CANNABIS HISTORY
Power and Corruption —
A Mini-History of Cannabis Cultivation in the USA and Mexico ’ s Connection
by Karla Deel , contributing writer
It ’ s not news that hemp was cultivated in the United States dating back to Jamestown and the farms of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson , and again for the Hemp for Victory war campaign . But when did the United States become one of the premier cannabis-growing countries in the world ? Cannabis is currently the 5th largest crop in the United States , and Forbes projects the market will reach $ 41 billion in annual sales by 2026 .
In the early 1900s , the U . S . government began experimenting with cannabis cultivation on the coattails of its sophisticated European neighbors who carried the substance in pharmacies . However , it wasn ’ t until the ‘ 20s that cannabis cultivation and consumption were
Sugar beet workers , 1929 Archive photo Library of Congress , public domain .
anti-immigrant sentiment swept the nation , and reports of the evils of menace marijuana in connection to Mexicans ramped up . Massscale deportation occurred shortly after . Only a decade later , wartime projects in agriculture demanded labor in a time when most American men were overseas and thus re-attracted millions of Mexican immigrants to come to the United States through legal Bracero labor programs . Consequently , cannabis farms exploded again in Montana , Wyoming , California , and other western and midwestern states .
Archive photo originally printed in Chicago Tribune June 1929 .
popularized among the people . In a 1929 article , the Chicago Tribune traced early cultivation to Mexican immigrant communities , which it claims brought cannabis seeds into the United States . The workers would plant tiny patches of marijuana near their boxcar homes , along railways , in between rows of corn , and in window-boxes of apartments producing “ heavy harvests .” They could then sell three cigarettes for 25 cents . The Tribune concluded that the Mexican “ loco weed ” spread across the Midwest due to immigrant and working-class cultivation , but also by natural elements and birds that would eat the seeds and deposit them elsewhere .
On a larger scale , Mexican sugar beet workers were found growing weed in the fields ( photo above right ) of irrigation and other agricultural projects in California , Montana , and Wyoming . Others followed suit , and soon , marijuana crops yielded abundant harvests in farms of the American West .
Unemployment during the Great Depression led to a surplus of American men seeking work in agriculture . California ’ s population alone increased 25 percent in 1930 . Simultaneously , an increasing
18 February 2022
Cannabis continued to be the subject of salacious newspaper articles that claimed the plant was vicious , noxious , dangerous , habit-forming , and crime-inducing . According to a reporter at the Marion County Standard in 1938 , the effects of smoking “ reefers ” would come in three stages . First , feelings of
( Clipping headline from a 1930s newspaper ) exhilaration and gayety . Second ,
melancholia and hallucinations , such as a desire to kill a fancied enemy . And finally , smokers would be aroused to murder . With propaganda like that , agents were empowered to destroy all cannabis plants .
In addition to illicit grow operations , authorities targeted feral cannabis crops growing rampant ( remember the Birds ?). “ Concern about feral cannabis ,” writes cannabis scholar Nick Johnson , “ stemmed from the belief that if the plant was left to grow in its natural state , a shadowy class of users and dealers would eventually come by and ‘ harvest ’ the illegal drug .”