Although marijuana is certainly at a high right now with the industry booming, the plant dates back thousands of years. Before marijuana was the popular drug and medicine that it is today, cultures all around the world used and consumed the plant in all aspects of their lives.
Though there are a number of different tribes, each with different cultures and religious practices, there is evidence that marijuana was consumed by Native Americans in varying tribes.
First, like we do today, Native Americans recognized marijuana’s healing medical powers. According to them, the plant is good for things other than merely making rope.
Native Americans believe that a decoction of the root is good for inflammations in the head or other areas, gout, joint or hip pain, and muscular atrophy.
After recovering from an illness, many people smoked cannabis as well because they believed that the plant is the necessary motivation to get anyone going.
The Native Americans also regarded cannabis as a stimulating agent and psychological aid, fitting with the concept of the peace pipe that those who smoke together make peace.
Some claim that the great visionaries packed their sacred pipes with cannabis because smoking increased the intensity of their visions.
In the case of tobacco, Native Americans have used it ritually for hundreds of years. Research shows that Native Americans of the northwest were smoking tobacco more than 1,000 years before European fur-traders arrived with their own domesticated variety.
For many Native peoples, tobacco use was historically associated with sacred rituals or ceremonies and only certain tribal members smoked limited quantities of the plant.
Today approximately 37 percent of Idaho American Indians smoke cigarettes, according to a 2015 survey from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
