History of Marijuana: Cannabis From the Stone Age to Legalization

By James Buddsey · Updated November 2, 2026

Cannabis is one of humanity’s oldest crops: genetic research shows it was domesticated in East Asia in early Neolithic times, roughly 12,000 years ago, and the earliest direct chemical evidence of people smoking it for its effects comes from 2,500-year-old graves in the Pamir Mountains of western China. From there it spread as fiber, food, medicine and ritual drug across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Global prohibition arrived only in the 20th century, and legalization began with Uruguay in 2013.

This is the world history of cannabis, from Stone Age farmers to the United Nations. For the American story, from colonial hemp to the 2026 rescheduling order, see our history of marijuana in the United States. Every date below links to a source; where the evidence is thin or disputed, we say so.

World Cannabis History at a Glance

Sources for the table are linked in the sections below.

Where Did Cannabis Come From?

The best evidence now comes from DNA. A 2021 study in Science Advances sequenced the genomes of 110 cannabis plants from around the world and concluded that Cannabis sativa was first domesticated in East Asia in early Neolithic times. The authors’ genomic dating puts the split of domesticated cannabis from its wild ancestors at about 12,000 years ago, and found that the plants were used as a multipurpose crop until about 4,000 years ago, when breeding for fiber and for drug content pulled hemp and marijuana apart (Ren et al., 2021). Today’s feral plants and landraces in China are the closest living relatives of that ancestral pool.

Archaeology fits the genetics. The same study notes cord-impressed pottery from South China and Taiwan dated to about 12,000 years ago and seeds found with pottery in Japan from about 10,000 years ago. Cannabis seeds from the Oki Islands of Japan date to roughly 8000 BCE, and hemp cord impressions appear on Chinese Yangshao pottery from the 5th millennium BCE, according to the history of cannabis. Older articles, including an early version of this page, claimed a “10,000-year-old village in Taiwan”; the pottery evidence is real, but the details are less tidy than that story.

How Old Is the Cannabis Plant Itself?

Cannabis is far older than cannabis farming. Its lineage split from hops (Humulus) about 28 million years ago. A 2019 review of fossil pollen studies by John McPartland and colleagues placed its center of origin on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau, near Qinghai Lake, and found the plant had reached Europe by about 6 million years ago and eastern China by about 1.2 million years ago (McPartland, Hegman and Long, 2019). The authors present the Tibetan origin as a hypothesis, and it is still debated. Our explainer on how old cannabis is covers the plant’s evolution in more detail.

Ancient China: Fiber, Food and Medicine

For most of Chinese history cannabis was a practical crop. Hemp made rope, cloth and shoes, and its seeds were eaten as grain. Chinese farmers distinguished male plants, valued for fiber, from seed-bearing female plants.

Medical use is recorded in the Shennong Bencaojing, a classic of Chinese herbal medicine attributed to the legendary emperor Shennong. The text itself was compiled much later than the legend, around the 1st to 3rd century CE depending on the source, according to the history of medical cannabis. The surgeon Hua Tuo, who lived around 140 to 208 CE, is said to have used powdered cannabis in wine as an anesthetic.

The First Evidence of Getting High

Using cannabis as a drug requires plants with meaningful THC, and direct proof is rare. The clearest early case comes from the Jirzankal Cemetery in the eastern Pamir Mountains, where researchers found residue of cannabis burned in wooden braziers during funerals around 500 BCE. The chemistry showed high levels of psychoactive compounds, evidence that people were smoking cannabis for ritual purposes at least 2,500 years ago (Ren et al., 2019, Science Advances).

Further west, according to the history of cannabis, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote in the 5th century BCE that the Scythians, nomads of the Eurasian steppe, threw hemp seeds on hot stones inside small tents and howled with pleasure in the vapor. Seeds and equipment from the Pazyryk burials in Siberia, from the 5th to 2nd centuries BCE, support his account. The oldest stash ever found comes from the Yanghai Tombs near Turpan in Xinjiang, China: a grave about 2,700 years old held 789 grams of cannabis, and chemical and genetic tests showed it came from psychoactive plants (Russo et al., 2008, Journal of Experimental Botany). In the Kingdom of Judah, analysis of two altars at a shrine at Tel Arad found burned cannabis residue from the 8th century BCE (Arie et al., 2020).

India: Bhang, Ganja and Charas

No culture has woven cannabis into religion as deeply as India’s. Bhang, a drink or paste made from leaves and flowers, was used in food and drink by about 1000 BCE, and cannabis was grown near South Asian cities by about 500 BCE, according to the history of cannabis. Tradition links bhang to the followers of the god Shiva, and it is still traditionally shared during the festivals of Maha Shivaratri and Holi.

India also gave the world two other preparations: ganja, the dried flowering tops, and charas, hand-rubbed resin from living plants. Our guides to charas and hashish cover how they are made. When British officials considered banning cannabis in India, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1893 to 1894 concluded that moderate use rarely caused ill effects.

Egypt, the Islamic World and Africa

Some scholars read the Ebers Papyrus, an Egyptian medical text from about 1550 BCE, as describing medical cannabis, though the identification of the plant is debated (history of medical cannabis). The stronger record comes later. Hashish spread from Persia into the Arab world, reaching Egypt in the 12th century under the Ayyubids and Iraq by 1230, and physicians from North Africa to Al-Andalus used cannabis for pain, nausea and seizures between the 8th and 18th centuries. Authorities also tried to suppress it: an Arabian emir, Soudoun Sheikouni, reportedly banned its use in the 1300s, possibly the earliest recorded cannabis prohibition.

Cannabis traveled into Africa with Indian traders and spread south with Bantu-speaking peoples. Ethiopian smoking pipes dated to about 1320 CE contained cannabis traces, and the plant was in use in southern Africa before Europeans arrived in 1652, according to the history of cannabis. Napoleon’s soldiers encountered hashish in Egypt after 1798, and Napoleon later banned its use among his troops.

Europe and the Americas

Europe grew hemp for rope and sailcloth for centuries. Spanish colonists grew cannabis in Chile from about 1545. Psychoactive use stayed marginal until the 19th century, when Irish physician William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, working in Calcutta in the 1830s, tested cannabis for spasms, cramps and pain and introduced it to Western medicine. In 1844 the Club des Hashischins in Paris made hashish a literary fashion among French writers.

The 20th Century: Global Prohibition

Restrictions began in colonies and port cities in the 1800s, including Mauritius (1840) and Singapore (1870), then spread. Jamaica banned cannabis in 1913, South Africa in 1922 and Canada in 1923. The 1925 International Opium Convention in Geneva added export controls on “Indian hemp,” and the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs placed cannabis in both Schedule I and Schedule IV, the most restrictive tier, committing signatory countries to prohibit it (history of cannabis). The United States led the push for the 1925 controls, according to the legal history of cannabis in the U.S., and passed its own federal law in 1937.

The Netherlands broke ranks first in practice. Coffeeshops have been allowed to sell small amounts since 1976 under a policy of toleration, though cannabis is still technically illegal there. Our guide to Amsterdam’s coffeeshop rules explains how that works today. The same decade gave cannabis culture its best-known code word; here is where 420 comes from.

Legalization Around the World

Sources: Legality of cannabis; NORML on the Czech law.

The international treaties shifted too. On December 2, 2020, the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs voted 27 to 25, with one abstention, to remove cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Convention, recognizing its medical potential, while keeping it in Schedule I (CND vote record). In the United States, 24 states and D.C. allow adult use, and our cannabis laws hub covers each one.

Marijuana History FAQ

For adults 21+ in legal states. General information, not legal or medical advice.