NP

[Don Higgins]

That story about the pipe came out in '97 or '98 and "weed" was a slang term for tobacco in the late 16th early 17th century. Both Spenser and Jonson call tobacco weed, Spenser calling it divine. James II also called it the devil's weed. Another question that needs to be considered is when pot came to be called weed.

--- On Sat, 4/28/12, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NP
To: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Cc: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Date: Saturday, April 28, 2012, 5:13 PM

But hemp--ditch weed--doesn't get you high, it just makes you sick if you smoke it. The question is whether fokes had developed the selective growing techniques that made sativa so delectable. And cocaine? Doesn't that require some cooking to produce it? Native people in Central and South America chew the leaves for that nice feeling, but the powder--when that did that first appear? Just some questions, really....



On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

2. Was the Bard a pothead?"Experts have long speculated whether drugs played a role in Shakespeare's genius," says Kai Ma at TIME. The theory seems to be supported by lines in his sonnets referring to a "noted weed" and "a journey in his head." And a South African anthropologist, Francis Thackeray, thinks the playwright definitely had an affinity for marijuana. In a 2001 study, Thackeray said he found cannabis residue (along with cocaine) on clay pipe fragments from Shakespeare's garden. The high-inducing plant was certainly available back in the Bard's time, as it was used to make textiles and rope. ---This Week mag, next week.





-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant



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