Cannabis from Antiquity to the Modern Age: A Short History of Getting High

Cannabis is no modern phenomenon and no product of 20th-century counterculture. For thousands of years, hemp was part of medicine, ritual, religion and everyday culture. People used the plant to ease pain, expand consciousness or deepen spiritual experiences. Depending on the era and region, attitudes toward it swung between medical matter-of-factness and moral scepticism. A cross-epochal look reveals that dealing with cannabis was normalized for a long time; it only became problematized and politicized much later.

Antiquity: medicine, ritual and intoxication

In antiquity, cannabis was known above all as a healing and ritual plant, often embedded in a holistic understanding of body, mind and nature. In the 5th century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus described the hemp vapour baths of the Scythians, which he portrayed as ecstatic and purifying. Practices like these suggest that psychoactive use did not take place on the fringes but could be part of social and ritual acts. Physicians such as Dioscorides and Galen listed cannabis in their pharmacological works as an effective remedy against pain, inflammation and sleep disorders. What mattered was less a moral judgement than the question of dosage, effect and context, a pragmatic outlook typical of many ancient healing traditions.

Late antiquity and the early Middle Ages: knowledge transfer instead of prohibition

As political centres shifted, medical knowledge was not simply lost but continued to circulate through new networks. In the Arab-Islamic world in particular, the study of medicinal plants was collected, annotated and systematized, often on the basis of ancient sources but supplemented with fresh observations. The Persian physician Ibn Sina (Avicenna) described hemp preparations in his Canon of Medicine in nuanced terms and placed them within a broad understanding of symptoms and therapy. There, cannabis appeared not as a taboo but as an active substance to be used responsibly. It was precisely this sober attitude that kept such texts relevant for centuries, including for later European medicine.

The Middle Ages: an everyday plant with a darker side

In the European Middle Ages, hemp was above all an indispensable crop: for ropes, fabrics, sails and paper, and thus for infrastructure and trade. At the same time, parts of the Islamic world and North Africa saw widespread hashish use, judged very differently from one culture to the next. Chroniclers and scholars such as al-Maqrizi documented its use in cities like Cairo, including the social tensions, religious criticism and early attempts at regulation. These reports show that cannabis was not only consumed privately but was socially visible. The legends surrounding the Hashashin additionally mark how early cannabis was drawn into political narratives: as a screen onto which fear, control and hostile images were projected, regardless of how reliable individual claims actually were.

The early modern period: between alchemy and empiricism

With the Renaissance and humanism, the view of natural substances changed once again: observation, experience and practical effectiveness gained weight. Healers, apothecaries and physicians continued to work with plant-based drugs, often in the form of extracts, salves or tinctures, and cannabis remained part of this medical repertoire. Figures such as Paracelsus embody a transition: away from mere deference to authority and toward more experimental thinking and a stronger emphasis on dosage. Travel accounts also became more important, because they carried knowledge about plants and forms of use from other regions to Europe. Naturalists such as Engelbert Kaempfer described cannabis use in Asia and the Orient matter-of-factly and with ethnographic curiosity. This gave rise to an image of cannabis as a global cultural plant whose meaning shifted from region to region between medicine, pleasure and ritual.

The 19th century: cannabis as science and inspiration

In the 19th century, cannabis came strongly back into European focus through colonial medicine and scientific networks. William Brooke O'Shaughnessy made cannabis medicine known in the Western context by observing its effects, documenting them and describing therapeutic applications. Pharmacologists such as Louis Lewin placed cannabis within an emerging modern science of drugs and discussed its benefits, risks and typical effects with growing rigour. In parallel, a cultural cannabis scene arose in literary circles: hashish was perceived as a consciousness-altering experience and an object of intellectual reflection. Authors such as Fitz Hugh Ludlow and Charles Baudelaire described their experiences not only sensationally but also analytically, at times cautionary, at times fascinated. Cannabis thus became both a research subject and a cultural theme, a dual role that strongly shaped the 19th century.

The early 20th century: from research subject to taboo

As late as the 1920s and 1930s, cannabis experiments in certain circles were no scandal but part of self-observation, psychology and philosophical inquiry. Walter Benjamin, for instance, took part in hashish sessions that were often recorded and that examined perception, language and the sense of time. Such texts show that in the interwar years cannabis was discussed not only as intoxication but as a gateway to phenomena of consciousness. At the same time, the political framework shifted: international treaties, moral campaigns and national legislation shaped a new picture in which cannabis was increasingly seen as a threat to society. This changed not only the legal situation but also the cultural narrative about those who consumed it. Step by step, a plant with diverse, historically grown meanings became a symbol of deviance and control.