A codex dated from the early 6th century A.D., the Vienna Dioscorides is the earliest manuscript humans have concerning the sciences of botany and horticulture. The codex is a 512 A.D. Byzantine copy of a work by Roman surgeon Pedanius Dioscorides, who compiled the uses for hundreds of plants and herbs as he traveled with Emperor Nero's legions in the first century. Dioscorides's work is the first medical mention of the cannabis plant we have, dating from the Western Roman Empire and proving that the West knew of and utilized cannabis for its medicinal properties in the ancient world, as did its Eastern counterparts.
With this unforgiving mentality, Anslinger ruled over the Federal Narcotics Bureau (a precursor to the DEA) for more than three decades — a formative period that shaped the United States’ drug policy for years to come. During this time, he implemented stringent drug laws and unreasonably long prison sentences that would give rise to America’s prison-industrial complex. Because of Anslinger, millions of lives were swept up in the drug war’s dragnet, if they weren’t outright ended. But Anslinger’s wasn’t so much a war on drugs as it was a war on culture, an attempt to squelch the radical freedom of the Jazz Age for people of color. Anslinger was a xenophobe with no capacity for intellectual nuance, and his racist views informed his work to devastating effect. But he couldn’t have done it, nor reigned as long as he did, without a cast of complicit politicians who shared his bigoted vision for what America should be.
![George Washington's diary entries indicate that he grew hemp at Mount Vernon, his plantation, for about 30 years [approximately 1745-1775]. According to his agricultural ledgers, he had a particular interest in the medicinal use of Cannabis, and sev…](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59c9675bedaed8350d895b39/1525634458311-UG1C1CP8EWH41ZZBRTFB/FUN+FACT+%23420+004+IG.png)
George Washington's diary entries indicate that he grew hemp at Mount Vernon, his plantation, for about 30 years [approximately 1745-1775]. According to his agricultural ledgers, he had a particular interest in the medicinal use of Cannabis, and several of his diary entries indicate that he indeed was growing Cannabis with a high Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content - cannabis. Ben Franklin owned a mill that made hemp paper, which allowed America to have a free colonial press without having to beg or justify paper and books from England. Furthermore, the rope that was used in his famous lighting experiment was a hemp rope.
Betsy Ross made the first flag of the United States of America out of the finest, strongest fiber available, hemp fabric. It is also said that the finest laces of the olden days were always made of hemp in preference to any other fiber. Let's not forget also, the Declaration of Independence was drafted on Hemp paper by our founding fathers and farmers, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.
