You never noticed how Arabs and others in that part of the world or any other place where Cannabis becomes accepted as ‘normal’ resemble ‘pot-heads’, and the Western world looks like clean, productive ‘straights’ ?
“The first known reference to marijuana in India is to be found in the Atharva Veda, which may date as far back as the second millennium B.C. 2 Another quite early reference appears on certain cuneiform tablets unearthed in the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, an Assyrian king. Ashurbanipal lived about 650 B.C.; but the cuneiform descriptions of marijuana in his library “are generally regarded as obvious copies of much older texts,” 3 says Dr. Robert P. Walton, an American physician and authority on marijuana who assembled much of the historical data here reviewed. This evidence “serves to project the origin of hashish back to the earliest beginnings of history.” References to marijuana can also be found, Dr. Walton adds, in the Rh-Ya [sic], a Chinese compendium dating from the period 1200-500 B.C.; in the Susruta, an Indian treatise originating before 400 A.D.; and in the Persian Zend-Avesta, originating several centuries before Christ. 4
The ancient Greeks used alcohol rather than marijuana as an intoxicant; but they traded with marijuana-eating and marijuana-inhaling peoples. Hence some of the references to drugs in Homer may be to marijuana, including Homer’s reference to the drug which Helen brought to Troy from Egyptian Thebes. 5 Certainly Herodotus was referring to marijuana when he wrote in the fifth century B.C. that the Scythians cultivated a plant that was much like flax but grew thicker and taller; this hemp they deposited upon red-hot stones in a closed room–– producing a vapor, Herodotus noted, “that no Grecian vapor-bath can surpass. The Scythians, transported with the vapor, shout aloud.” 6
Herodotus also described people living on islands in the Araxes River, who “meet together in companies,” throw marijuana on a fire, then “sit around in a circle; and by inhaling the fruit that has been thrown on, they become intoxicated by the odor, just as the Greeks do by wine; and the more fruit is thrown on, the more intoxicated they become, until they rise up and dance and betake themselves to singing.”
Like the ancient Greeks, the Old Testament Israelites were surrounded by marijuana-using peoples. A British physician, Dr. C. Creighton, concluded in 1903 that several references to marijuana can be found in the Old Testament. 9 Examples are the “honeycomb” referred to in the Song of Solomon, 5:1, and the “honeywood” in I Samuel 14: 25-45. (Others have suggested that the “calamus” in the Song of Solomon was in fact cannabis.) 10
The date on which marijuana was introduced into western Europe is not known; but it must have been very early. An urn containing marijuana leaves and seeds, unearthed near Berlin, Germany, is believed to date from 500 B.C. 11
Cloth made from hemp (cannabis), we are told, “became common in central and southern Europe in the thirteenth century” and remained popular through the succeeding generations; fine Italian linen, for example, was made from hemp as well as flax” and in many cases the two fibers are mixed in the same material.” 12 Nor were Europeans ignorant of the intoxicating properties of the plant; François Rabelais (1490-1553) gave a full account of what he called “the herb Pantagruelion.” 13
The use of marijuana as an intoxicant also spread quite early to Africa. In South Africa, Dr. Frances Ames of the University of Cape Town reports, marijuana “was in use for many years before Europeans settled in the country and was smoked by all the non-European races, i.e. Bushmen, Hottentots and Africans. It was probably brought to the Mozambique coast from India by Arab traders and the habit, once established, spread inland....”
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu53.html
Your evidence shows only that cannabis was sometimes used, not that it was the basis of the culture or accepted as ‘normal.’
A British physician, Dr. C. Creighton, concluded in 1903 that several references to marijuana can be found in the Old Testament. 9 Examples are the “honeycomb” referred to in the Song of Solomon, 5:1, and the “honeywood” in I Samuel 14: 25-45. (Others have suggested that the “calamus” in the Song of Solomon was in fact cannabis.) 10
So according to you cannabis is biblical. Interesting.
The date on which marijuana was introduced into western Europe is not known; but it must have been very early. An urn containing marijuana leaves and seeds, unearthed near Berlin, Germany, is believed to date from 500 B.C. 11
Cloth made from hemp (cannabis), we are told, “became common in central and southern Europe in the thirteenth century” and remained popular through the succeeding generations; fine Italian linen, for example, was made from hemp as well as flax” and in many cases the two fibers are mixed in the same material.” 12 Nor were Europeans ignorant of the intoxicating properties of the plant; François Rabelais (1490-1553) gave a full account of what he called “the herb Pantagruelion.” 13
So Europe is not much different than the Arab world when it comes to cannabis.