The Emperor Wears No Clothes

by Jack Herer

Smoking in America

The first known* smoking of female cannabis tops in the Western hemisphere was probably in the 1870s in the West Indies (Jamaica, Bahamas, Barbados, etc.); and arrived with the immigration of thousands of Indian Hindus (from British-controlled India) imported for cheap labor. By 1886, Mexicans and black sailors, who traded in those islands, picked up and spread its use throughout all the West Indies and Mexico.

* There are other theories about the first known “smoking” of hemp flower tops, e.g., by American and Brazilian slaves, Shawnee Indians, etc., some fascinating – but none verifiable.

Cannabis smoking was generally used in the West Indies to ease the back-breaking work in the came fields, beat the heat, and to relax in the evenings without the threat of an alcohol hangover in the morning.

Given its late 19th Century area of usage – the Caribbean West Indies and Mexico – it is not surprising the first marijuana use recorded in the U.S. was by Mexicans in Brownsville, Texas in 1903. And the first marijuana prohibition law in America – pertaining only to Mexicans – was passed in Brownsville in that same year.

“Ganja” use was next reported in 1909 in the port of New Orleans, in the black dominated “Storeyville” section frequented by sailors.

New Orleans’ Storeyville was filled with cabarets, brothels, music, and all the other usual accoutrements of “red light” districts the world over. Sailors from the islands took their shore leave and their marijuana there.