The roots run deep.
Cannabis history, science, and culture — the stories behind the plant most people have never heard.
Police radio code. A Bob Dylan lyric. Hitler's birthday. The number of chemicals in cannabis. None of these are right. The real story involves five high school kids, a statue of Louis Pasteur, and an abandoned grow that no one ever found.
Around 440 BCE, Herodotus described nomads on the Eurasian steppe throwing cannabis seeds onto hot stones inside small tents. For centuries we assumed he was exaggerating. Then we found the tents.
Every European warship from the 16th to the 19th century ran on hemp. The sails were hemp. The rigging was hemp. The caulking was hemp. When the British Empire ran low, it nearly lost the seas.
The word "canvas" comes from "cannabis." For most of recorded history, sails, ropes, and rough cloth were made from hemp fiber.