Something I didn't see mentioned in either of the older threads: some people speculate that the mention of "sweet cane" in Exodus 30:23 is actually a misinterpretation and that it should actually be "cannabis". The literal Hebrew [1] is בֹ֖שֶׂם וּקְנֵה־ "ḇō·śem ū·qə·nêh-" or, rearranging that a bit, "qeneh-bosem", which looks a lot like "cannabis". If this speculation is true, it would indicate cannabis was used for religious ceremonies by the early Israelites.<p>[1] <a href="https://biblehub.com/interlinear/exodus/30-23.htm" rel="nofollow">https://biblehub.com/interlinear/exodus/30-23.htm</a>
What's amazing to me is that smoking with pipes or with leaves was unknown in the old world before Columbus.<p>Though, archaeology in India is massively underfunded. It wouldn't surprise me to find that smoking was much older than the 1500s...