CHINA: Archaeological evidence suggests cannabis fibers were used by humans in East Asia more than a millennium ago. Excavation of an ancient village on the island of modern day Chinese Taipei unearthed pottery apparently decorated with hemp fibers.
Though further evidence points to cultivation and use of hemp during the period 3,000 to 8,000 B.C. in Siberia, Japan and Korea, the earliest solid evidence of of psychoactive cannabis use was recently discovered in a 2,700-year-old tomb excavated in Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region of China.
Inside were the remains of a Caucasoid shaman whose accouterments included a large cache of remarkably well-preserved cannabis containing tetrahydrocannabinol. It is speculated that the shaman used it as medicine or as a psychoactive aid to divination.
Irrespective of whether, thousands of years ago, Chinese were first to cultivate hemp or cannabis as a spiritual gateway, they certainly dominate the global market today. A New Frontier report revealed that China in 2017 led the world in hemp cultivation, processing and manufacturing, with domestic sales that year estimated at US$1.7 billion -- a third of the global market.
Moreover, the country is reportedly the world’s second largest producer and exporter of hemp grain, behind France, producing between 10,000 and 50,000 tonnes of hemp seed annually.
The majority of China’s industrial hemp is cultivated under government oversight in Heilongjiang or Yunan provinces. Unregulated, illicit marijuana cultivation is reported in Jilin and Inner Mongolia.
Unauthorized cultivation or trade in marijuana, however, is strictly prohibited as outlined in Article 357 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China.
In 1985, China joined the Convention on Psychotropic Substances and identified marijuana as a dangerous narcotic drug, illegal to possess or use. The penalty for smoking, under the Law on Public Security Administration Punishments, is a 10-to-15 days detention and a maximum fine of 2,000 yuan.
Legal cannabis, however, is booming: the China Patent Office has the second largest number of registered patents specifically related to “Cannabis Sativa” according to the World International Property Organization patent scope database -- 161 out of 694 such patents have been registered through the China patent office as of February 7, 2019; and, while the US Patent Office has the most with 226 registrations, five of the top ten Cannabis Sativa patent holders are Chinese.
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