Analysis: Oh How You Ve Grown By John Van Linschoten

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Oh How You 've Grown
In 1596 a middle aged Dutchman sailed the seas with Portugal. The man was Jan Huyghen Van Linschoten. Van Linschoten was a Dutch merchant and historian. While traveling as a secretary for Portugal, it was Van Linschoten 's job to record information about the voyage. The evolution of European intelligence was blossoming with classification systems. Van Linschoten wrote extensive details of his findings on the journey through the East Indies. "The Hearbe called Dutros, is very common in India, and groweth in everie fielde: the leafe thereof is sharp at the ende, like the pointe of a Speare, and is indented on the edges like the leafe of Beares claw, and about that bignesse, having in it many long threedes [or veines, ingroweth] …show more content…

The flower or blossome of this plant is verie like unto the blossome of Rose-Marie in colour: and out of this blossome groweth a bud, much like the bud of Popie, wherein are certain small kernels like the kernels of melons, which being stamped, and put into any meate, wine, water, or any other drinke or composition, and eaten or drunke therewith, maketh a man, in such case as if hee were foolish [or out of his wittes] so that he doth nothing else but laugh, without any understanding or sence [once] to perceive anything that …show more content…

Van Linschoten referred to the marijuana as being "stamped". Just eating a pot leaf does not have much effect. You could eat a large bud if you so desired, yet many people choose to smokes the plant for higher potency. The residue on the buds has a higher concentration of THC or Tetrahydrocannabinol. Having a dry mouth full of sticky, seedy, stem filled, marijuana bud is not as effective as inhaling the burnt residue of the THC. Stamping the residue out creates an even more potent concoction. The simple method of smashing the buds and then adding that to food or drinks had changed by the 1960s. With the international trade of hashish coming from Morocco the new way of extracting THC became widespread. The marijuana was first smashed or ground up like in the older times, but now was being heated and compressed. The extract was so tightly condensed that the users were getting more THC in one puff of smoke. One hit of hash has the effects of smoking two joints of traditional marijuana. The higher potency creates a higher dependency also. The withdrawal from hash causes mood swings, irritability, sleeplessness, and night sweats. Still in a natural form, now just smashed together, yet evolving the effect it has on

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