A lot of people are using cannabis more and more every single year. A lot of people use this for the holidays, and also to unwind. While cannabis does have some recent prevalence, it’s not totally new. In fact, it’s something that’s been legal for far longer than the illegal nature of this.Here is a brief look at cannabis, and the history of usage within the US.
Predating the US
This was something that did get brought to the US and was a part of colonies in Britain. However, it also played a key role in a lot of other businesses too, such as reconstruction and the like. It was even ordered within Jamestown that the farmers had to grow some hemp.
Back then, there wasn’t a difference between cannabis and hemp, and the term for this was actually something that didn’t come around till about 1753 within the US. Hemp is basically anything with less than .3% THC, and cannabis has a lot more than that.
The Founding Fathers Loved Hemp
The people who helped form this country actually loved hemp, and they even grew some of this for their own usage and consumption too!
Thomas Jefferson even talked about how he preferred to grow hemp, rather than tobacco. It was seen as a good crop for industries, but there were plenty of benefits that were there as well, especially for the psychoactive reasons too.
Jefferson supposedly brought some of the seeds back after he went to China. Since this was first domesticated within Asia, and since then, the region has a lot of landrace strains that you can use, including Afghani and Thai Stick, some even said that he brought the more unique parts of this there, so that people could grow it as well.
It’s also interesting to note that the Declaration of Independence, which helped get the American colonies away from Britain’s control, was also something that used hemp. They used processed hemp, converted this to parchment, and people signed this on there.
But it’s more than just something used for writing. George Washington wrote about separating out the plants, and he was definitely interested in the properties that were psychoactive within cannabis, and he probably did some experimentation to see if there was any way to boost the levels of THC within this.
While there is some speculation, some people do think that the Founding Fathers loved to smoke hemp. It’s something that wouldn’t necessarily be too off.
Crop to Contraband
Cannabis was used for over 300 years as a cash crop, even after the distinction between the and marijuana.
However, in 1916, it was found through some publishing by the USDA that hemp actually created four times the amount of paper, and it was sustainable.
There were over 25,000 different usages for this, but then, when the marijuana tax act came about, it basically banned it all over the country. This price caused the crop to not be viable to grow, and some believe it was used to further plastic and nylon, emerging industries, and also to integrate the paper companies so that the lumbar groups were able to thrive.
Regardless, it wasn’t fair, especially given that we did have this in place.
Then of course, there were the war gardens, and then, by 1971, the controlled substances act happened, making it a Schedule 1 substance, on the same level as cocaine and LSD.
Cannabis used to be seen as useful, but the tone changed. Hopefully, with time we can change that tune again as it become s more and more legal.
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