What else is there to do in the Gobi Desert?

Who else saw the news about the 2,700-year-old stash of marijuana found in a grave in the Gobi Desert? Two pounds of it!

And who else had the immediate reaction: Is anybody gonna smoke it?

You know you did, closet stoner.

Unfortunately, knowing what is on every reader's mind, the article goes on to basically say that the THC in the weed would have degraded over the past couple of millenia to the point where it would get you about as high as rolling up some lawn clippings. And anyone who has ever smoked lawn clippings (don't lie) knows that the buzz is totally weak. It's a shame, too, because you know they'd never criminalize blue fescue or bermuda grass.

The interesting thing, however, is that the amount of THC that would have been present in that dead guy's pot the day they buried it along with him means that it was almost certainly cultivated specifically for its psychoactive properties, as opposed to the weaker strains grown solely for the hemp fibers.

The ancients were getting high.

And for some reason this amuses me. I think it's because we tend to view stoners through the prism of Cheech and Chong and Jeff Spicoli, a perspective that is certainly valid, but definitely doesn't show the whole picture. Weed can be hilarious and produces hilarious characters, and as such our depictions of it (including in this blog post) tend to portray it only for comedic effect. That's why it's even funnier when we see it as it so often can be in the real world, and as it apparently was over 2,000 years ago: completely normal.

As in so many ancient civilizations, the dead were often buried with items that they might need in the afterlife. Maybe some food, maybe some weapons or some extra clothing, or maybe 32 ounces of central Asia's finest bud.

Then again, that dude might have just been his generation's Willie Nelson and his pals thought he'd like to smoke up a little on his trip through the hereafter. You know, for the glaucoma. Or maybe that was just what was left after they threw him the mellowest wake of all time.

What the article doesn't mention, however, is if there were any food items found along with the body, like some bronze-age HoHos or Funyuns, which doesn't make sense because with two pounds to smoke, that guy was going to need a lot of snacks.

A LOT of snacks.

And some water.

But maybe that was the point, some sort of torment in the after life. Like sending him off with a box full of brownies and no milk. An everlasting torture.

Ancient assholes.