America’s Founding Fathers Spread the Seed

It is well known that a few of our founding fathers were big proponents of growing hemp everywhere. A few in particular such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin not only spoke great things of the plant, but actually took part in the creation of a hemp industry.

Thomas Jefferson received the United States first patent; A hemp threshing machine. He also smuggled new strains of the cannabis seed from China, to France, Then to America, all awhile serving as ambassador to France. Jefferson also wrote about the advantages of hemp over tobacco, in use, labor and for the sake of the land, probably on hemp paper.

Benjamin Franklin owned one of the first paper mills that processed hemp into parchment, that of which was used in many first drafts that later became the documents that America stands by. The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”, the Federalist (and Anti-Federalist) Papers, the Articles of Confederation, and of course the United States Constitution were all written on hemp paper.

George Washington not only grew hemp for clothes (home spun), he actually has a quote from his diary from August 7, 1765: “— began to separate the male from the female hemp at Do — rather too late.” It is debatable, but today that technique is used solely for drug potency in marijuana. There are a few trace evidences to the idea that our founding fathers smoked hemp for pleasure, but it seems likely.