Marijuana: The God of Plants
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Marijuana has many names: Acapulco gold, Columbian, Jamaican, Maui wowie, Mexican, Panama red, bhang, cannabis, doobie, dope, ganja, hash, hashish, hemp, herb, joint, loco weed, maryjane, reefer, roach, sinsemilla, tea, weed etc.
These names are indigenous to the area they are grown in. Some people may be right in telling marijuana, weed, pot, ganja are all the same thing but there is a slight difference. Climate !!
Even in traditional marijuana-growing countries, the marijuana is often the result of several crossed lines. Jamaican ganja, for example, is probably the result of several crosses between hemp, which the English cultivated for rope and Indian ganja, which arrived with the Indian immigrants who came to the country. The term for marijuana in Jamaica is ganja, the same as in India. The traditional Jamaican term for the best weed is Kali, named for the Indian killer goddess.
The climatic difference causes a chemical concentration disparity, hence, one tends to be stronger in effect than the others (weed, being the mildest).
There are three species/varities of the marijuana plant.
1. Cannabis sativa , is a tall plant, generally between 8 and 12 feet. The leaves have long thin fingers and are light green. The more equatorial varieties have more yellow pigments to protect the plant from intense light. Sativa buds are long and thin and turn red as they mature in a warm environment. In cooler environments the buds may be slightly purple. Sativa plants smell sweet and fruity and the smoke is generally quite mild. It is a source of fiber for rope and other products and it contains THC which gives smokers the psychic effects they seek. The leaves of this plant are smoked but the most highly prized part of the plant is the top.
2. Cannabis indica, is plentiful in the Mideast, India, and Central Asia especially Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Pakistan. It is a short plant, generally between 3 and 6 feet, and its leaves have short broad fingers. The leaves are generally dark green sometimes tinged with purple. As they near maturity, the leaves may become significantly more purple. It is a strong smelling plant with a "stinky" or "skunky" smell. The smoke of indicas is generally thick and more prone to cause coughing when inhaled. Indicas are the traditional source of hashish.
3. Cannabis ruderalis is a debated third variety of cannabis found in Russia, Poland, and other eastern European countries. Schultes classified cannabis as having three species: sativa, indica, and ruderalis based on the formation of the seed pods. There is some debate as to whether there is justification for this third category. Some features of ruderalis are large seeds, short weedy plants (4-6 feet tall) and a lower level of THC than sativas or indicas.
Regardless of whether these different species evolved from the same genus or whether one species split along geographic lines, by the time mankind came around to get high, the plant had divided into two easily distinguishable lines:
a) sativas growing wild in almost all equatorial regions of the globe (Mexico, Thailand, Colombia, Jamaica, etc.) and
b) indicas thriving in southern Asia and the Indian subcontinent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Tibet, Nepal, etc.).
In each case, the plants were eventually discovered, recognized, cultivated and bred for specific uses—sativas for straight smoking and indicas for making hashish and kif. These practices continued for thousands of years, without the two lines ever crossing paths, until a combination of far-wandering hippies, the Grateful Dead and the US War on Drugs brought them together for the first time.
The cannabis preparations used in India often serve as a folk standard of potency. The three varieties are known as bhang, ganja, and charas. The least potent and cheapest preparation, bhang, is produced from the dried and crushed leaves, seeds, and stems.
Ganja, prepared from the flowering tops of cultivated female plants, is two or three times as strong as bhang; the difference is somewhat akin to the difference between beer and fine Scotch.
Charas is the pure resin, also known as hashish in the Middle East. Any of these preparations can be smoked, eaten, or mixed in drinks. The marihuana used in the United States is equivalent to bhang or, increasingly in recent years, to ganja.
