The Lore
Here's ours — the short version. We begin, appropriately, in the Stoned Age.
In a windswept grave at the Yanghai Tombs near Turpan, China, archaeologists found nearly two pounds of cannabis tucked beside a shaman — the oldest confirmed stash on record, according to a 2008 study in the Journal of Experimental Botany.
As cannabis moved along trade networks through Central and South Asia, so did the word for its concentrated resin — "hashish," widely believed to descend from the Arabic word for grass, or herb.
A short-lived literary salon called the Club des Hashischins gathered writers — Alexandre Dumas and Charles Baudelaire among them — for evenings of hash and conversation. One of the more theatrical footnotes in cannabis's long relationship with the arts.
US federal legislation imposed steep taxes and heavy restrictions on cannabis, effectively criminalizing it nationwide and setting the tone for cannabis policy across much of the 20th century.
Countercultural movements adopted cannabis as a symbol, and the visual language followed: swirling psychedelic concert posters and underground "comix" — the direct ancestors of this very site — turned appreciation into an art form.
In Jamaica, cannabis took on spiritual significance within Rastafari tradition, and reggae carried that association to a global audience.
As the story goes, a group of high schoolers nicknamed "the Waldos" used to meet at 4:20pm to search for a hidden crop. They never found it — but they accidentally invented cannabis culture's most famous number.
The Netherlands began tolerating small-scale cannabis sales through licensed "coffeeshops" — a policy approach that made the city a long-running cultural touchstone.
California voters passed the first modern US state law permitting medical cannabis use, opening the door for a wave of similar legislation in the decades that followed.
Voters in both states approved ballot measures legalizing recreational cannabis for adults — the first US states to do so, kicking off a broader shift that's continued ever since.
Attitudes and laws have shifted unevenly around the world, with more places loosening restrictions than at almost any point in the last century — though the legal picture still varies enormously by country and state.