in Cannabis sativa. Daniela Vergara of the Agricultural Genomics Foundation and Cornell on sex determination and sex-chromosome evolution in the plant.
- - Cannabis tissue culture for advanced propagation. Carlos Ribelles on in vitro culture techniques for preserving and multiplying medicinal cannabis genetics.
- - ARTE: should the state legalise and regulate cannabis?. European public-broadcaster debate documentary weighing state regulation against leaving the market to illicit dealers.
- - ABC News: the legalisation debate shifts as reclassification looms. Interview with policy analyst Shanita Penny on how federal reclassification changes the state-by-state legalisation picture.
- - Attorney General reclassifies medical marijuana to Schedule III. Breaking report on the April 2026 Justice Department order moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III.
- - Colorado virtual hemp symposium, April 2026. State agriculture department symposium with hemp programme, federal agency and public health updates for growers.
- - Genetics of powdery mildew resistance in Cannabis sativa. Cornell faculty lightning talk of May 2026 by Larry Smart on breeding disease resistance into the crop.
- - Cannabis genetics panel, Berlin 2026. Panel on the state of cannabis breeding and genetics as home cultivation and legal markets expand worldwide.
- - Classifying cannabis plants by terpene profile. Agricultural engineer Iñaki García presents a chemotype classification of cannabis varieties based on terpene composition rather than strain names.
- - DEA hearing on marijuana reclassification opens. Washington broadcast report from 29 June 2026 as federal officials convened to examine whether marijuana should be reclassified.
- - Crop History Consortium: cannabis and hemp. Academic webinar on the agricultural history of cannabis and hemp in the Middle East and Mediterranean.
- - Hemp in colonial America, part one. How hemp cultivation was mandated in early colonial charters for rope, sailcloth and cordage, long before cannabis acquired its modern legal identity.
- - An Architect's Hempcrete Home. Return visit to a hempcrete house designed by an architect, examining how the hemp-lime walls have performed over years of occupation.
- - Behind the scenes on Up in Smoke, with Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. A retrospective on the making of the 1978 film, with both principals discussing production.
- - Democrats reintroduce federal cannabis legalisation legislation. Report from July 2026 on a bill backed by eighteen Democrats seeking full federal legalisation.
- - Regenerative cannabis cultivation: microbiomes and living soil. CannMed 2026 panel on soil microbiology and biological resilience in cannabis cropping systems.
- - Hemp in colonial America, part two. The second part traces hemp's role in colonial agriculture and shipping through to the early republic.
- - The 1937 hearing that criminalised cannabis. An account of the brief 1937 congressional hearings on the Marihuana Tax Act, including the American Medical Association's objection and the contested testimony on which the law was passed.
- - The history of Amsterdam coffeeshops, part one. Traces the emergence of Amsterdam coffeeshop culture from Mellow Yellow onwards and the Dutch gedoogbeleid tolerance policy that permitted it.
- - The true origin of the war on drugs: what historians get wrong. A long-form history that interrogates the popular Ehrlichman account and argues the drug war's origins are older and more bureaucratic than the single-quote story suggests.
- - How Cheech and Chong reunited after twenty years. The pair recount their long breakup and the reunion that Tommy Chong's son helped broker, in an interview on All The Smoke.
- - Study links cannabis to earlier onset of psychosis. Australian broadcast report on research finding cannabis users who develop psychosis in their thirties show symptoms roughly six years earlier than non-users with the condition.
Full text archive: /loreline-text/marijuana.md
