10 Unusual Facts About Cannabis

vAre you bored of reading Colorado's amazing post-cannabis legalization statistics? Did you come here to check out some weird and interesting facts about marijuana instead? Well, we got you covered. Anything from pigs and Shakespeare, getting baked to babies testing positive for marijuana, we provide these 10 weird facts you probably did not know. So, light up and let’s go!

1. RASTAFARIANS GANJA PRACTICE APPROVED IN ITALY

Rastafarians as we all know, smoke ganja as a part of their religious practices. They believe that marijuana grew on the tomb of King Solomon, which gives it a holy status. A man in Perugia was sentenced to 16 months in jail plus a €4,000 fine for possessing 97 grams of marijuana. The Supreme Court declared that the court failed to take into account the man's Rastafarian religious practices, for which it’s allowed to smoke 10g of ganja per day. Senator Maurizio Gasparri said "Today we learn a Rasta is free to go around with drugs. If somebody belonged to a religion which permitted them to eat their children, would they give them the go-ahead, too?" Classic argument, you should use it for any legal situation possible: “If people are allowed to 'insert any triviality', we might as well allow everybody to eat babies ...”

2. US TAX MONEY

America and marijuana, we can’t get enough of it. Did you know that the US government is missing out on 28 billion dollars annually by keeping marijuana illegal? Imagine what all that money could do for humanity if spent wisely? It has been forecasted that by 2020 the legal marijuana industry will pump approximately 44 billion dollars into the national economy, although we still have to work to make this progress. The marijuana situation in the US is very important for Europe, because of the soft power (influential power) that the US possess.

3. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEMP AND MARIJUANA

There is a clear distinction between hemp and marijuana. Hemp is a non-psychoactive cannabis plant. Hemp has been used for thousands of years for fabric, ropes, paper and medicinal purposes. Breeders have adapted the plant over hundreds of years to be used for recreational/medicinal purposes and brought forward the THC genes. Jon Page, a plant biochemist says: “"The transcriptome analysis showed that the THCA synthase gene, an essential enzyme in THCA production, is turned on in marijuana, but switched off in hemp". It’s definitely an interesting fact that people should keep in mind.

4. MARIJUANA IN INDIA IN 1894

I was actually going to write about the Indian Bhang lassi, which is a strong marijuana milkshake that provides the consumer with some solid insights, however, I stumbled upon an unknown marijuana investigation report. In 1893-1894, the Indian authorities declared marijuana completely harmless in moderate use. Check out this summary of the report. “The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report (1894), comprising some seven volumes and 3,281 pages, is by far the most complete and systematic study of marijuana undertaken to date”. Note that “Hemp” in that report was described as psychoactive, henceforth it was genetically closer to marijuana. Today's marijuana topics that are brought to light, have been discussed more than a century ago. Let’s not neglect history.

5. GEORGE WASHINGTON

Yepp, George Washington was a ganja enthusiast. The father of colonized North America kept a diary which includes cannabis related quotations, such as “sowed hemp at muddy hole by swamp”, “began to separate the male from female plants rather too late ... pulling up the (male) hemp. Was too late for the blossom hemp by three weeks or a month”. It implies that George wanted to harvest cannabis with higher THC content by separating the males from females. Also, there are indications that George used hemp as a pain reliever for his toothaches.

6. SHAKESPEARE

Apparently, Shakespeare was quite the Mary-Jane connoisseur. South African scientists tested 24 pipes borrowed from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to the University of the Witwatersrand. Using the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry they discovered that 8 pipes tested positive for marijuana, 4 of them came from Shakespeare's property. In one of his sonnets, Shakespeare wrote “invention in a noted weed", there is a high probability that Shakespeare was baked while writing his masterpieces. Nice.

7. BABY SOAPS

Babies testing positive for marijuana!!?? The public panics, how can this be!? Did the mothers get baked during their pregnancy? Are parents feeding their babies space cakes? Are babies secretly growing cannabis under their cribs with CFL lights? Nope, apparently, babies were FALSELY tested positive due to special ingredients in soaps which contain a compound that was mistaken by the testing machines for ganja. These soaps were as follows: Johnson & Johnson's Head-to-Toe Baby Wash, J&J Bedtime Bath, CVS Night-Time Baby Bath, Aveeno Soothing Relief Creamy Wash and Aveeno Wash Shampoo. So next time you test positive for marijuana, simply justify the test results; explain that baby soaps keep you nice and clean.

8. PIGS IN BHUTAN

Bhutan, a country where weed is so common that it outnumbers grass (actual grass). It is seen as a nuisance for the population because it’s everywhere. So what to do with all that weed? Just give it to the pigs. That’s right, in Bhutan, pigs are fed with marijuana because it increases their appetite and makes them fatter. The increase of their weight equals more bacon.

9. MARIJUANA OVERDOSES?

Can you overdose on marijuana? Well, you can certainly try, without success. The therapeutic index measures the therapeutic dose which is juxtaposed by a lethal dose. Marijuana's therapeutic index lies on 1:40 000. To kick the bucket, you need to consume 40.000 times the amount that got you baked in the first place! National Cancer Institute states: “Because cannabinoid receptors, unlike opioid receptors, are not located in the brainstem areas controlling respiration, lethal overdoses from Cannabis and cannabinoids do not occur”. So marijuana overdoses are virtually impossible. Alcohol's therapeutic index is 1:10. I’ll let you do the math ...

10. MARIJUANA FOR NOBEL PRIZE?

Imagine all the money that is spent on incarcerating marijuana consumers; it could be spent on innovative projects that can improve our social and environmental conditions. Imagine all that tax money that governments don’t receive, it could create schools, hospitals, renewable energy, better social services, the list goes on. Imagine the medical breakthroughs that scientists could make. Marijuana should, in fact, receive the Nobel Peace Prize for all the positivity it will create in the world.

Miguel Antonio Ordoñez

With an AB Mass Media and Communications degree, Miguel Ordoñez is a veteran writer of 13 years and counting and has been covering cannabis-related content since 2017. Continuous, meticulous research along with personal experience has helped him build a deep well of knowledge on the subject.

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