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STRONGEST SATIVA
- Thread starter jojajico
- Start date
yes fella, I am well aware of this - an ex of mine in fact hailed from Kunming
iI was talking about the hilltribes who are ethnically Thai and speak languages of the Thai family - they are found in Yunnan and elsewhere outside the Thai nation ... as well as within Thailand
likewise, the main population around Lopburi are for the most part Burmese in origin ... this is very obvious walking around - large beautiful eyes, long limbed, dark skinned ... handsome guys and stunning girls everywhere ... and Lopburi is in central Thailand
happy toking and shengdan kuai le
iI was talking about the hilltribes who are ethnically Thai and speak languages of the Thai family - they are found in Yunnan and elsewhere outside the Thai nation ... as well as within Thailand
likewise, the main population around Lopburi are for the most part Burmese in origin ... this is very obvious walking around - large beautiful eyes, long limbed, dark skinned ... handsome guys and stunning girls everywhere ... and Lopburi is in central Thailand
happy toking and shengdan kuai le
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Sawaddeekhrap ngakpa, thanks for the very very interesting informations !
Yunnan and southern Sichuan have strong Thai influence as in these areas were living proto-thai who, when they fled "Chinese" (Han) invasion, moved down South towards today-thailand's hills and further sout int he peninsula. Yunnan and Sichuan actually are Thai ancestral homeland.
Along History it received influence (cannabic?) of course from Han china, but also from Tibet and Mongolia (when Kublai Khan conquered the area).
Irie !
Yunnan and southern Sichuan have strong Thai influence as in these areas were living proto-thai who, when they fled "Chinese" (Han) invasion, moved down South towards today-thailand's hills and further sout int he peninsula. Yunnan and Sichuan actually are Thai ancestral homeland.
Along History it received influence (cannabic?) of course from Han china, but also from Tibet and Mongolia (when Kublai Khan conquered the area).
Irie !
hey mriko et al - cheers for the info
I was just reading the Highland Thai entry in the DJ Short article
that certainly sounds like some fabulous weed - the high quality Thai I have seen seems similar in ways to both this and to what he is calling speculatively Lowland/Chocolate Thai ... the appearance and presentation of both sounds very Thai, as do the highs...
the Highland Thai he describes sounds similar to some Malawi Gold cultivars. Would be great to encounter some cultivars such as this in Thailand.
from the point of view of authentic presentation etc. a number of the hilltribe groups have reputations as great weavers, makers of clothes etc... and Thais generally seems to have an uncanny love/knack of tieing things up with unconquerable fiddly thread/bands ... so it is a useful additional means of establishing the authenticity of import
do you think it is possible that the eccentric behaviour of the plants suggests they are very old landrace cultivars - i.e. a fair amount of geographic and genetic stasis, and the sharing of a fair amounts of dubious alleles?
it's a shame that few breeders/growers take the trouble to work with Thai cultivars - think this may have a lot to do with all the talk of hermies ... not everyone reports them
and plenty of people in Oz grow them, without complaint, right?
I was just reading the Highland Thai entry in the DJ Short article
that certainly sounds like some fabulous weed - the high quality Thai I have seen seems similar in ways to both this and to what he is calling speculatively Lowland/Chocolate Thai ... the appearance and presentation of both sounds very Thai, as do the highs...
the Highland Thai he describes sounds similar to some Malawi Gold cultivars. Would be great to encounter some cultivars such as this in Thailand.
from the point of view of authentic presentation etc. a number of the hilltribe groups have reputations as great weavers, makers of clothes etc... and Thais generally seems to have an uncanny love/knack of tieing things up with unconquerable fiddly thread/bands ... so it is a useful additional means of establishing the authenticity of import
do you think it is possible that the eccentric behaviour of the plants suggests they are very old landrace cultivars - i.e. a fair amount of geographic and genetic stasis, and the sharing of a fair amounts of dubious alleles?
it's a shame that few breeders/growers take the trouble to work with Thai cultivars - think this may have a lot to do with all the talk of hermies ... not everyone reports them
and plenty of people in Oz grow them, without complaint, right?
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G
Guest
Thanks SamS! wonderfull to hear from those who where there.
Ive not found it, but been told this terpene combination is there. I agree with what you posted above, or at least thats my current thoughts, that the cutrus terpens come form WLD cultivars via Yunnan. But thats just from observing and reading others, i dont know. I have not any experience with the Thais at all really apart from being interested observer and consumer in Holland. We never got good Thai imports in the UK, only sticks which where never better than great Jamaicans, Africans, Mexicans and Lumbos which we could get in small personal imports. My tastes are for the Indian types and especially central African herbs. We had incredible personal Nigerian imports in the UK in the mid 80s, spine tingling herb.
ACE's Chinese work is extremely interesting, as is CBG's work with the Meao, but i understand both have taken many years of work to stabillise and rid them of hermie traits. Im sure both companies will release that work one day when finnished in pure form into the gene pool which will be fantastic. Some Mongolian, Meao and Yunnans would be a amazing aditions to the pool.
I think both CBG and ACE have been working those lines now for over 8 years. It is a massive work, for sure and there is but a few breeders now like them that work solely for the love. I've grown non hermie Thai plants but never found any with a High beyond the South American genetics, in depth or complexity or tastes.
Happy holidays,
Peace, hhf
G
Guest
From what i remember of seeing in reports it was above current limits for Help classification, mildly Psycoactive.
Happy Holidays!
Peace, hhf
Issan had the best herb in Thailand, until the Thai army and the DEA got rid of most of it. From Sakon Nakhon to Nakon Phanom up on the Lao border was where they grew it. Issan has great food and cheap prices as it is off the beaten track in a deprived area.
I do not know where the golden off the stick thai came from, I suspect westerners had an in to the farmers because it was not easy to get Thai cannabis off the stick and unpressed, as well as the quality was top notch. There was quite a bit of it around, some people called it golden Lao, but it was just transported thu Laos via the USA airforce.
It is my personal belief that Yunnan's landraces form the backround to both Thai and Afghani Indicas. I believe both were developed from industrial crops for fiber or seed in Yunnan. Thai was taken south and selected for Ganja for hundreds of years, while others took seeds to Afghanistan or north and selected for hashish production. After hundreds of years of selection the two selections look very different now, but I do believe they are from the same genepool. I have many non-psychoactive yunnan plants that have the exact smells of thais or others like Afghani Indicas, but they are not very strong at all. They were not selected for drug.
If anyone thinks that Hmong hemp is psychoactive they are lightweights, it is fucking rope for gods sake, good luck trying to get high. I have found plants with 1% or 2% THC at the very most. To me that is rope.
-SamS
Here is a crop of Yunnan:
I do not know where the golden off the stick thai came from, I suspect westerners had an in to the farmers because it was not easy to get Thai cannabis off the stick and unpressed, as well as the quality was top notch. There was quite a bit of it around, some people called it golden Lao, but it was just transported thu Laos via the USA airforce.
It is my personal belief that Yunnan's landraces form the backround to both Thai and Afghani Indicas. I believe both were developed from industrial crops for fiber or seed in Yunnan. Thai was taken south and selected for Ganja for hundreds of years, while others took seeds to Afghanistan or north and selected for hashish production. After hundreds of years of selection the two selections look very different now, but I do believe they are from the same genepool. I have many non-psychoactive yunnan plants that have the exact smells of thais or others like Afghani Indicas, but they are not very strong at all. They were not selected for drug.
If anyone thinks that Hmong hemp is psychoactive they are lightweights, it is fucking rope for gods sake, good luck trying to get high. I have found plants with 1% or 2% THC at the very most. To me that is rope.
-SamS
Here is a crop of Yunnan:
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GoodbyeBlueSky
Active member
great info Sam...
Thank you very much, sam. I have felt for a long time that true thai cannabis was either the ancestral home of what's known as the drug sativas or that it represented a different branch entirely. I have seen drastically different anatomical traits regarding leaf shape, stem shape/structure and nodal structure in older thai lines that I've never seen elsewhere. Sadly I haven't talked to anyone else who has also seen these traits but I hate to believe that they are still that rare among thai lines, perhaps I'm wrong. Either way at some point there was a vast gene pool available in thailand as evidenced by the rare cannabinoids found in meao lines and the odd anatomies I'd mentioned elsewhere.
I've read about 15000 year old chillums discovered containing burnt cannabis residues made from bovine bone in thailand. Interestingly this is the same species which frequently has psilocybin fungus living in it's intestines often producing fruits in the animals cow pies. Could this have been an early cult who had racoginzed the powers of both smoked cannabis and psychedelic mushrooms? Could this be an ancestor to hinduism? 15000 years of smoking cannabis and selection for drug properties is a pretty serious history. Could this be where drug sativas were first domesticated for their psychoactive properties?
Hhf, do you believe the lemon flavors frequent in hawaiian lines were sourced from thailand? I've always considered hawaii to be the first place to go for lemon flavors in both indicas and sativas. I'm certain we can come across some thai-ish phenos with lemon scents from either the kona gold, puna butter, or mr. G's cherry bomb. The federation haw sativa and dr. greenthumb's haw indica both produce some strong lemon flavors that remind me strongly of frozen lemon juice from concentrate.
I've read about 15000 year old chillums discovered containing burnt cannabis residues made from bovine bone in thailand. Interestingly this is the same species which frequently has psilocybin fungus living in it's intestines often producing fruits in the animals cow pies. Could this have been an early cult who had racoginzed the powers of both smoked cannabis and psychedelic mushrooms? Could this be an ancestor to hinduism? 15000 years of smoking cannabis and selection for drug properties is a pretty serious history. Could this be where drug sativas were first domesticated for their psychoactive properties?
Hhf, do you believe the lemon flavors frequent in hawaiian lines were sourced from thailand? I've always considered hawaii to be the first place to go for lemon flavors in both indicas and sativas. I'm certain we can come across some thai-ish phenos with lemon scents from either the kona gold, puna butter, or mr. G's cherry bomb. The federation haw sativa and dr. greenthumb's haw indica both produce some strong lemon flavors that remind me strongly of frozen lemon juice from concentrate.
G
Guest
Yeh thats rope, lol, but above Hemp classifiation, 'they' consider it drug..
SamS thanks man! what a great Christams present for all.
Hope you have a great holiday.
Peace, hhf
Sam would that 70's Original Haze the one thats used in your Cultivators Choice OHxSk#1? I'd like to get my hands on some real haze and gotta say that OHxSk#1 has a lot of what im looking for but still theres something missing, I remember the hazes the old timers had here since late 70's or so were amazing...it just popped in my mind that the first growing plants I ever saw were colombian plants upstairs of our house, around the time this issue was new...
All I can remember was that they were about 30cm long in styrofoam cups and when I touched the stems they smelled so good even back then..I was 3 years old lol...thats my first contact with a sativa plant, they didnt flower or anything, pops just had them for fun but his friends did try to grow a lot of landraces that a friend of ours collected seeds while being a sailor, most of the stuff was from mexico and colombia and other southern/latin american coutries..but still, I need that haze lol.
All I can remember was that they were about 30cm long in styrofoam cups and when I touched the stems they smelled so good even back then..I was 3 years old lol...thats my first contact with a sativa plant, they didnt flower or anything, pops just had them for fun but his friends did try to grow a lot of landraces that a friend of ours collected seeds while being a sailor, most of the stuff was from mexico and colombia and other southern/latin american coutries..but still, I need that haze lol.
That's rather doubtfull actually, if you look at the etymology of the different names used in the SEA peninsula you'll find two families.
That of the name of the psychoactive cannabis which ar eof Snakrit origin (from gunja):
Thailand : Kancha: (or Kanhcha:), there's also a distinction between Kanhcha: (Thai), Kanhcha:thet (foreign), Kanhcha:cin (Chinese)
Cambodia : Kânhcha:
Laos : Kan xa
Vietnam : cân xa or dai/gai ândo (meaning Indian grass-cloth plant)
Names given to seeds and kernel (frequently used as medicine) are rather of CHinese influence.
Dai ma tu ("tu" - vertical tilde on the "u" - is chinese word for seeds)
Dai ma hôt ("hôt", Vietnam name for seeds)
Dai ma nhân ("nhân" Vietnam name for kernel)
Ta ma/ Tai ma/dai ma has chinese origin
THere're probably two origins for different sub species found overthere. Fiber strains would rather have been brought from Today's China by hill tribes such as Meo.
Psychoactive would have come along with advance of Hinduism eastward ( arab traders, or even Portugueses as well could have hed some influence as well).
I might be wrong but I think it is quite unlikely. China focused mainly on the fiber & seed producing hemp because it was the main fiber producing plant in the region (coton for India, Linen for Mediterranean area), and also one of the 5 main food crops.
although it was used in shamanic times, the exciting effect of cannabis were in contradiction with traditionnal chinese philosophy of life and Confucianism or Taoist teachings.It was seen as something unerving and inducing excitation, rebellion, things not good for the family/clan/society. On the opposite, opium was most favored because as a sedative it couldn't induce "bad behaviour. So I hardly see the Han doing some selection for psychoactive potency.
Let's not forget that Mongols and Tibetan (which empire spread til today'snorthern Pakistan) have conquered Yunnan and could have brought in strains from their area.
I think Afghani type indica find its roots somewhere in the Scythian or Mongol empire. Somewhere between Sogdiana/Bactriana and Tuva.
nay, two culture totally different. hinduism would rather originates from Indus valley and Harappan civilisation (or could have emerged from cults brought by Aryan people from central Asia mixing with local vedic traditions - a heavily debated question by Hindu Nationalists).
Sounds weird, any source or reference for this ?
Irie !
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hehe - well this is all getting fun - already I am having trouble remembering all the different issues raised
but before I add my tuppence worth, Nadoleg Llawen to you all - which is to say Happy Christmas (in Welsh) - and RIP James Brown, a musical Messiah if ever their was
first up - just so we are clear - the Hmong and the Meao are the same ethnic group - the Hmong know themselves as the Hmong (and their various subdivisions) - whereas "Meao" is a name used by outsiders to refer to the Hmong, not a name this ethnic group will use to refer to itself
in contemporary Hmong villages there are likely to be hemp, drug cannabis, and opium being grown - and unfortunately yaba being smoked and all the rest
the Hmong belong to the ethnic (and linguistic) Thai group, as do most of the hilltribe groups of SE Asia ... unless I am mistaken, the most recent arrival of the hilltribes in Northern Thailand stems back only about 100 - 200 years or so, although as Mriko points out, they have been in areas such as Sichuan and Yunnan for many centuries, and the geographic regions now part of Laos and Vietnam, and presumably what is now Northern Thailand at points in the past
as Mriko points out, the Han Chinese themselves do not appear to have a tradition of recreational cannabis use, or at least none that I have seen referred to
In Mandarin "Ma" means "hemp" and "Da" means big ... "Da Ma" normally forms the main part of the names, though I am unsure the meaning of the additional words in the lists of Han Chinese names for cannabis which I have seen ... however unless they have medicinal relevance, my speculative guess is that they are largely perjorative - maybe someone with better Mandarin than I have could confirm this
"Ma Fei" which I first heard a Chinese doctor friend of mine use is the name given in modern Mandarin to refer to cannabis in its drug form - "fei" here means roughly "stupifying" ... however many of the Chinese names for medicinal cannabis are positive, referring to its many applications .. don't ask me to dredge them up from memory though ...
personally though, ignoring the Han, I would not want to dismiss the possibility that drug cannabis lines were being selected for in China ... given that Southern China contains many non-Han ethnic groups who are known for cultivating drug cannabis ... many of these are the same ethically Thai groups we have been discussing ... the Hmong, the Yao, the Lisu etc. etc.
the fact that Thai takes its name for drug cannabis from the Indian (ganja - gan cha - kan cha ... the "k/g" interchange refelcts regional Thai accents ... e.g. graTOM or kraTOm) is not I think reason enough to exclude the possibility that drug cannabis arrived in Thailand from Southern China ... in fact I think it may be confusing two separate issues
personally my guess would be that the Thai groups brought drug cannabis with them as they moved south into the central plain regions of Thailand
needless to say, however, I think it is highy likely that drug strains also arrived in Thailand with mercantile and Brahmanical Indians ... (this would be in keeping with the dual influence of Indian and Chinese culture on Thai culture generally) ... this process would have occured via land and sea prior even (I would guess) to the advent of Buddhism in the region (which is to say for many centuries indeed - pre. 11th century and earlier)
Sam, on the subject of Issan, if I may venture to challenge your esteemed self, I would say with a pretty fair degree of certainty that it does not have a reputation among Thais as the region producing the finest ganja ... from experience, well-nigh unequivocally in fact, it is the hill regions of the Lanna regions that Thais will site as producing the finest ganja, and this includes in conversation I have had with natives of Issan themselves ... it will always be the highlands and the hilltribes to which they refer
also, on an additional releveant point, erradication programmes such as you describes by the DEA in the 70s are in my opinion "macro" events - i.e. they do not impact on small scale production, rather on cash cropping
i.e. what is being targeted is really economic groups - "organised crime" so to speak ... my point here simply being that such events do not have a necessary impact on the continuance of lines, or on more established traditions of non-commercial production on a village/individual scale
speculatively, as an aside, I would also guess that Issan emerged as a cannabis production centre of a large scale commercial kind precisley due to the American presence ... I don't doubt for a moment that the production of fine herb had occured for centuries before this, and still does - in fact that is also my point ... however I would think there is little chance that commercial production of ganja would have occured in Issan prior to the advent of the American presence ... a market would have been unlikely, given the absence of any infrastructure in the region (no roads prior to the 60s) and also more to the point, ganja would not have had any great commercial value prior to the advent of a prohibitionist culture
in rural Thailand where law is absent ganja changes hands for little or no money
as I expect people here know, the Hmong are known to have been involved in a large way with the American military and CIA in producing herb and opium as part of the anti-communist "struggle" in SE Asia ... a legacy of this decision is their contiuning trouble with the Laos PDR government ... I believe there are still very large refugee communities within Thailand, who are gradually being resettled in the US ...
but before I add my tuppence worth, Nadoleg Llawen to you all - which is to say Happy Christmas (in Welsh) - and RIP James Brown, a musical Messiah if ever their was
first up - just so we are clear - the Hmong and the Meao are the same ethnic group - the Hmong know themselves as the Hmong (and their various subdivisions) - whereas "Meao" is a name used by outsiders to refer to the Hmong, not a name this ethnic group will use to refer to itself
in contemporary Hmong villages there are likely to be hemp, drug cannabis, and opium being grown - and unfortunately yaba being smoked and all the rest
the Hmong belong to the ethnic (and linguistic) Thai group, as do most of the hilltribe groups of SE Asia ... unless I am mistaken, the most recent arrival of the hilltribes in Northern Thailand stems back only about 100 - 200 years or so, although as Mriko points out, they have been in areas such as Sichuan and Yunnan for many centuries, and the geographic regions now part of Laos and Vietnam, and presumably what is now Northern Thailand at points in the past
as Mriko points out, the Han Chinese themselves do not appear to have a tradition of recreational cannabis use, or at least none that I have seen referred to
In Mandarin "Ma" means "hemp" and "Da" means big ... "Da Ma" normally forms the main part of the names, though I am unsure the meaning of the additional words in the lists of Han Chinese names for cannabis which I have seen ... however unless they have medicinal relevance, my speculative guess is that they are largely perjorative - maybe someone with better Mandarin than I have could confirm this
"Ma Fei" which I first heard a Chinese doctor friend of mine use is the name given in modern Mandarin to refer to cannabis in its drug form - "fei" here means roughly "stupifying" ... however many of the Chinese names for medicinal cannabis are positive, referring to its many applications .. don't ask me to dredge them up from memory though ...
personally though, ignoring the Han, I would not want to dismiss the possibility that drug cannabis lines were being selected for in China ... given that Southern China contains many non-Han ethnic groups who are known for cultivating drug cannabis ... many of these are the same ethically Thai groups we have been discussing ... the Hmong, the Yao, the Lisu etc. etc.
the fact that Thai takes its name for drug cannabis from the Indian (ganja - gan cha - kan cha ... the "k/g" interchange refelcts regional Thai accents ... e.g. graTOM or kraTOm) is not I think reason enough to exclude the possibility that drug cannabis arrived in Thailand from Southern China ... in fact I think it may be confusing two separate issues
personally my guess would be that the Thai groups brought drug cannabis with them as they moved south into the central plain regions of Thailand
needless to say, however, I think it is highy likely that drug strains also arrived in Thailand with mercantile and Brahmanical Indians ... (this would be in keeping with the dual influence of Indian and Chinese culture on Thai culture generally) ... this process would have occured via land and sea prior even (I would guess) to the advent of Buddhism in the region (which is to say for many centuries indeed - pre. 11th century and earlier)
Sam, on the subject of Issan, if I may venture to challenge your esteemed self, I would say with a pretty fair degree of certainty that it does not have a reputation among Thais as the region producing the finest ganja ... from experience, well-nigh unequivocally in fact, it is the hill regions of the Lanna regions that Thais will site as producing the finest ganja, and this includes in conversation I have had with natives of Issan themselves ... it will always be the highlands and the hilltribes to which they refer
also, on an additional releveant point, erradication programmes such as you describes by the DEA in the 70s are in my opinion "macro" events - i.e. they do not impact on small scale production, rather on cash cropping
i.e. what is being targeted is really economic groups - "organised crime" so to speak ... my point here simply being that such events do not have a necessary impact on the continuance of lines, or on more established traditions of non-commercial production on a village/individual scale
speculatively, as an aside, I would also guess that Issan emerged as a cannabis production centre of a large scale commercial kind precisley due to the American presence ... I don't doubt for a moment that the production of fine herb had occured for centuries before this, and still does - in fact that is also my point ... however I would think there is little chance that commercial production of ganja would have occured in Issan prior to the advent of the American presence ... a market would have been unlikely, given the absence of any infrastructure in the region (no roads prior to the 60s) and also more to the point, ganja would not have had any great commercial value prior to the advent of a prohibitionist culture
in rural Thailand where law is absent ganja changes hands for little or no money
as I expect people here know, the Hmong are known to have been involved in a large way with the American military and CIA in producing herb and opium as part of the anti-communist "struggle" in SE Asia ... a legacy of this decision is their contiuning trouble with the Laos PDR government ... I believe there are still very large refugee communities within Thailand, who are gradually being resettled in the US ...
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I'm sorry mriko I reread this and there is no mention of cannabinoids. It just mentions the use of bovine bone chillums for smoking plant material. Here it is from a chapter "mushrooms and evolution" by dennis meckenna. But it is evidence of chillum use while tobacco was still strictly a new world plant so it's still interesting.
"An archaeological dig in thailand at a place called Non Nak Tha has been dated to 15,000 b.p, and there the bones of Bos indicus have been found coincedent to human graves. Some of the bones have burnt out centers, indicating that they had been used as chillums to burn and smoke vegetal material. Chillums of the Non Nak Tha type are used even today among yoga-sadhus throughout india. Psilocybe cubensis is common to the Non Nak Tha area today"
"An archaeological dig in thailand at a place called Non Nak Tha has been dated to 15,000 b.p, and there the bones of Bos indicus have been found coincedent to human graves. Some of the bones have burnt out centers, indicating that they had been used as chillums to burn and smoke vegetal material. Chillums of the Non Nak Tha type are used even today among yoga-sadhus throughout india. Psilocybe cubensis is common to the Non Nak Tha area today"
Though linguistic studies are an excellent tool for studying botanical history there are certainly many examples of a language culture or ethnicity arriving in a new area and using their own words to describe botanicals that were already present and in use in that area, right?
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it's a while since I've been looking at Thai history, so most of what I have written needs checking
but what I can tell you off the top of my head is this
Thailand draws on three main sources for a lot of language and culture
Theravada Buddhism and Pali (which is a fusion of ancient Prakrit languages from the Ganges plain region in which the Buddha would have taught)
Brahmanical culture - and the Sanskrit language; and also Chinese language, culture and aesthetics
modern Thailand emerged from the eventual dominance of Central Thai Theravadin Buddhist culture over the North (Lanna Kingdom), NE (Issan), and South beginning, if memory serves, from around the 13th century onwards
it's worth realising in context of this discussion that it is only in the second half of the 20th century that Central Thailand and Northern Thailand became linked by anything like a proper road
I am not sure Mriko's point is right regarding language use being an indicator for the origin of drug strains in Thailand
ultimately, I would put my money on the Central Thais (i.e. the dominant ethnic group of modern Thailand) sharing a common trait with the majority of the other Thai groups - i.e. that they were cannabis users from when their progenitors left China, and I would guess they were growing and smoking drug cannabis from then on - i.e. prior to the presence of the Indian influence
this is all heavily speculative, but interesting neverthelesss
not least, I am glad to see Thai grass getting the attention it deserves, and Zamalito, regarding the talk of the decline of Thai cannabis, vanishing strains etc. - I don't believe it for a moment ... it is always the case that people hark back to a hallowed past when things were better ... off the beaten track there is much to be discovered, so I think we have every reason to rest assured and generally be optimistic
....
(on the side issue of Hinduism - this may be an unfashionable point, but there is a vast gulf between modern Hinduism which emerged from about the 17th century onwards, and the more ancient cultures and texts of Vedic culture which are essential to it ... )
but what I can tell you off the top of my head is this
Thailand draws on three main sources for a lot of language and culture
Theravada Buddhism and Pali (which is a fusion of ancient Prakrit languages from the Ganges plain region in which the Buddha would have taught)
Brahmanical culture - and the Sanskrit language; and also Chinese language, culture and aesthetics
modern Thailand emerged from the eventual dominance of Central Thai Theravadin Buddhist culture over the North (Lanna Kingdom), NE (Issan), and South beginning, if memory serves, from around the 13th century onwards
it's worth realising in context of this discussion that it is only in the second half of the 20th century that Central Thailand and Northern Thailand became linked by anything like a proper road
I am not sure Mriko's point is right regarding language use being an indicator for the origin of drug strains in Thailand
ultimately, I would put my money on the Central Thais (i.e. the dominant ethnic group of modern Thailand) sharing a common trait with the majority of the other Thai groups - i.e. that they were cannabis users from when their progenitors left China, and I would guess they were growing and smoking drug cannabis from then on - i.e. prior to the presence of the Indian influence
this is all heavily speculative, but interesting neverthelesss
not least, I am glad to see Thai grass getting the attention it deserves, and Zamalito, regarding the talk of the decline of Thai cannabis, vanishing strains etc. - I don't believe it for a moment ... it is always the case that people hark back to a hallowed past when things were better ... off the beaten track there is much to be discovered, so I think we have every reason to rest assured and generally be optimistic
....
(on the side issue of Hinduism - this may be an unfashionable point, but there is a vast gulf between modern Hinduism which emerged from about the 17th century onwards, and the more ancient cultures and texts of Vedic culture which are essential to it ... )
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