Mia Touw's The Religious and Medicinal Uses of Cannabis in China, India and Tibet, published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs in 1981, is a peer reviewed survey of the textual evidence for ritual and medical cannabis use across three Asian traditions, drawing on classical Chinese pharmacological texts, Indian devotional and Ayurvedic sources, and more fragmentary Tibetan material. Its strength is comparative range across traditions usually studied separately, grounded in the primary textual record rather than modern ethnographic assumption. Its limit is that Touw's own survey notes the evidence is genuinely uneven across the three traditions, richer and better attested for Indian devotional use than for the Chinese or Tibetan material, so a claim about cannabis in Chinese or Tibetan religious practice specifically should be weighed against the article's own acknowledgment of thinner evidence there.
Facts
Assessment
Reliability Tier2
Mia Touw's survey, published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs in 1981, is a peer reviewed article in a specialty journal whose own evidence base the author describes as uneven across the three traditions it compares, hence the middle tier. NotesSurvey of the textual evidence for ritual and medical cannabis in three Asian traditions. Cited for the Indian devotional use and for the limits of the Chinese evidence.
Citation
AuthorMia Touw
PublisherJournal of Psychoactive Drugs
Publication Year1981
Source Typepeer-reviewed article
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names China directly: "and Medicinal Uses of Cannabis in China, India and Tibet, published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs in 1981, is a peer reviewed survey of the textual evidence for ritual and medical cannabis..."
This source names India directly: "Medicinal Uses of Cannabis in China, India and Tibet, published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs in 1981, is a peer reviewed survey of the textual evidence for ritual and medical cannabis use..."
Claims Backed By This Source (21 claims)
This source backs 21 claims across the atlas. As facts: 14 well-attested, 1 scholarly debate. As cited relationships: 5 holds. Plus 1 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Plants, 12 claims: 7 well-attested, 1 scholarly debate, 3 holds, 1 general references.
- Sources, 9 claims: 7 well-attested, 2 holds.
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