This is a fascinating talk by archaeologist Michael Frachetti on how the ancient origins of the Silk Road offer an alternative civilizational model: nonstate, nonurban, and decentralized – what he calls ‘Open Source Civilization’….
“Everyone knows hippies are high and smoke marijuana…. But you don’t need beads and long hair to turn on!” Enjoy these and other nuggets of wisdom in this excerpt from a cannabis documentary by the filmmaker David Hoffman. Aired on…
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Is there really such a massive difference between the effects of modern weed and real old-school landraces? Yes! Five decades of mindlessly breeding for THC % has ended up with the dreary, boring, flat effect typical of generic Dutch–American cannabis….
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‘Ganja plant ready for cutting, some of the dead leaves still adhering, Naogaon.’ – Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893-1894 *** The two high-end traditional cannabis drug products are ganja (sinsemilla or ‘semi-sensi’) and charas (resin, either hand-rubbed…
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The colonisation of Central Asia by the Tsarist and Soviet Empires from the 1860s to 1930s saw a sudden collapse of cannabis cultivation around historic charas-producing centres such as Bukhara and Xinjiang, the latter under Governor Sheng Shicai, a Soviet-backed…
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To go with the new chat with Aussie Gunja Man here’s a great painting of stoned yogis from 1780s Rajasthan. Satirical paintings of ascetics (Hindu or Muslim) in states of extreme wastedness were a long-running theme in Indian art by…
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First, just to clear up that freebie seeds with all orders at The Real Seed Company and Kwik Seeds are currently Kumaoni (12 seeds) and Nepali Highland #3 (5 seeds). Kumaoni is a Himalayan multipurpose landrace cultivated for use as…
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This is a great introduction by Will Self to a ‘practice’ or ‘discipline’ with deep roots in cannabis culture: psychogeography. Those roots are so deep that they ultimately reach far back into the phenomenon of the band — both the hunter–gatherer band…
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For fans of old-school Sativa landraces, here’s a classic morlam track from 1977: ‘Bong Ja Bong!’ – ‘Bong, Oh Bong!’ The singer, Dao Bandon, celebrates the pleasures of what westerners of the day called ‘Thai stick’ and folks from Laos…
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The great origin story or foundation myth of cannabis and counterculture is that of Hassan-i-Sabbah and his Order of Assassins. A fusion of fact and Orientalist fiction, the Assassin Legends are rooted in the era of the Crusades. Popularised in…
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