China is known for its draconian anti-illegal drug stance, including the liberal application of capital punishment upon those caught trafficking drugs at a certain volume. But though technically highly forbidden, cannabis has a rich and robust history of use throughout the region.
The earliest written reference to cannabis comes from China in 2700 BC, wherein the word ‘Ma’ is recorded. The Mandarin character for ma is ‘麻’ , which literally depicts two cannabis plants hanging upside down drying.
Thias first written historical reference to cannabis comes from Emperor Shen Nung’s Pharmacopeia. Shen Nung is regarded as the father of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a holistic approach to maintaining vitality in the body and mind that continues to be practiced today globally.
Cannabis seeds are an official part of this canon and have been described continuously for over 1800 years. Oil is procured from the seeds of the cannabis plant and used topically on the skin in a moisturizing and fortifying capacity.
When I visited Yunnan province in 2006 and toured a monastery full of burgundy robed monks attending to their vows, the entire venue was ringed with wild cannabis plants growing along the mountainside in clusters as far as the eye could see. I asked the monks if they use the plant, to which they eagerly replied that they do in fact use a skin balm made from the seeds of the plant.
I imagined all the potential ways in which I was missing out on bigger picture opportunities incarnate in the cannabis plant – as yet unforeseen ways of tapping into the humbling and inspiring cannabis dimension that I had only entered via smoking it in resin encrusted pieces and out of water bottles or apples when no one had a piece.
Yet cannabis is still extremely illegal in contemporary China.
The only provision for legal cannabis comes in hemp form, with China’s industrial hemp industry reportedly processing over 100,000 metric tons in 2023.
Despite this contradiction between historical use and modern drug policy, the Leaping Tiger Gorge region still has a cannabis trade targeted at daytrippers and trekkers embarking upon a journey alongside the dramatic cliffs above the Yangtze River.
In Leaping Tiger Gorge, a sizable tract of the region has wild cannabis plants growing openly. Vendors set up shop in front of their homesteads and at waypoints across the trail, picking the buds from the wild plants and offering them for sale alongside local produce and drinks.
Local restaurants and inns take advantage of the travelers appetite for weed in their own homegrown cannabis tourism enterprise, offering day trippers infused foods for a nominal extra fee. Vendors set up shop in front of their homesteads and at waypoints across the trail, picking the buds from the wild plants and offering them for sale alongside local produce and drinks.
The first time I ever ate an edible was actually in Leaping Tiger Gorge in 2006. I was at a cliffside restaurant there in an area where I had observed and photographed many wild cannabis plants throughout the day of our visit. At the restaurant, the back page of the menu brazenly depicted a caricature of a stoner with bloodshot eyes with the accompanying test “make food happy $1 more”
I didn’t deliberate much before ordering a ‘happy pancake’, then eating the massive singular pancake with leafy greens swimming in the soft warm dough. I had somehow never been informed that the cannabis buzz from edibles doesn’t immediately settle in and instead requires between 30 minutes to an hour. I ate the whole pancake, thinking it was shitty weed or a mischaracterization of the female plant.
I remember thinking at the time – I could probably stay at this lodge indefinitely, or perhaps indefinitely, just smoking the local weed and pensively gazing out over the dramatic view of the valley before between succulent Chinese meals.
An hour or so later, I was substantially higher than I’d ever been in my life. Returning to my hotel two hours down the mountain, I sat transfixed by the sweeping beauty of Leaping Tiger Gorge while the driver insisted we listen to his Led Zeppelin cassette – a great nod to what was obviously my statue-like state of intoxication.
Passing by the monastery where I had visited the cannabis seed oil lathered monks a few hours before, I felt a deeper sense of kinship and reverence for their peaceful and …for lack of a better reference, zenlike lifestyle they maintained quietly tucked away in the rolling hills of such an agrarian paradise.
But there was never any guarantee that this remarkable setting was going to remain a splendor of undisturbed nature.
The gorge was the proposed site of a massive dam construction project that many locals and environmentalists were already protesting around the turn of the millennium.
Public opposition to the massive hydropower dam construction project prevailed in a win for environmentalists and locals of the region – had the project been executed as envisioned by it’s architects, over 100,000 people would have been displaced and the cannabis rich, environmentally pristine valley would have been flooded for 200 kilometers with over 13,000 hectares of fertile agricultural land submerged.
Had I been in the area when public opposition was mounting, I would be out there in a second handcuffing myself to the biggest cannabis plant I could find in an act of ecosystem defense.
Alas, the liminal wilds of Leaping Tiger Gorge remain frozen in time as a testament to a bygone era. The vendors on the trail continue to offer wild harvested buds for sale, and the inns and restaurants continue to operate in the spirit of Shangri-La.
With the rise of cannabis tourism globally and a longing for these types of wide, wild spaces so accommodating to the unfettered imagination and the human spirit, it’s perhaps time for me to make a return pilgrimage to Yunnan Province and Leaping Tiger Gorge – if for no other reason to recapture the initial mind expansion of connecting with this wild landscape and seeing how the local cannabis tourism sector is faring today.
Dennis Walker is a satirist and multimedia producer with a long and robust relationship to psychedelics. He is the host of the Mycopreneur Podcast, a platform that spotlights and supports fungi entrepreneurs from around the world. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Forbes, and High Times among many other platforms.
Check out more of Dennis Walker’s work here at Beard Bros.
Humo en la Montaña Cannabis Cup
The Uncertain Future Of Freetown Christiania
It’s Time to Talk About Spliffs: A Rolling Issue in the Global Cannabis Community
