Cannabis consumers are a broad spectrum of individuals with greatly varied belief systems, values and unique tastes. We’re made up of the casual evening or weekend toker, the enthusiast ‘chronic’ consumer whose intake levels might involve two dabs of extracts, a bong topped with kief and a couple of hash-rosin-infused gummies in their morning routine, and everyone who indulges in between.
Many of us will develop highly specific preferences for the type of cannabis product, intake method and accessories involved. Some take an almost ritualistic approach, while others are forever content mixing it up, trying all the different types and methods of consuming cannabis available. Innovative humans have been adapting and evolving the cannabis plant for generations. We’ve tried countless ways of collecting, using and consuming its parts, leading us to ask, Why all this experimenting?
To make the most of our cannabis.
As most of you already know; the cannabis plant is an incredibly complex bio-chem pharma factory with potential to produce more than 500 different compounds including cannabinoids, terpenes, phenols, isomers and esters. A great number of these chemicals are created within the small sticky trichomes that coat the plants’ buds. We’re still learning which of these elements within cannabis plants interact with our bodies’ endocannabinoid system in meaningful ways.
Cannabinoids are the obvious headline compounds of the plant, with abilities to interact with the vast receptor sets present throughout our brains and bodies. Endogenous cannabinoid receptors within the body are the locks where exogenous cannabinoids, like consuming hash, are perfectly matched keys. At time of writing there are 110+ distinct cannabinoids scientists have isolated from the cannabis plant.
Terpenes are volatile aromatic compounds that largely contribute to the scents and tastes of herbs and flowers. Like cannabinoids, terpenes are produced and housed in the trichomes of the cannabis plant. Although most terpenes are only present in trace amounts, the most prominent few in each cannabis strain give it a signature smell and taste profile. Different ratios of combined terpenes are responsible for the highly varied odours and flavours of cannabis plants and concentrates; everything including that distinctively skunky smell that turns people’s heads, that super unique kush smell, to the bright floral and fruity flavours some of us absolutely adore.
Cannabis products with a higher concentration of these rare terpene compounds often have much more flavour and effect. So, if we know cannabinoids and terpenes matter most when it comes to smell, taste and experience, how do we get the best out of our buds? Simply put; by getting rid of the waste.
If ‘the good stuff’ only makes up a small percentage of the plant, why do cannabis users consume so much of the parts that offer so little? There’s a good argument to be made that instead of using whole flower, consumers might want to consider buying the best and most effective parts of the plant; the trichomes. Not only would they access more of the compounds we truly want, but we reduce consuming parts of the plant we don’t want when consumed, especially when combusted.
How you consume your cannabis plays a role in maximizing its potency. With dry herb, a 2004 study compared the compounds released with a vaporizer versus combusting cannabis in a glass pipe. Cannabinoids like THC accounted for over 94% of the vapour from the vaporizer while only three ‘useless’ compounds present. On the other hand, over 88 compounds were identified in smoke from the glass pipe, leaving only 12% of THC available for ingestion. That’s like smoking a bunch of dried lettuce.
We propose that it’s time to ditch the waste, go for the taste and experience the plant in a more efficient way: Cannabis Concentrates.
Created in a myriad of ways, ultimately cannabis concentrates are produced by collecting cannabinoid and terpene rich trichome glands while neglecting ‘waste’ plant material like chlorophyll. Cannabis concentrates can be found in numerous forms, and articles detailing the variety of names (Hash, Sift, Bubble, Oil, Rosin, Resin, etc…) with their associated production methods for the many differing finished products exemplify the wealth of information and material science that was built largely prior to regulation by our legacy community. The breadth of this knowledge speaks to the immense intelligence, resilience and persistence of the cannabis community, much of which comes from hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago…
Traditional hash, the first cannabis concentrate, is a particularly special substance of discussion. Hashish is a highly complex matrix of cannabinoid and terpene molecules that have been meticulously blended together. The volatile terpenes react with cannabinoids and other natural plant waxes and fats in the consolidated mass of trichomes to create entirely novel compounds.
Whether you’re looking for the highest potency THC isolate to dab blazing hot, or a more chilled-out nostalgic vibe like Gold Seal Hash to satisfy your indulgence, if you’re interested in increasing the efficiency of your experience (and dollars), it may be time to try some concentrates.
Jack Kerouac and Ayatollah Khomeini walk into a bar…
Okay, not really. To our knowledge, there’s no joke featuring this unlikely pair. However, they do appear in the same story. These two notable figures play opposing bookends in a short but magical era of hippie folklore: The Hippie Hash Trail.
Jack Kerouac and Ayatollah Khomeini
Kerouac inspired its beginning. The Ayatollah brought it to an end.
The Hippie Trail was an overland path from Turkey through Afghanistan into Nepal and China – a pilgrimage to the world’s best producers of hashish. Beginning in the late 1950s and continuing through the late 1970s, the trek became a rite of passage for disaffected young idealists who called themselves “Beatniks”, then rebranded themselves as “Hippies” in the 1960s. They left comfort, family, and jobs behind, booked a flight overseas, and embarked on a quest to discover… well… most weren’t quite sure what awaited them. They were kids, they wanted adventure, they wanted freedom, they wanted to get blazed.
The Hippie Trail
Many came away with great memories and experiences. Others saw their dreams of utopia turn to disillusionment. A few never made it back.
Hit the road, Jack
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac’s On The Road was published in 1957. Its idealized account of life on the road caught the imagination of the younger generation, triggering a hunger for a simpler, freer life than the one their parents were leading. Teens decided they didn’t need the pressure of starchy Western conservatism. Many rebelled by growing their hair, putting on jeans, and listening to Elvis. A few took it further… by a few thousand miles.
Eastern culture had always held an attraction to the Beatnik movement, but the foreign lands and cultures were as far removed from their lives – and as practical a destination – as the Moon. It took a few notable celebrities and a bus company to turn the vast unknown East into a tourist destination for restless youth.
The actual route they were planning to take had a famous history. The overland path from Asia to Europe was trudged 400 years earlier with the Silk Road, the historic trade route that introduced Eastern goods (including hashish) to the West. Centuries later in the 1950s, the path was used by British scientific expeditions, who crossed the terrain in rented buses.
Mystic East route
In 1957, the Indiaman Bus Company had the idea to market the route to the public, rebranding it as a trip into the ‘Mystic East’ – the original magical mystery tour. A trickle of Western ‘intrepids’ took notice. So did competing bus operators, who quickly jumped on the commercial bandwagon. Tour buses in London and Istanbul began advertising trips across the rugged terrain of Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal, painting an exotic picture of communal living, spiritual enlightenment, and the best hashish on the planet – straight from its birthplace.
The Beatles in India, 1968
Marketing of the East was boosted further when it was embraced by iconic figures of the time. In the early-60s, Alan Ginsburg moved to Varanasi, India. A few years later, The Beatles found their spiritual centre in an Indian ashram. In 1969 Jimi Hendrix found sanctuary in the Moroccan town of Essaouira. Eastern culture was becoming decidedly fashionable, not to mention Western-friendly.
Happy trails
As Eastern mystique grew, so did the buzz surrounding the Hippie Trail. An excited stream of hash trailblazers began booking cheap flights and stuffing their backpacks. Americans, Europeans and Aussies began arriving, starting their Hippie Trail journey from different cities. The influx of travellers began spawning a self-contained tourism industry, with Western youth looking for ways to communicate and share experiences. Travel guides started appearing, first as roughly typed, hand-stapled giveaways, then as commercially published booklets. In them, hippies could find tips on where to live and eat along the Hippie Trail. The advice was written by and for hippies:
“In Afghanistan in particular you can get stoned just by taking a deep breath in the streets,” One guide listed the best places to “socialize, pick up rides, chicks, guys, etc.”
The famous travel guide, Lonely Planet, published its very first booklet, Across Asia on the Cheap, as a collection of practical tips for fellow Hippie Trail travellers.
Buses advertised overland trips that would take you from Europe to Nepal in just four weeks. Cafes and shops across the Middle East changed their menus and added english writing to attract the hippie travellers.
The Pudding Shop, 1982
The Pudding Shop was the name given to a small restaurant in Istanbul that became a hub for Western travellers. Its real name was the Lale Restaurant – people started calling it ‘the pudding shop’ because of its selection of puddings. The owners were thrilled to get free publicity and changed the outdoor sign to capitalize on the popularity. They also added a bulletin board inside, where travellers could leave notes and personal messages for each other, as well as travel tips for the next planeload of travellers – a pre-internet message board.
Hotel Eden’s menu in 1960s
Another famous Hippie Trail attraction was Freak Street, a small street in Kathmandu that became wildly popular among travellers for its strip of government-run hashish shops. The variety of legal substances made it a must-visit location on the journey.
Each wave of travelling hippies passed information onto the next wave, accumulating a list of the best guesthouses, friendliest hosts, cheapest breakfasts, and where to score the best quality hashish. By the 1970s, the Hippie Trail was no longer unknown or mysterious. Its well-mapped routes had turned it into a theme park for Westerners looking to get away, get laid, and get baked.
No destination
Hippies’ travel bus
A decade of kids had been travelling east, following the same paths and visiting the same hotspots. By the mid-70s the mysterious East had become far less mysterious. The only thing left to discover about the Hippie Trail was whether it was worth going. Thousands of hippies had travelled thousands of miles to spend months in faraway lands, with little idea of their final destination and no clue what to do once they got there. If you simply wanted to escape or were looking for adventure, you probably came away satisfied. There was no shortage of experiences, fellow travellers, drugs and sex.
However, those on a quest for deeper truths began to realize that no matter how far they went or how high they got, there was no carefree new life waiting for them on the other side of the planet. The mountains were spectacular, the ashrams inspirational, the food exotic. But then what? Spiritual connections don’t pay a salary or translate a foreign language. The hippies were ultimately strangers in a strange land.
Indian entrepreneur, Rama Tiwari, who made his fortune during the Hippie Trail era, recognized the fundamental flaw in their expectations: “(The) hippies made one mistake, and it broke them. They imagined peace of mind was not with their families or in their home countries. They didn’t see that we can only live in happiness if we conquer the restless dream that paradise is in a world other than our own.”
Months after arriving, many young hippies found themselves broke and homesick. Sadly, others suffered a crueler fate. In the 1970s, over 20 travellers were murdered by Charles Sobhraj, a French-Indian serial killer who befriended young Western hippies, then robbed and murdered them. His story was told in three non-fiction books, as well as a 1989 made-for-TV film and a Netflix miniseries released this year.
As the decade leaned into its final years, the novelty of the Hippie Trail began to wane, along with its naive utopian dream.
Sundown on the dream
Hippie culture in 1970s
By the late 1970s, the hippie generation had reinvented popular culture worldwide. Their music, clothing, liberal values, relaxed rules – the building blocks of rebellion – were now being embraced by the establishment they were supposed to be rebelling against. Even hash and cannabis were becoming mainstream.
Hippie accessories were selling like hotcakes, but the sun was setting on the hippies themselves.
20 years had passed since Kerouac published On The Road. The first hippies had turned 30, they were starting careers, having babies, paying mortgages. The music that jolted the popular consciousness in the 1960s was now being repackaged as Greatest Hits albums.
The aging hippies – the first baby boomers – could now afford to fly to Istanbul and travel the Hippie Trail first-class. Unfortunately, they were no longer welcome. The Iranian revolution brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power, who promptly closed the borders to Americans.
Ayatollah Khomeini
Afghanistan was at war, its vast and fertile mountain trails now part of a battlefield. Many Hippie pilgrimage sites were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.
Hippies had left Kathmandu a mess. Nepal’s police began demanding payoffs to extend their visas. The government banned cannabis products and deported the foreigners to India. Hippies had overstayed their welcome.
The Boomer Trail
Freak Street today
Today, the old Hippie Trail is experiencing a slight revival, although it’s now a tourist attraction for Boomers rather than a pilgrimage for rebels. The Pudding Shop is still there, but the bulletin board that was covered with love notes and maps to hash-shops now contains straightforward travel tips.
Kathmandu’s Old Freak Street still exists, with the occasional tourist trying to recapture yesterday’s idealism. However the old scene is gone, replaced by souvenir shops and shopping centres.
Hashish remains illegal in Nepal, Afghanistan and Iran, although officials usually turn a blind eye to locals enjoying some of the world’s best produce. Despite the laws, cannabis plants grow freely on streets and backyards of Afghan cities. In Iran and Nepal, hashish is easily found in clubs, parks and streets, where small-time dealers and enthusiasts will be happy to sell you some.
The far East remains a goldmine for high-quality hashish, however visa restrictions and war have made those countries – and the Hippie Trail itself – difficult to access for Westerners. These days, the safest way for outsiders to experience the historic trail is from 30-thousand feet; the safest way to experience authentic Eastern hash is to order it online.
The intrepid few who insist on recapturing an era can still visit those faraway cities, but the Western idealism of the 1960s packed up and left a long, long time ago. The last remnants of the Hippie Trail are the grey haired tourists snapping selfies.
About 10 thousand years ago on the mountainous areas stretching between China and the Himalayas, various tribes were busy harvesting bountiful amounts of cannabis. They made textiles from it. They gathered its seeds for food. No one was interested in the sticky residue it produced.
Two key events happened to transform that crop from a utility into a mind-altering substance, and then into a global phenomenon.
Birthplaces of cannabis
The first men (and women) on the moon
The first event happened when cannabis resin got onto the skin of those ancient farmers. After handling cannabis for long enough, some of its oils inevitably got onto their hands, which ended up being sniffed or tasted. We’ll never know the precise moment in history when resin first connected with human senses, but minutes later, the cultivators found themselves lifting off on a smooth ride to the moon, becoming the Neil Armstrongs of newly found psychedelia. Perhaps Earth’s first hashtronauts were inspired to proclaim, “One small edible for a man, one giant high for Mankind!”, as they reached a new plane of consciousness.
Or maybe they just took a nap.
Whatever happened on that very first trip, the experience was an essential first chapter in the story of hashish. After all, if cannabis resin hadn’t made an impact on mankind in Asia, there would be no reason to further experiment with it and discover new methods of enjoying it.. There would be little reason to transport and trade it throughout the world, or to create the product that eventually became hash as we know it today. What was truly important was that people got high and decided they liked it. The rest is a tale of passion, science and profits.
How does this stuff work?
For the next few thousand years, those enlightened mountain farmers enjoyed their unrefined resin high, usually by eating it. Physicians throughout China noted its effects and began prescribing hashish for various medical conditions. Chinese herbalist, Emperor Shen Nung, recommended consuming cannabis as a remedy for rheumatism, malaria, gout, epilepsy, and more, in his texts from 2700 BC, which are still used today in Eastern medicine. In India, Hindu texts mention the smoking of hashish as part of religious services.
Historical uses of cannabis
In its first roughly 6,000 years, hash of various forms became popular throughout Asia and India. It had become a staple of Eastern culture, but had yet to crawl far from where it was born. Over the next two millennia, hashish would find its legs and begin spanning the known world with the development of the Silk Road – the second key event in hash’s history.
Supply, demand… then even more demand
Silk Road map
In the 2nd century BC, a trade route opened connecting China to the Roman Empire and Arabia. That route – the famous Silk Road – created an exchange of goods, inventions, and ideas criss-crossing between the Eastern and Western worlds. One of the best-selling ideas was authentic Asian hashish. Once Westerners got a taste, demand for hashish quickly exploded in Greece, Africa, and Egypt. Its intoxicating effect generated a massive surge in popularity that exploded throughout the world’s empires and kingdoms. Hash had gone global..
The early Romans took a liking to hash, spreading it across the Mediterranean regions and into Western Europe. Hashish became a part of everyday life wherever the Roman Empire ruled. Its heady smoke was used in steam baths and incense, its resins baked into desserts and served in foods, its medicinal qualities used to treat burns, tumours, and inflammation.
Myths, mystics, and murderers
Fakirs preparing Bhang and Ganja, 1750
Hashish was a huge commercial success. But it took the Islamic world to give hashish its spiritual muse. Beginning in 600 AD, hash-inspired legends emerged from Persia and Arab countries, many of which were motivated by an anti-establishment sentiment that, centuries later, would help inspire the beatnik and hippie counter-culture movements.
Hashish was featured prominently in the Arabic collection of stories, One Thousand and One Nights, a series of folk tales gathered from centuries of Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Persian, and Indian writings.
Hash isn’t often associated with violence. A notable exception was the semi-factual Persian story from the 11th century AD about “The old man of the mountain”, Hasan ibn al-Sabbah. Ibn al-Sabbah was a self-proclaimed religious prophet who recruited men to consume large amounts of hashish and then murder his political opponents. He would invite men and women to live in his garden, ingest hashish (as well as wine and opium) and meditate. The men were then sent out in a state of drug-induced euphoria to murder people.
While some of this tale is considered myth, ibn al-Sabbah’s murderous plots were not. His violent followers did carry out the murders of some Arab sultans and leaders of the Crusades. The killings became associated with the assailant’s hashish habits, spawning the nickname “Hashishiyans” for the intoxicated young men who committed the acts. This nickname is thought to have became the root of the term, “Assassin”.
Hasan ibn al-Sabbah
The widespread popularity of hashish in Persia and the Arab world is credited to the Sufis, an Islamic sect dedicated to fasting, prayer, isolation, and the denial of Earthly pleasures. A 12th century AD legend involves Haydar, a Sufi saint, who wandered out of his monastery one day to spend time in a nearby field. He found a plant dancing in the sun’s warmth and, after eating some of the raw leaves, experienced a curious uplifting sensation.
Haydar’s revelation was told and retold by the Sufis as they traveled throughout the Islamic world, presenting the story as a means to connect with God. The use of substances to expand consciousness has led the Sufis to be called the first hippies and Haydar an ancient Timothy Leary.
Qutb ad-Dīn Haydar
Hash goes west
The last stop on the Hash World Tour was the Americas. The cannabis plant was already there, spun and smoked by the Natives long before the Europeans showed up. The early Americans found cannabis growing in their backyards, but were content to keep their relationship with it fairly platonic. They manufactured rope, clothes and paper, but remained mostly walled-off from impure thoughts of its recreational use.
It took until the 19th century for high-class hashish to join the American party – the party invitation coming from France. In the mid-1800s, a group was formed in Paris called the Club des hashischins whose mission, as the name might suggest, was to talk about and experiment with hashish. The club included many of France’s most influential writers like Charles Baudelaire, Gustave Flaubert, and Honoré de Balzac, who interacted with many writers and scholars from New York. That international fraternity provided hash the ticket to cross the ocean and bridge the philosophical gap between the old and new world.
Table Corner by Henri Fantin-Latour, 1872 with some Hashischin members
The US responded to its new import with two equal and opposite reactions: “We like this”, and, “We prohibit this”. By the early 20th century, hash and its narcotic siblings found themselves in the same judicial penalty-box. In 1906 cannabis products were legally deemed poison. In the 1920s they were banned. It took nearly one hundred years of prohibitions, but in contemporary times cannabis products once again are seeing approval for medicinal use, and even more recently becoming legalized for recreational use in certain states.
Canada was a leader in decriminalizing medical cannabis almost 20 years ago and became one of the first countries to officially legalize it in 2018.
Ironically, while the Western world has become more welcoming to cannabis products, some of the earliest and best hashish producers in the East have gone in the opposite direction. China and Afghanistan, birthplaces of some of the planet’s purest hash, now treat cannabis possession as a criminal offence.
For now at least, the West is the place to freely enjoy the culture, the accessories, and the highs of hash. You can find cannabis-infused foods, drinks, and bath products in stores. The internet features countless DIY videos and online communities for hash-fans. But let’s take pause and remember, hash’s Western flirtation is just its latest fling on the way to the next artistic, spiritual, medicinal muse. Hash has been seducing us for millennia. No reason to believe the seduction stops in the West.
The 10-thousand year circle
Hashish Smokers by Gaetano Previati, 1887
From Farmers to Emperors, cult leaders to French literary giants, all the way up to modern-day hippies and today’s enthusiasts, hashish has inspired a wildly diverse membership in its 10-thousand-year-old circle. Its early history reads like a psychologist’s notebook, with tales of mystical epiphanies, wanton hedonism, even murderous impulses – a catalogue of the Freudian id when loosened with a little ganja.
Looking back at those early cultures, it’s easy to imagine living a daily regimen that revolves around chewing, burning, smoking, or bathing in hash. Sounds like a nice way to spend your day. While we’re grateful to the early explorers who discovered the power of cannabis resin, separated it, shared it, and lived it, we’re happy to enjoy our favourite substance in 21st-century comfort and style.
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