Hemp activists constantly refer to and quote George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and even Abe Lincoln when discussing the history of hemp/marijuana in the U.S.
Sure they grew it, but did G.W. smoke it?
Here’s a couple famous Gee-dubya diary entries:
May 12-13 1765: “Sowed Hemp at Muddy hole by Swamp.”
August 7, 1765: “–began to seperate (sic) the Male
from the Female Hemp at Do–rather too late.”
George Andrews has argued, in The Book of Grass: An Anthology of Indian Hemp (1967), that Washington’s August 7 diary entry “clearly indiactes that he was cultivating the plant for medicinal purposes as well for its fiber.” [7] He might have separated the males from the females to get better fiber, Andrew concedes–but his phrase “rather too late” suggests that he wanted to complete the separation before the female plants were fertilized–and this was a practice related to drug potency rather that to fiber culture.
I would add this G.W. quote to the argument:
“What was done with the seed saved from the India Hemp last summer? It ought, all of it, to have been sewn
again; that not only a stock of seed sufficient for my own purposes might have been raised, but to have
disseminated the seed to others; as it is more valuable than the common Hemp.”
The distinction “Indian hemp” from “common hemp” would further support the idea of Washington growing for smoking purposes. The sub-species distinction being Cannabis Indica vs. Cannabis Ruderalis (or perhaps Sativa). Indica is bred for its potency, hashish being a major component of the Indian production methods.
Since hashish at that time was generally ingested orally to achieve intoxication, and the methods of producing it were probably not known in the West, is it possible he learned to smoke it from his slaves? Most literature supports an African link to the practice of smoking to acquire intoxication…
“In Southern Africa the Hottentots use it under the name of dacha, for purposes of intoxication; and when the
Bushmen were in London, they smoked the dried plant in short pipes made of the tusks or teeth of animals. And what is more astonishing, when we consider the broad seas which intervene, even the native Indians of Brazil know its value,
and delight in its use; so that over the hotter parts of the globe generally, wherever the plant produces in abundance
its peculiar narcotic principle, its virtues may be said to be known, and more or less extensively made use of.”
AUTHOR James F. Johnston
SOURCE Chemistry of Common Life, “The Narcotics We Indulge In: Indian Hemp” 1855
“The most famous example of hemp smoking replacing earlier religious rites became known when Hermann von Wissmann visited the Balubas, a Bantu tribe in the Congo. The chief,
Kalamba-Moukenge, seeking to unify diverse tribes he had conquered, in 1888 ordered their ancient fetishes to be
burned and replaced with a ritual religion using cannabis as the central sacrament. ‘On all important occasions,
such as holidays or the conclusion of a treaty or alliance,’ Reininger reported in 1946, 'the Baluba smoke hemp in
gourds which may be as much as one meter in circumference. In addition, the men gather each evening in the main
square, where they solemnly smoke hemp together. But hemp is also used for punishment. The delinquent is compelled to smoke a particularly strong portion until he loses consciousness.”
SOURCE: The HIGH TIMes Encyclopedia of Recreational Drugs, “Cannabis and its Derivatives” 1978
This may also account for the rise of ganja use in the Rasta culture and certainly makes for an easier link to Washington>>>>>>>>>