HUMANS began using cannabis as long as 10,000 years ago, scientists have found.

As Europe’s glaciers began their final retreat, it is believed tribes in both Europe and Asia started picking the plant.

3 Cannabis ... humans have enjoyed the highs of the plant for thousands of years Credit: Getty Images

It is thought early humans on both continents came across the drug at about the same time.

But the plant was not used for the psychoactive high that it is today – tribes first picked the plant for its nutritional seeds and hemp fibres that could be fashioned into clothes.

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This soon changed, however, with humans enjoying the high of cannabis long before they started drinking alcohol; marijuana pre-dates booze by around 3,000 years.

Researcher Tengwen Long, of the German Archaeological Institute, told The Sunday Times: “The cannabis plant seems to be have been distributed widely from as early as 10,000 years ago.”

3 Not used as the psychoactive drug we know it as today ... cannabis was first used for food and its ability to be fashioned into clothes Credit: Getty Images

It took humans thousands of years to realise there was money to be made from the plant.

Bronze Age herders began using animals to trade cannabis with other tribes around 5,000 years ago.

Experts say officials should look at the way drugs have been used over the course of thousands of years to better understand addiction in modern times.

3 Humans enjoyed the high of cannabis long before alcohol ... marijuana pre-dates booze by approximately 3,000 years Credit: Alamy

Speaking to Huffington Post about the potential benefit of drugs’ longstanding presence in society, Dr Elisa Guerra-Doce, of the University of Valladolid in Spain, said: “Considering the failures of the war on drugs, perhaps our modern societies should look into the past and learn something from ‘the primitive’."

According to Dr Guerra-Doce, such a study could help us learn "how to maximize the potential benefits and minimize the potential for harm of substances that humans have been using for millennia.”

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