Special Guest - Dr John Jiggens


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Last Update: April 16, 2012 11:25 AM

In 1995 I helped organise an Australian tour for Jack Herer, the Californian author of a book called The Emperor Wears No Clothes, which was subtitled the true authoritative history of cannabis hemp. Herer was an amateur historian and a crusader against marijuana prohibition who had discovered that marijuana was also this plant called hemp, which had once been an extremely important plant, but was now banned because it was said to be an evil drug plant. During his research Herer discovered that, in previous centuries, hemp had been a major American crop, and that the first and third US Presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, had grown hemp while the sixth President, John Quincy Adams, had even written an essay on the growing of hemp in Russia when he was the US consul in St Petersburg. Herer concluded that hemp had been the most important plant on the planet and he developed the theory that marijuana prohibition had come about as a backdoor attempt to make hemp illegal. Hemp been banned because of the economic competition it offered to the plastic industry, to paper-from-trees and to new synthetic fibres like Nylon.(1)

My response to Herer was ambiguous. I found his history of cannabis remarkable, yet he was such a cannabis enthusiast that some of his conclusions seemed far-fetched. I set to work researching the history of hemp in Australia, and I was surprised to discover that Herer’s claims about hemp’s historical importance, which I thought overstated, were justified. From reading the documents about the founding of Australia and from reading books like Blainey’s The Tyranny of Distance, I came to see how central concerns about hemp were in Britain in 1786 when the decision for New South Wales was made. The history we had been taught at school that convicts were the original reason for the settlement was simply a cover story. New South Wales was intended as a hemp colony.

During this research I became aware that Sir Joseph Banks played a central role in planning the colony of New South Wales and that Banks was deeply concerned about hemp. Just as the founding fathers of the US were hemp enthusiasts, so was the founding father of Australia.

For Europeans in the Age of Sail, cannabis did not mean marijuana: it meant hemp, the long vegetable fibre extracted from the stem of the European hemp plant. The word canvas comes from the Dutch word for ‘cannabis’. To fit out a first rate man-of-war required 80 tonnes of hemp for sails, cables and rigging, and to produce that much hemp 320 acres of Cannabis sativa had to be grown. Because it was the basis for sail and rope, hemp was as central to sea-power and empire in the Age of Sail as oil is in our era.

* Just as the oil industry provides the technological basis for our commerce and our warfare, 200 years ago hemp was basic to the technology of war and trade;

* As the military strategy of the Second World War and the current Middle Eastern wars revolve around oil supplies, naval strategy during the Napoleonic Wars was based around cutting hemp supplies;

* As oil supplies and alternatives to oil occupy some of the greatest minds of our era, two hundred years ago, Sir Joseph Banks, was preoccupied with hemp supplies and alternatives to hemp.

While reading Joseph Maiden’s biography, Sir Joseph Banks - the Father of Australia, I discovered a reference to a file in the Kew Banks’ collection called Hemp 1764-1810. For many years, I have been sifting through this file, laboriously deciphering Banks’ gout-crippled handwriting, trying to understand the history it contained. Having long suspected Banks’ central role in British hemp policy, I was pleased to discover that the file more than confirmed my view. (2)

Dr John Jiggens will be talking on his book Sir Joseph Banks and ther Question of Hemp at MardiGrass, Saturday 2:00PM. and Sunday at 11:00AM in the LoTHC Tent.

 

MARDIGRASS - MARDIGRASS 2012 - ORIGINS - PAST YEARS - PROGRAM '12


NSW Cannabis Laws - Nimbin Accommodation & Transport - Ganja Faeries
Hempen Images - Cannabis World News - Hemp History - Nimbin HEMP Embassy
Poetry for the Head - HEMP Party
Hemp Embassy Online Shop

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