Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Yana Byers
Guest: Bradley J. Bourougerdi, Professor at Tarrant County College, Arlington, TX
Episode Title: Cannabis: A Global History (Reaktion, 2025)
Date: December 4, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation with historian Bradley J. Bourougerdi about his new book, Cannabis: A Global History, published as part of Reaktion’s "Edible" series. Bourougerdi shares both his personal academic journey and the broader global context of cannabis, exploring its long, complex, and often misunderstood role in human history. The conversation touches on the plant’s multi-purpose uses—industrial, medical, and recreational—its etymological confusion, its ancient and global migration, the evolution of legal and cultural perceptions, and its enduring place in modern debates.

Key Themes and Discussion Points

Bourougerdi’s Academic Journey and Book Motivation

• Academic background: Initially a Russian historian, Bourougerdi shifted focus when exploring global connections between Russia and early America, leading to cannabis via its importance as hemp in naval stores.
• Writing for a wider audience:
  • “[This] was a chance really to kind of provide a perspective to a broader audience…because, you know, I’m a community college professor, and I like talking and teaching to a wider audience…” (04:05)
  • Desire to bridge academic rigor and public accessibility.

Why Cannabis?

• Chance discovery through Russian and American history:
  • Hemp’s essential role for naval power in the 18th century, especially in the American Revolution, drew Bourougerdi’s academic attention.
  • "Most of the naval store hemp that Americans used was imported from the British, who purchased it from Russia. And so that kind of got me into thinking, well, what is hemp and how does it connect to cannabis more broadly?" (08:37)
• Multipurpose nature: Industrial, medical, psychoactive—its diversity and confusion in public understanding.

What Is Cannabis? — Nomenclature and Confusion

• Multiplicity of terms:
  • “Some people refer to hemp…and associate it with sinister intoxicants. Some…associate it with industrial purposes. Some…medical purposes. And this kind of led me into this idea that cannabis is this very multipurpose, broad plant…” (10:14)
• Common confusion:
  • “Some people are unaware that hemp is cannabis…those six students [in my class]…didn’t know that hemp was part of cannabis. And that just sort of like fed into my idea of just how confusing the nomenclature of this plant has been and, in fact, still is, I think.” (12:08)

Cannabis’s Deep Historical Roots

• Ancient relationship:
  • “It’s thousands of years old…I think some scholars have pushed it as at least 10,000 years old. It could be one of the first people plant relationships that was established.” (14:16)
• Early uses: Food (nutritious seeds), fiber for textiles/rope, psychoactive and medicinal uses.
• Cultural diversity in use: Reasons for cultivation vary—nutrition, psychoactive effects, utility fibers—over time and geography.

Uses and Cultural Meanings

• Industrial: Linens, cloth, rope, naval stores—a truly ubiquitous household plant.
  • “Any sort of rope that you need, or durable fiber…People used it as a medicine, but without its intoxicating properties…” (19:17)
  • Used as a unit of measure in medical treatises, reflecting ubiquity.
• Medicinal: Both psychoactive and non-psychoactive varieties used in Asia and Europe, respectively.
• Food: Hemp seeds as nourishment.

Origins, Species, and Global Spread

• Origins:
  • Non-psychoactive cannabis (sativa): Eurasian steppes.
  • Psychoactive cannabis (indica): Himalayas and Hindu Kush; spread across Asia, Africa, then the Americas.
  • “It wasn’t until the age of exploration and the Colombian exchange that…cannabis migrate[d] across the Atlantic Ocean into the Americas.” (23:07)
• Introduction to the Americas:
  • Industrial hemp via Europeans for fiber.
  • “Drug” cannabis possibly with enslaved Africans; some evidence of this cultural transmission in African-American communities.
  • Genetic diversity increased as both types hybridized.

Modern Confusion: Strains, “Sativa” and “Indica”

• Dispensary culture
  • “Trying to explain to Europeans what an American cannabis store is like, is hilarious…it feels like next generation, like craft brew…” (27:44–28:28)
• Taxonomy issues
  • “Every time I interact with some of these people…it’s like I just want to have a whole history conversation about these different terms and some of the problems…” (29:19)
  • “The lack of ability to standardize the experience of a cannabis high…has kind of kept it in this confusing gray area.” (29:57)
• Variability in effects
  • Early Western medicinal use encountered unpredictable outcomes, feeding into suspicion and negativity:
    • “Some chemists are talking about how great and wonderful it is…people describe, like, when I took this medicine, it didn’t do anything to me. And others…when I took a little bit, it made me see demons…” (30:20–30:42)
  • Contributed to “aura of confusion” and later demonization.

Criminalization and “Reefer Madness”

• Early 20th-Century Hysteria
  • U.S. Reefer Madness didn’t develop in isolation—was part of a global push (League of Nations, international conventions) to regulate and demonize "dangerous" drugs.
  • Racist and orientalist anxieties played major roles.
• Propaganda and policy
  • “After Prohibition ended…people with jobs…attacking alcohol…transition toward thinking about cannabis in these negative ways. Harry Anslinger…starts to inquire about cannabis as a problem…” (36:26)
• Misinformation effects:
  • “[The government] was worried or concerned that people were going to get high by smoking doormats. And…sounds rather comical now to us in hindsight…” (40:59)
• Persistence of draconian laws
  • “Just a couple hundred miles from where [legal use is]…you could be put in prison for decades for doing the same thing. Right. And so this kind of like problem…is still lingering with us.” (43:31)

Notable Cultural Moments: Alice B. Toklas & Cannabis Edibles

• Alice B. Toklas and “Hashish Fudge”
  • Historical recipes and their countercultural legacy discussed.
  • “She sort of like was in a desperate situation when she was…living as an expatriate with Gertrude Stein…decided to come up with this cookbook…[included a] recipe for what he called cannabis fudge…” (45:02)
  • “Her name became attached to…the cannabis brownie” via popular culture, especially the film I Love You Alice B. Toklas! (47:30)
  • “I think the cannabis brownie is sort of like the quintessential food that people associate when it comes to cannabis consumption. And it can be traced back to that film…” (48:25)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the confusion about what ‘cannabis’ is:
  “Some people are unaware that hemp is cannabis…those six students who…signed up didn’t know that hemp was part of cannabis. And that just sort of like fed into my idea of just how confusing the nomenclature of this plant has been…”
  — Bourougerdi, 12:08

• On cannabis’s mismatch with American counterculture stereotypes:
  “If I called it marijuana, probably more people would have showed up [to my course].”
  — Bourougerdi, 12:02

• On evolving uses:
  “What we know about the uses of commodity is that the way a society uses something, invests it with meaning. And because cannabis has such a diverse use connected to it, you’re therefore going to have all of these different meanings surrounding it.”
  — Bourougerdi, 21:05

• On the lasting impact of prohibition:
  “This kind of like problem…is still lingering with us.”
  — Bourougerdi, 43:31

• On Toklas’ accidental legacy:
  “Her name became attached to…the cannabis brownie…[though] she sort of was like, I didn’t even really know it was that controversial.”
  — Bourougerdi, 48:25

Segment Timestamps

| Time | Segment | |------------|--------------------------------------------------------| | 01:34 | Yana introduces guest and book | | 02:35 | Bourougerdi describes his path to writing on cannabis | | 06:02 | “Why cannabis?”—tracing his subject to Russian history | | 09:44 | "What is cannabis?"—Nomenclature & confusion | | 13:36 | Cannabis and human history—ancient uses | | 18:42 | Diverse uses of cannabis across cultures/times | | 22:07 | Botanical origins and global spread | | 27:44 | The modern cannabis store and taxonomy confusion | | 30:42 | Unpredictable effects, medicinal dilemmas | | 33:24 | Reefer Madness and drug prohibition | | 39:47 | The hemp industry and prohibition in US | | 44:14 | Discussion of edible recipes; Alice B. Toklas | | 47:30 | Counterculture and culinary legacy |

Final Thoughts

Bourougerdi’s conversation with Byers paints a rich and nuanced global picture of cannabis—one that moves far beyond stereotypes and decades of policy-driven stigma. The discussion emphasizes the plant’s historical flexibility, the persistent confusion over its identity and uses, and the long shadow cast by 20th-century prohibition. Through humor, sharp observation, and a blend of scholarly detail and storytelling, Bourougerdi makes a compelling case for understanding cannabis as a truly global, deeply human phenomenon.

Recommended for:

• Scholars and general readers interested in the history of drugs, plants, and culture
• Anyone curious about the true origins and global story of cannabis beyond legalization debates
• Listeners wanting engaging academic storytelling