![\"\"](\"https:\/\/staging.canorml.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/ishtar-1-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/a>GOING BACK TO THE ANCIENTS<\/h2>\nThe connection between women and herbal medicine, spiritual practices, and cannabis goes back thousands of years. My book \u201cTokin\u2019 Women: A 4000-Year Herstory of Women and Marijuana\u201d<\/a> begins with the ancient Sumerian goddess Ishtar<\/a>, also called the Queen of Heaven.<\/p>\nIshtar was a compassionate, healing deity associated with the Akkadian\u00a0herb qunnabu<\/em> (cannabis), when distillation of plant essences into medicines was common in Sumeria. At least until the Semitic invasions circa 2600 BC, women were respected as healers in the Middle Eastern region, but after 1000 BC they were excluded from formal education. As the land of Sumer became a perpetual battlefield, Ishtar became the goddess of war and destiny, “and slowly, insidiously, there crept in more praises for her sexuality, and fewer for her healing nature,” writes Jeanne Actenberg in Woman as Healer<\/em>.<\/p>\nIn the bible, Ishtar or her mother\u00a0Asherah<\/a>\u00a0are\u00a0called Ashtoreth, the supreme goddess of Caanan and the female\u00a0counterpart\u00a0of the gods called Baal or Bel. In Jeremiah 44, women tell the prophet they\u00a0will continue to secretly burn incense\u00a0to the Queen of Heaven. In 2020, researchers tested resin found on an Judean altar<\/a> from the 8th<\/sup> century and found cannabis, theorizing that it was used \u201cto stimulate ecstasy.\u201d<\/p>\n“Taking into account the matriarchal element of\u00a0Semitic\u00a0culture, one is led to believe that Asia Minor was the original point of\u00a0expansion for both the society\u00a0based on the Matriarchal circle and the mass use\u00a0of hashish,”\u00a0wrote Polish Anthropologist Sula Benet<\/a>, who theorized in 1936 that the \u201ckaneh bosm\u201d or \u201cfragrant cane\u201d used in Moses\u2019s holy anointing oil<\/a> in the Bible was cannabis.<\/p>\nTrade routes of the time stretched to the Altai mountains of Siberia, where in 1993 the frozen remains\u00a0of an elaborately tattooed \u201cIce Princess\u201d were discovered buried along with a container of cannabis. She was apparently a high priestess of the Pazyryk people, who were closely related to the\u00a0Scythians,\u00a0the tribe that\u00a0inhaled cannabis smoke ritually, as\u00a0described by the Greek historian\u00a0Herodotus in 440BCE.<\/p>\n
In her book\u00a0The Amazons: Lives & Legends of Warrior Women Across\u00a0the Ancient World<\/em>, Stanford Professor\u00a0Adrienne Mayor presents\u00a0new archeological and DNA evidence for the existence of the once-mythical\u00a0Scythian\u00a0Amazon Women and their use of cannabis.\u00a0Mayor points out<\/a> that burial\u00a0mounds found in\u00a0the Altai region\u00a0housed\u00a0both male and female warriors,\u00a0along with weapons, hemp clothing, and\u00a0“personal kits for smoking hemp.”<\/p>\nIn 2014, a team of Russian scientists found evidence of breast cancer<\/a>,\u00a0a bone infection, and injuries consistent with a fall from a horse in the Siberian Ice Princess. \u201cIt is likely that for this sick\u00a0woman, the regular inhalation of\u00a0cannabis smoke was a necessity,\u201d wrote the researchers.<\/p>\nOther recent discoveries include a Viking ship<\/a>\u00a0buried\u00a0for 11 centuries with the remains of two women, along with a\u00a0small\u00a0leather pouch containing cannabis seeds. One or both of the Viking women, whose ages have been estimated at 50 and 70, may have been a Volva (a priestess or seeress).<\/p>\nAs Barbara Ehrenreich writes in her book, Witches, Midwives and Nurses<\/em>, the wise women of old used many plant-derived herbal remedies, such as ergot and belladonna, to assist in childbirth, and archeological evidence<\/a> points to cannabis also being used this way. The witch\/healer\u2019s methods were \u201ca great threat\u201d to the Church, writes Ehrenreich, \u201cfor the witch was an empiricist: she relied on her senses rather than faith or doctrine.\u201d We know what happened to a lot of those women.<\/p>\nMODERN WOMEN AND CANNABIS<\/h2>\n
In more modern times, too, women have been involved with using and promoting the healing properties of cannabis.<\/p>\n
The Dark Ages began to enlighten up in the 11th<\/sup> century when Hildegarde von Bingen<\/a>, a prominent German abbess, mentions using hemp as an herbal medication in her writing. We don\u2019t know for sure that Queen Victoria<\/a> used cannabis medicinally, only that one of her doctors wrote a glowing account of its use, including for menstrual cramps. Victoria\u2019s contemporary Mary Todd Lincoln<\/a>, a hemp farmer\u2019s daughter, was treated at a sanitarium where hashish\u2014then available in pharmacies\u2014was prescribed.<\/p>\nMelissa Etheridge<\/a> took a brave stand in 2005 when she said publicly that she smoked marijuana to help with the side effects of chemotherapy during her treatment for breast cancer. She has since some \u201cout\u201d for further understanding and legalization of the plant, even starting a company that makes cannabis-infused wines.<\/p>\nWhoopi Goldberg<\/a> has been another advocate, co-founding a company that focused on cannabis remedies for women, and working with New York legislator Linda B. Rosenthal<\/a> on a bill to permit the use of cannabis for menstrual cramps in New York.<\/p>\nGoldberg and many others have come out in support of Sha\u2019Carri Richardson<\/a>, who arguably was using cannabis medicinally when she smoked it to cope with learning about the death of her mother from a reporter just before running in (and winning) last year\u2019s Olympic trial in the women\u2019s 100-meter race. Richardson\u2019s ban from competing in the Tokyo Olympics shows us that we must keep fighting for our medicine or inebriant of choice, and our ancient herstory inspires us to never lose hope.<\/p>\nEllen Komp is the Deputy Director of California NORML<\/a>, the state chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. She blogs at https:\/\/tokinwoman.blogspot.com\/<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ellen Komp The theme of this year\u2019s 35th annual Women\u2019s History Month is \u201cWomen Providing Healing, Promoting Hope.\u201d I can\u2019t think of a more appropriate theme to celebrate the historical (some would say, herstorical) association between women and cannabis. GOING BACK TO THE ANCIENTS The connection between women and herbal medicine, spiritual practices, and … <\/p>\n
Ishtar was a compassionate, healing deity associated with the Akkadian\u00a0herb qunnabu<\/em> (cannabis), when distillation of plant essences into medicines was common in Sumeria. At least until the Semitic invasions circa 2600 BC, women were respected as healers in the Middle Eastern region, but after 1000 BC they were excluded from formal education. As the land of Sumer became a perpetual battlefield, Ishtar became the goddess of war and destiny, “and slowly, insidiously, there crept in more praises for her sexuality, and fewer for her healing nature,” writes Jeanne Actenberg in Woman as Healer<\/em>.<\/p>\n In the bible, Ishtar or her mother\u00a0Asherah<\/a>\u00a0are\u00a0called Ashtoreth, the supreme goddess of Caanan and the female\u00a0counterpart\u00a0of the gods called Baal or Bel. In Jeremiah 44, women tell the prophet they\u00a0will continue to secretly burn incense\u00a0to the Queen of Heaven. In 2020, researchers tested resin found on an Judean altar<\/a> from the 8th<\/sup> century and found cannabis, theorizing that it was used \u201cto stimulate ecstasy.\u201d<\/p>\n “Taking into account the matriarchal element of\u00a0Semitic\u00a0culture, one is led to believe that Asia Minor was the original point of\u00a0expansion for both the society\u00a0based on the Matriarchal circle and the mass use\u00a0of hashish,”\u00a0wrote Polish Anthropologist Sula Benet<\/a>, who theorized in 1936 that the \u201ckaneh bosm\u201d or \u201cfragrant cane\u201d used in Moses\u2019s holy anointing oil<\/a> in the Bible was cannabis.<\/p>\n Trade routes of the time stretched to the Altai mountains of Siberia, where in 1993 the frozen remains\u00a0of an elaborately tattooed \u201cIce Princess\u201d were discovered buried along with a container of cannabis. She was apparently a high priestess of the Pazyryk people, who were closely related to the\u00a0Scythians,\u00a0the tribe that\u00a0inhaled cannabis smoke ritually, as\u00a0described by the Greek historian\u00a0Herodotus in 440BCE.<\/p>\n In her book\u00a0The Amazons: Lives & Legends of Warrior Women Across\u00a0the Ancient World<\/em>, Stanford Professor\u00a0Adrienne Mayor presents\u00a0new archeological and DNA evidence for the existence of the once-mythical\u00a0Scythian\u00a0Amazon Women and their use of cannabis.\u00a0Mayor points out<\/a> that burial\u00a0mounds found in\u00a0the Altai region\u00a0housed\u00a0both male and female warriors,\u00a0along with weapons, hemp clothing, and\u00a0“personal kits for smoking hemp.”<\/p>\n In 2014, a team of Russian scientists found evidence of breast cancer<\/a>,\u00a0a bone infection, and injuries consistent with a fall from a horse in the Siberian Ice Princess. \u201cIt is likely that for this sick\u00a0woman, the regular inhalation of\u00a0cannabis smoke was a necessity,\u201d wrote the researchers.<\/p>\n Other recent discoveries include a Viking ship<\/a>\u00a0buried\u00a0for 11 centuries with the remains of two women, along with a\u00a0small\u00a0leather pouch containing cannabis seeds. One or both of the Viking women, whose ages have been estimated at 50 and 70, may have been a Volva (a priestess or seeress).<\/p>\n As Barbara Ehrenreich writes in her book, Witches, Midwives and Nurses<\/em>, the wise women of old used many plant-derived herbal remedies, such as ergot and belladonna, to assist in childbirth, and archeological evidence<\/a> points to cannabis also being used this way. The witch\/healer\u2019s methods were \u201ca great threat\u201d to the Church, writes Ehrenreich, \u201cfor the witch was an empiricist: she relied on her senses rather than faith or doctrine.\u201d We know what happened to a lot of those women.<\/p>\n In more modern times, too, women have been involved with using and promoting the healing properties of cannabis.<\/p>\n The Dark Ages began to enlighten up in the 11th<\/sup> century when Hildegarde von Bingen<\/a>, a prominent German abbess, mentions using hemp as an herbal medication in her writing. We don\u2019t know for sure that Queen Victoria<\/a> used cannabis medicinally, only that one of her doctors wrote a glowing account of its use, including for menstrual cramps. Victoria\u2019s contemporary Mary Todd Lincoln<\/a>, a hemp farmer\u2019s daughter, was treated at a sanitarium where hashish\u2014then available in pharmacies\u2014was prescribed.<\/p>\n Melissa Etheridge<\/a> took a brave stand in 2005 when she said publicly that she smoked marijuana to help with the side effects of chemotherapy during her treatment for breast cancer. She has since some \u201cout\u201d for further understanding and legalization of the plant, even starting a company that makes cannabis-infused wines.<\/p>\n Whoopi Goldberg<\/a> has been another advocate, co-founding a company that focused on cannabis remedies for women, and working with New York legislator Linda B. Rosenthal<\/a> on a bill to permit the use of cannabis for menstrual cramps in New York.<\/p>\n Goldberg and many others have come out in support of Sha\u2019Carri Richardson<\/a>, who arguably was using cannabis medicinally when she smoked it to cope with learning about the death of her mother from a reporter just before running in (and winning) last year\u2019s Olympic trial in the women\u2019s 100-meter race. Richardson\u2019s ban from competing in the Tokyo Olympics shows us that we must keep fighting for our medicine or inebriant of choice, and our ancient herstory inspires us to never lose hope.<\/p>\n Ellen Komp is the Deputy Director of California NORML<\/a>, the state chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. She blogs at https:\/\/tokinwoman.blogspot.com\/<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Ellen Komp The theme of this year\u2019s 35th annual Women\u2019s History Month is \u201cWomen Providing Healing, Promoting Hope.\u201d I can\u2019t think of a more appropriate theme to celebrate the historical (some would say, herstorical) association between women and cannabis. GOING BACK TO THE ANCIENTS The connection between women and herbal medicine, spiritual practices, and … <\/p>\nMODERN WOMEN AND CANNABIS<\/h2>\n