I was reading Pynchon’s last book–“Mason and Dixon”–the other day and I was really entertained by this one scene in which George Washington, Mason, and Dixon sit around sharing a blunt. Martha comes out with a tray full of cookies. She thought she’d whip up a batch after seeing them smoking since they’d be getting the munchies soon…or something to that effect. Very funny scene.
Anyway, Pynchon is playing on the fact–pretty commonly known–
that several founding fathers (farmers like Washington, Jefferson, and Adams) grew hemp. This was considered a valuable crop, useful for making strong rope, clothing, etc. Now, my question is: did they smoke pot? This would hardly be considered scandalous by 18th and early-19th century standards, what with snuff, opium abuse, and the later popularity of cocaine. And pot was only criminalized in the 20th century during a time of moral hysteria…
(I know it’s unheard of on these boards but if somebody has info on this could they cite their sources so that I can look into it a bit more? A specific book, or instance. Thanks.)
George Washington wrote one entry in his farm journal:
Now, any marijuana farmer knows that the female Cannabis flowering tops produce higher potency THC when separated from the male plants before the flowering parts appear. Our first president evidently was aware of this too, since his remark on the timing would make sense only if he were growing Hemp for the psychoactive potency of the resin. If he were growing it only for the fiber, there would be no reason to separate the male from the female plants.
A searchable archive of Washington’s papers is avalable here. Knock yerself out.
Other indications that that Washington was interested in the pharmacological action of include a letter to Sir John Sinclair, (no cite, sorry,) in which he extolled the virtues of Cannabis Indica (which had been cultivated for bhang for centuries) as superior to the common variety: “I find that, for all purposes, the Indian hemp is in every way superior to the New Zealand variety previously cultivated here.”
The problem with trying to find a decent cite for this is that there are half a million crappy webpages by potheads that say “GEORGE WASHINGTON SMOKED WEED!!!”
Personally, I think that the chances are uh, “high” that Washington used some cannabis preparations internally, particularly when you consider that in a relatively short time, cannabis would be a staple ingredient in patent medicines.
But then, I do like an occasional hit from the bong, so I would think that.
Thanks for the references. Mojo’s quote was particularly interesting. And I agree with the Finnegans Wake guy that the internet isn’t the best place to research somethng like this.
Would it be likely that even if Washington et al. smoked hemp that it would be via a “blunt?” A pipe I might buy, but neither cigars nor cigarettes were in common usage at the time, as far as I’ve read, and I find it odd that they would use marijuana in this way.
Also, note that Washington suffered chronic (no pun intended!) pain. He had severe dental problems, and had, not wooden teeth, but ivory dentures held in place with wooden pegs–ouch.
Of course, all this hardly amounts to a smoking gun (“Dear posterity: I used pot. Regards, GW”) but there’s no doubt that he had the stuff, he apparently took pains to make it potent [see above posts regarding separating the plants by sex], and he had a real need for pain relief.
