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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
  
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2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
« on: 2008-11-28 13:30:38 » |
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[Blunderov] Legalize it already. 
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3620778
http://www.torontosun.com/news/weird/2008/11/27/7557641.html
Friday, November 28, 2008
2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
By THE CANADIAN PRESS
Last Updated: 27th November 2008, 3:09pm
Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.
The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.
The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.
The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour.
"To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.
Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus. But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.
The 18 researchers, most of them based in China, subjected the cannabis to a battery of tests, including carbon dating and genetic analysis. Scientists also tried to germinate 100 of the seeds found in the cache, without success.
The marijuana was found to have a relatively high content of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis, but the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage.
Researchers also could not determine whether the cannabis was smoked or ingested, as there were no pipes or other clues in the tomb of the shaman, who was about 45 years old.
The large cache was contained in a leather basket and in a wooden bowl, and was likely meant to be used by the shaman in the afterlife.
"This materially is unequivocally cannabis, and no material has previously had this degree of analysis possible," Russo said in an interview from Missoula, Mont.
"It was common practice in burials to provide materials needed for the afterlife. No hemp or seeds were provided for fabric or food. Rather, cannabis as medicine or for visionary purposes was supplied."
The tomb also contained bridles, archery equipment and a harp, confirming the man's high social standing.
Russo is a full-time consultant with GW Pharmaceuticals, which makes Sativex, a cannabis-based medicine approved in Canada for pain linked to multiple sclerosis and cancer.
The company operates a cannabis-testing laboratory at a secret location in southern England to monitor crop quality for producing Sativex, and allowed Russo use of the facility for tests on 11 grams of the tomb cannabis.
Researchers needed about 10 months to cut red tape barring the transfer of the cannabis to England from China, Russo said.
The inter-disciplinary study was published this week by the British-based botany journal, which uses independent reviewers to ensure the accuracy and objectivity of all submitted papers.
The substance has been found in two of the 500 Gushi tombs excavated so far in northwestern China, indicating that cannabis was either restricted for use by a few individuals or was administered as a medicine to others through shamans, Russo said.
"It certainly does indicate that cannabis has been used by man for a variety of purposes for thousands of years."
Russo, who had a neurology practice for 20 years, has previously published studies examining the history of cannabis.
"I hope we can avoid some of the political liabilities of the issue," he said, referring to his latest paper.
The region of China where the tomb is located, Xinjiang, is considered an original source of many cannabis strains worldwide.
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Fritz
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Re:2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
« Reply #1 on: 2008-11-28 18:07:45 » |
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Quote:| [Blunderov] Legalize it already. |
[Fritz] 3 people e-mailed me this story and here it is first on the recent post at CoV. I'm not sure what the world is telling me ... but yes Legalize it already ... and pass it on already.
Note: the Marijuana party has been notably absent from the Canada political scene as of late and the current 'neocon' regime wants to crack down on the nasty weed; apparently we are aiding in the downfall of the US by passing it on.
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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Hermit
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Prime example of a practically perfect person
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Re:2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
« Reply #2 on: 2008-11-28 19:30:50 » |
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[Fritz] apparently we are aiding in the downfall of the US by passing it on
[Hermit] A laudable ambition, but I'm not sure that cannabis is a very effective vehicle to achieve it. After all, I think that most Americans are using it already. Indeed, on admission, it appears that it has become a gateway drug - to the presidency.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
« Reply #3 on: 2008-11-29 00:01:19 » |
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[Blunderov] The inimitable Bill Hicks (another one who checked out to early). " Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn't the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit... unnatural? You know what I mean? It's nature. How do you make nature against the fucking law?" *
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3835263878054483779
* more at http://www.konformist.com/2001/hicks.htm
eg
"Watching television is like taking black spray paint to your third eye."
"Supreme Court says pornography is anything without artistic merit that causes sexual thoughts, that's their definition, essentially. No artistic merit, causes sexual thoughts. Hmm... Sounds like...every commercial on television, doesn't it? You know, when I see those two twins on that Doublemint commercial? I'm not thinking of gum. I am thinking of chewing, so maybe that's the connection they're trying to make."
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MoEnzyme
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infidel lab animal
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Re:2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
« Reply #4 on: 2008-11-29 04:37:40 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2008-11-28 19:30:50 [Fritz] apparently we are aiding in the downfall of the US by passing it on
[Hermit] A laudable ambition, but I'm not sure that cannabis is a very effective vehicle to achieve it. After all, I think that most Americans are using it already. Indeed, on admission, it appears that it has become a gateway drug - to the presidency.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
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Well Dogammit! I guess I'm just not smoking enough. Maybe more people would listen to me if I'd just smoke more shit. Hmmmmmmm, whether it works or not, that could be fun. Excuse me folks, I need to get busy on that.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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the.bricoleur
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making sense of change
 
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Re:2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
« Reply #5 on: 2008-11-29 05:11:14 » |
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Phytochemical and genetic analyses of ancient cannabis from Central Asia
Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol. 59, No. 15, pp. 4171–4182, 2008
Authors: Russo et al
Abstract: The Yanghai Tombs near Turpan, Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region, China have recently been excavated to reveal the 2700-year-old grave of a Caucasoid shaman whose accoutrements included a large cache of cannabis, superbly preserved by climatic and burial conditions. A multidisciplinary international team demonstrated through botanical examination, phytochemical investigation, and genetic deoxyribonucleic acid analysis by polymerase chain reaction that this material contained tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of cannabis, its oxidative degradation product, cannabinol, other metabolites, and its synthetic enzyme, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid synthase, as well as a novel genetic variant with two single nucleotide polymorphisms. The cannabis was presumably employed by this culture as a medicinal or psychoactive agent, or an aid to divination. To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent, and contribute to the medical and archaeological record of this pre-Silk Road culture.
ref: Oxford Journal
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I am inspired, let me go medicate myself, epilepsy can be crippling you know ...
-iolo
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MoEnzyme
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infidel lab animal
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Re:2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
« Reply #6 on: 2008-11-29 06:47:20 » |
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Quote from: Iolo Morganwg on 2008-11-29 05:11:14
Phytochemical and genetic analyses of ancient cannabis from Central Asia
Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol. 59, No. 15, pp. 4171–4182, 2008
Authors: Russo et al . . . Oxford Journal . . .
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I am inspired, let me go medicate myself, epilepsy can be crippling you know ...
-iolo
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If I'm reading this stuff right, that pot is still good to smoke, actually has a high THC content even though they couldn't get the seeds to sprout. That's way cool . . . .
-Mo
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
« Reply #7 on: 2008-11-29 07:58:39 » |
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<snip>"Chinese characters TA MA, the oldest known name for cannabis
TA (pronounced DA). Literally this means an adult man, and by extension may signify great or tall.
MA. It represents a fiber plant, literally a clump of plants, growing near a dwelling. Hence, the two symbols together mean "the tall fiber plant,'' which everywhere in China signifies cannabis."<snip>
http://www.churchofvirus.org/bbs/index.php?board=63;action=display;threadid=39262;start=0
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
« Reply #8 on: 2008-11-29 08:33:03 » |
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Quote from: Iolo Morganwg on 2008-11-29 05:11:14
<snip>a novel genetic variant with two single nucleotide polymorphisms. </snip> |
[Blunderov] A shoo in for The Cannabis Cup title. Imagine what it could earn; "Shaman Purple". Mmm. This is beginning to sound like a movie plot - oh noes! More research. Must research. Research is good. Yes.
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letheomaniac
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Re:2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
« Reply #9 on: 2009-02-28 02:37:13 » |
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[Blunderov/Bill Hicks]:
Quote:| " Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn't the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit... unnatural? You know what I mean? It's nature. How do you make nature against the fucking law?" |
[letheomaniac] You said it!  On the plus side, California seems to have found some common sense at the bottom of its empty pocket...
Source: http://www.alternet.org
Author: Bruce Mirken
Dated: 25/2/2009
Will Legalizing Pot Save California from its Cash Crunch?
A new bill could make make marijuana California's newest cash crop.
California state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has announced the introduction of legislation to tax and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcoholic beverages. The bill, the first of its kind ever introduced in California, would create a regulatory structure similar to that used for beer, wine, and liquor, permitting taxed sales to adults while barring sales to or possession by those under 21.
Estimates based on federal government statistics have shown marijuana to be California’s top cash crop, valued at approximately $14 billion in 2006 — nearly twice the combined value of the state’s number two and three crops, vegetables ($5.7 billion) and grapes ($2.6 billion) — in spite of massive “eradication” efforts that wipe out an average of nearly 36,000 cultivation sites per year without making a dent in this underground industry.
Ammiano introduced the measure at a San Francisco press conference this morning, saying, “With the state in the midst of an historic economic crisis, the move towards regulating and taxing marijuana is simply common sense. This legislation would generate much needed revenue for the state, restrict access to only those over 21, end the environmental damage to our public lands from illicit crops, and improve public safety by redirecting law enforcement efforts to more serious crimes,” said Ammiano. “California has the opportunity to be the first state in the nation to enact a smart, responsible public policy for the control and regulation of marijuana.”
“It is simply nonsensical that California’s largest agricultural industry is completely unregulated and untaxed,” said Marijuana Policy Project California policy director Aaron Smith, who also spoke at the news conference. “With our state in an ongoing fiscal crisis — and no one believes the new budget is the end of California’s financial woes — it’s time to bring this major piece of our economy into the light of day.”
Independent experts from around the world, from President Nixon’s National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse in 1972 to a Canadian Senate special committee in 2002, have long contended that criminalizing marijuana users makes little sense, given that marijuana is less addictive, much less toxic, and far less likely to induce aggression or violence than alcohol. For example, in an article in the December 2008 Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Australian researcher Stephen Kisely noted that “penalties bear little relation to the actual harm associated with cannabis.”
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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker
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Blunderov
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Re:2,700-year-old marijuana stash found
« Reply #10 on: 2009-03-29 17:45:57 » |
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[Blunderov] What follows is, of course, pertinent to more than just drug prohibition; abortion and prostitution spring readily to mind.
Confessions of a Philosopher. *
By Bryan Magee**
Phoenix
ISBN 0 75380 471 9
Chapter 8, page 156
A Yale Education
“The subject of Northrop’s seminar can be stated simply enough. With regard to every human community he distinguished between its positive law and what he called it’s “living law”, and what he was concerned with was the complex relationship between the two. Positive law was enacted by the government and enforced by the administrative apparatus. Except where what obtained was arbitrary rule by an individual, the positive law was consciously considered, discussed with or among the highly placed, and made public in some form of words that would thereafter be referred to, and was capable of fairly swift change. But at the same time people in in every community were brought up to do a whole host of things in particular ways that had nothing to do with the positive law; there was a rich mix of established procedure, custom, habit, mutual expectation, assumption, common language, family structure, folk memory, popular art and entertainment, public observances, rituals, possibly a religion and so on and so forth, all woven into complex patterns that went on from generation to generation. These had not come into existence by any process of rational consideration or debate, they were not for the most part explicitly formulated in language, they could not be changed by any individual, and if they changed at all it was only slowly. This was what he meant by the ‘living law’ of a community and it was what more than anything else gave a community its unique identity. He argued that the attachment of human beings to their living law was always deeper, stronger and more emotionally felt than their allegiance to the positive law, with the consequence was that if the two came into conflict people’s spontaneous response was to break the positive law as much as they could get away with. If the positive law came too persistently into conflict with the living law the result would be serious social disruption and upheaval. “
*[Bl.] This has proved to be a very important book for me. I can recommend it to anyone who, like me, is struggling to come to grips with the, dare I say it, art of philosophy. If these sorts of thing bother you as intensely as they do me, there is salve within. (The chapter on Schopenhauer is stunningly revelatory.)
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Magee
Bryan Edgar Magee (born 12 April 1930) is a noted British broadcasting personality, politician, and author, best known as a popularizer of philosophy.
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