2700 B.C.: The first written record of cannabis use is made in the pharmacopoeia of Shen Nung.

550 B.C.: The Persian prophet Zoroaster writes the Zend-Avesta, a sacred text which lists more than 10,000 medicinal plants. Hemp is at the top of the list.

First Century A.D.: The Chinese begin making paper from hemp and mulberry.

1150: Moslems use cannabis to start Europe's first paper mill.

1484: Pope Innocent VIII labels cannabis as an unholy sacrament and issues a papal ban on cannabis medicines.

1563: Queen Elizabeth I orders land owners with 60 acres or more to grow cannabis or face a £5 fine.

1564: King Philip of Spain orders cannabis to be grown throughout his empire, from Argentina to Oregon.

1619: Jamestown Colony, Virginia, enacts the New World's first marijuana legislation, ordering all farmers to grow Indian hemp seed. June 28.

1776: The first draft of the Declaration of Independence is written on Dutch hemp paper.

1868: Egypt outlaws cannabis ingestion. This nation will later lobby for marijuana criminalization in the League of Nations.

1883: Hashish smoking parlors are open for business in every major American city. According to police estimates, in 1883 there are 500 such parlors in New York City alone.

1890: Queen Victoria's personal physician, Sir Russell Reynolds, prescribes cannabis for menstrual cramps.

1895: The Indian Hemp Drug Commission concludes that cannabis has no addictive properties, some medical uses, and a number of positive emotional and social benefits.

1910: The white minority in South Africa outlaws cannabis ingestion.

1914: Congress passes the Harrison Narcotics Act, its first attempt to control recreational use of drugs.

1936 - 1938: William Randolph Hearst's newspaper empire fuels a tabloid journalism propaganda campaign against marijuana. Hearst papers run articles about marijuana crazed Negroes raping white women and playing voodoo-satanic jazz music.

December 1937: The Marijuana Tax Act is signed into law, initiating 60 years of cannabis prohibition and annihilating a multi-billion dollar industry.

1937 - 1939: Under Harry Anslinger, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics prosecutes 3,000 doctors for illegally prescribing cannabis-derived medications. In 1939, the American Medical Association reached an agreement with Anslinger, and over the following decade, only three doctors are prosecuted.

1943 - 1948: Harry Anslinger orders all Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents to conduct surveillance and keep files on marijuana crimes by jazz and swing musicians.

1962: President John F. Kennedy forces Harry Anslinger into retirement after Anslinger attempts to censor the work of Professor Alfred Lindsmith, author of The Addict and the Law.

1964: Dr. Raphael Mechoulam of the University of Tel Aviv isolates THC Delta-9, the primary active ingredient in cannabis.

1967: Keith Richards and Mick Jagger are busted for marijuana possession.

1973: Oregon takes the first steps towards decriminalization of cannabis.

1974: Dr. Heath conducts his infamous government-funded Rhesus monkey study at Tulane University, touted for years as evidence that marijuana causes brain damage.

1976: The Ford Administration bans independent research and research by federal health programs on the use of natural cannabis derivatives for medicine.

1989: St. Louis Medical University determines that the human brain has receptor sites for THC to which no other known compounds will bind..

December 30, 1989: Drug Enforcement Agency Director John Lawn orders that cannabis remain on the Schedule One narcotics list, reserved for drugs which have no known medical use.

Jan 2004: Cannabis reclassified to a Class C drug in the UK.

2009: Cannabis reclassified back to a Class B drug in the UK

2011: Globally cannabis is the most commonly used illegal drug. There are an estimated 6-9 million users in the UK.

BACK TO HISTORY OF DRUGS