marijuana was probably first used as an intoxicant in India around 1000 B.C., and soon became an integral part of Hindu culture. In China, where the marijuana plant had been used to make cloth and certain medicines for centuries, it was not recorded as an intoxicant. Explanations are unclear as to why marijuana was used as an intoxicant in India but not in China.

Marijuana was also used as an intoxicant in other parts of the world prior to 500 A.D. but was not as well documented as the use of opium. The drug "nepenthe" in Homer's Odyssey is believed by a number of scholars to have been a brew in which the most active ingredient was hemp. Galen wrote in the second century that it was customary to promote hilarity and happiness at banquets by giving the guests hemp.

Cannabis is used in three different preparations in India. The first is called bhang, comparable in potency to marijuana in the United States. It is made from the leaves and stems of uncultivated plants and blended into a pleasant tasting liquid concoction. The second is ganja, more potent than bhang, made from the tops of cultivated plants. The third and most potent preparation, charas, is similar to hashish or "hash" and is obtained by scraping the resin from the leaves of the cultivated plants. Hard blocks are pressed from this material which are converted for smoking.

High-caste Hindus are not permitted to use alcohol. But they are allowed bhang at religious ceremonials, and also employ it as an intoxicant at marriage ceremonies and family festivals. Bhang is used by laborers in India in much the same way as beer is used in the United States.

The lower classes of India use either a few pulls at a ganja pipe or sip a glass of bhang at the end of the day to relieve fatigue, to obtain a sense of well-being, to stimulate appetite, and to enable them to bear more cheerfully the "strain and monotony of . . . daily routines". These types of users and objectives are frequently the reverse of those in the United States where marijuana users consider themselves an exclusive and advanced "in-group". A major intoxicant use in India is for religious purposes.