Cannabis Pioneer: Jack Herer

Missouri’s medical marijuana program is off to a roaring start, while legislators across the nation continue to duke it out and present constituents and peers with new proposed efforts for both legalization and decriminalization. While those fires rage, Greenway continues our tribute to cannabis pioneers – last month, we brought you the story of Brownie Mary, an advocate for the sick who devoted her life to advocacy for AIDs patients. This month, we bring you the story of Jack Herer – yes, he’s the guy with the strain named after him – but his story is much more than a popular strain.

Like other cannabis pioneers before him, Jack Herer, also known as the Emperor of Hemp, didn’t set out to be a cultural icon. Born in 1939 in New York, Herer was a military policeman during the Korean War and didn’t discover cannabis for himself until moving to Los Angeles in 1967.

That discovery would set him on the path that shaped his work and his legacy in the cannabis industry and culture. Experiencing cannabis made Herer an instant student in all things “pot” and in 1973 Herer co-authored a comic magazine called G.R.A.S.S. (Great Revolutionary Standard System) which called itself “The Official Guide for Assessing the Quality of Marijuana on the 1 to 10 scale.” In those early days, Herer and a smoke shop owner named Ed Adair launched both a head shop in Venice Beach and a campaign to legalize marijuana simultaneously.

All of these cannabis efforts were in tandem with his fight for hemp – and most importantly, the under-usage of hemp as the ultimate renewable source of medicine, fuel, food, and more. His argument, it can easily be grown anywhere and could replace not only fossil fuels, but also tree-based paper and construction materials – eventually and theoretically putting a stop to the pollution, deforestation and the greenhouse effect – all unfortunate byproducts of tree-based production of materials.

The fight for hemp is what truly brought Herer into the mainstream, especially when he was touted for proving the government had lied when it denied the pro-hemp Department of Agriculture’s film “Hemp for Victory” during World War II. Herer’s message about the 14 minute reel was that “the powers that be were fully aware of the power of hemp – when it suited their purposes.”

Perhaps his most important initiative stemmed from an arrest in 1981 for trespassing on federal property, collecting signatures for a legalization ballot initiative in California. Herer was imprisoned for 14 days and started his now-famous book, “The Emperor Wears No Clothes,”

which he completed and printed on hemp paper in 1985 and has since sold more than a million copies to date. The book focused on spreading the message that the government’s prohibition of marijuana in 1937 was the result of political secrets and suppression of evidence.

Unable to avoid conflict, Herer would open another head shop, this time in Van Nuys, and a new state law in 1983 would see him committing a misdemeanor by selling devices to use with illegal drugs. After two raids and the seizure of more than 6,000 items, Herer was convicted and would serve 2 years of probation. His schedule afterward would stretch into a road trip that lasted for more than 30 years to promote the legalization of both hemp and marijuana which would sadly end in 2010 after a fatal heart attack.

True to his life’s work, it was only fitting that his death came after delivering a speech to masses in Portland at the Hempstalk Festival on Tax Day.

Wife Jeannie Herer, who married him in 2000, said “He was a miracle man … He was a hippie; he loved the Grateful Dead and he dressed like a hippie. But instead of being around the stars . . . he respected people like the veterans who were living under the bridges in L.A.—homeless veterans. These guys were the ones who volunteered to help him go out and get signatures on the sheet to get his initiatives passed. So these are the type of people, the street people, that Jack worked with and was friends with and respected. And that’s who he hung out with.”

Herer’s life and passion for the plant illustrate just how strong the stigma against marijuana holds onto society for decades. While laws and common culture are changing, some effects remain today. Pioneers like Jack Herer demonstrate how individual opinions and advocacy can make a difference. With so many states legalizing cannabis for both medical and recreational use, will we see national legalization in the near future?