The African Roots of Marijuana

by Chris S. Duvall

After arriving from South Asia approximately a thousand years ago, cannabis quickly spread throughout the African continent. European accounts of cannabis in Africa—often fictionalized and reliant upon racial stereotypes—shaped widespread myths about the plant and were used to depict the continent as a cultural backwater and Africans as predisposed to drug use. These myths continue to influence contemporary thinking about cannabis. In The African Roots of Marijuana , Chris S. Duvall corrects common misconceptions while providing an authoritative history of cannabis as it flowed into, throughout, and out of Africa. Duvall shows how preexisting smoking cultures in Africa transformed the plant into a fast-acting and easily dosed drug and how it later became linked with global capitalism and the slave trade. People often used cannabis to cope with oppressive working conditions under colonialism, as a recreational drug, and in religious and political movements. This expansive look at Africa's importance to the development of human knowledge about marijuana will challenge everything readers thought they knew about one of the world's most ubiquitous plants.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

360 pages, Paperback

Published June 14, 2019

Reviews

[Charles Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Hey, you got Africa in my weed!"
"No! You got weed in my Africa!"

Great book. Highly recommended!

Reclaims Africa and Africans' central roles as innovators and purveyors of Cannabis knowledge. Duvall uses social, environmental, and economic history, commodity chain analysis, and language geography (among other methodologies) to correct the erasure of Africa from Cannabis history. Along the way, Duvall restores Africa (and the Global South) to its rightful place as provider of centuries of knowledge production and innovation (bong hit, anyone?).

Africa's greatest botanical legacy? Probably. Also:

Not gonna lie: I'm high AF right now!

[Thijs Costers · Rating 3 out of 5]

soms een beetje repetitief en minder goed gestructureerd, maar desalniettemin belangrijk en sterk, al probeert het soms te sterk te zijn en neigt het richting polemisch, al hoeft dat ook weer niet een minpunt te zijn

[AntiBS]

As an African, let me just say that this book is based on more assumptions than facts. The worse part is the title, "The African roots of marijuana". The roots of marijuana are clearly Asia so how can there be an "African root" of marijuana. Also, what about the "European roots" when is this racist, presumptuous author going to write a book about that? The only reason why this Caucasian thinks it is okay to title a book, the African roots of marijuana is because the slave descendant or blacks in America have a drug culture basically. That is why he thinks he can get away with associating drugs with Africans. There has never been any real stereotype about Africans and drugs especially if that drug is cannabis. There might have been stereotypes in relation to Asians who cultivated and consumed tons of drugs e.g. Cannabis, Opium but not Africans! And yes, there is some evidence that slaves consumed drugs but those slaves were not African, they were in the Americas and they could have included the Natives of Central and South America as well. I find the title and the content of this book very offensive as an African and i renounce this crap. There is no African origin of cannabis or drug use!

[Lawrence Grandpre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty good analysis of the African roots of cannabis. Critical factoids include the water pipe, which is known as a bong which comes from a southeast Asian word, actually was first used in Africa. They, among other mechanisms, used a calabash gourd to deliver controlled hits of cannabis smoke. Cannabis cultures in Africa goes back hundreds of years, as the play was introduced to the continent by Indian Ocean trade rounds long before European colonization. The very idea of "smoking" cannabis as currently conceived seems to date to Africa, as Eurasian cultures used other means of inhalation to like tents before the rise of the pipe. Similarly, despite being derided currently as a negative term tied to the Hurst publishing companies' negative campaign, the book argues marijuana is derived from African terms related to cannabis and was used potentially as a way to conceal cannabis use among slaves, who brought the plant to the new world. The text does a good job not to romanticize cannabis smoking and debunk certain mythologies around cannabis histories, which the author argues systemically exclude African cannabis cultures.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an extremely extensive literature review and a great rethinking of how cannabis indica was spread throughout the world. Duvall takes an Afroasiatic approach to cannabis history, which is entirely appropriate for the subject matter, seeing as cannabis pipes were originally invented in Africa. From ground pipes to bongs, we wouldn't smoke cannabis in the way that we now do if it weren't for the influence of Sub-Saharan African peoples.