“It Is The Weed Of Lovers” The Use Of Cannabis Among Turkic Peoples Up To The 15th Century

Cannabis sativa L. is one of the most popular psychoactive plants in our days. It is widely used as a medicine, a recreational drug and also as an entheogen. Archaeological findings suggest that the hemp plant was known in China as early as the 5th millennium B.C. The first written source documenting the use of cannabis as a drug is from a much later period and dates back to the 5th century B.C. The present paper offers an outline of the history of the use of cannabis as a mind altering drug among Turkic peoples from ancient times up to the late 15th century, a period of flourishing cannabis subculture both in Anatolia and in Central Asia.