From Legal Tender to Schedule I: The Wild 400-Year History of Cannabis in America

Here's a fact that never stops being wild: in 1619, the Virginia Assembly passed a law requiring every farmer in the colony to grow cannabis. Not allowing it. Not tolerating it. Requiring it. You could be penalized for NOT growing hemp.

Four hundred years later, you can be penalized — with prison time — for growing the same plant.

The history of cannabis in America is one of the most bizarre, contradictory, politically manipulated stories in the entire American experience. A plant went from mandatory crop to legal tender to miracle medicine to Schedule I narcotic — and now, slowly, back toward acceptance. Understanding how that happened helps us understand where we're going.

Let's take the full ride.

The Colonial Era: Cannabis as Patriotic Duty (1600s-1700s)

When English colonists arrived in North America, they brought cannabis seeds with them. Not because they wanted to get high — though some certainly did — but because hemp was one of the most important industrial materials in the world.

Hemp fiber made rope, sails, clothing, and paper. In an era of wooden ships and agrarian economies, hemp was as essential as steel would become in the industrial age. The colonies needed it desperately.

That's why Virginia passed its 1619 mandate. The colony needed hemp for its own use and for export to England. Growing it wasn't optional — it was your civic duty as a colonist.

But Virginia wasn't alone. Several colonies enacted similar requirements or incentives:

• Massachusetts mandated hemp cultivation in certain periods
• Connecticut followed suit with growing requirements
• Multiple colonies accepted hemp as legal tender — you could literally pay your taxes with cannabis

Read that again: cannabis was money. It was so valued, so essential, so central to the colonial economy that the government accepted it as payment for debts and taxes. Try explaining that to someone doing five years for possession.

The founding fathers grew hemp. George Washington cultivated it at Mount Vernon. Thomas Jefferson grew it at Monticello. Benjamin Franklin owned a hemp paper mill. The Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper. Cannabis wasn't just legal in early America — it was woven into the fabric of the nation. Literally.

The Medical Era: Cannabis as Medicine (1830s-1930s)

While hemp continued as an industrial crop, the 1830s brought cannabis into Western medicine in a formal way. Irish physician William O'Shaughnessy, working in India, studied the plant's medical applications and introduced cannabis therapeutics to the Western medical world.

His work was revolutionary. He documented cannabis being used for:

• Pain relief
• Muscle spasms
• Seizures
• Nausea
• Appetite stimulation

By the 1850s, cannabis had earned a place in the United States Pharmacopeia — the official compendium of approved drugs. Doctors prescribed cannabis tinctures and preparations for dozens of conditions. Cannabis-based medicines were sold openly in pharmacies across the country.

And it wasn't just medicine. By the 1880s, there were an estimated 500 hashish parlors operating in New York City alone. These were social establishments — think hookah lounges — where people gathered to consume hashish in a communal setting. They were legal, they were popular, and they were completely unremarkable to the New Yorkers walking past them.

For roughly a century, cannabis existed in America as a normal part of commerce, medicine, and social life. Nobody panicked. Society didn't collapse. People used it, benefited from it, and went about their business.

The Prohibition Era: Fear, Racism, and Political Opportunism (1910s-1937)

So what changed? In a word: racism. In two words: political opportunism.

The story of cannabis prohibition in America is inseparable from the story of anti-Mexican and anti-Black racism in the early 20th century. As Mexican immigrants brought recreational cannabis use across the southern border, and as Black jazz musicians in New Orleans popularized it in their communities, white America suddenly discovered a "problem" with a plant it had been using for 300 years.

The propaganda campaign was extraordinary. Newspapers — particularly those owned by William Randolph Hearst, who had financial interests in timber (a competitor to hemp) — ran hysterical stories about "marijuana" making Mexicans and Black people violent, insane, and dangerous.

Note the language shift: the plant had always been called "cannabis" or "hemp" in English. The deliberate use of the Spanish word "marijuana" was a propaganda choice — designed to associate the plant with Mexican immigrants and trigger xenophobic fear.

Between 1914 and 1925, twenty-six states passed anti-cannabis laws. The dominoes fell fast once the racist framing took hold.

Then came 1937 and the Marijuana Tax Act — the first federal law effectively criminalizing cannabis. It didn't technically ban the plant outright; it imposed a tax so onerous and paperwork so burdensome that legal cannabis commerce became impossible. The American Medical Association actually opposed the law, arguing that it would harm medical practice. Congress didn't care.

In a single generation, cannabis went from pharmacopeia-approved medicine to de facto illegal narcotic.

The WWII Interruption: Hemp for Victory (1942-1945)

Here's where the story gets truly absurd. Just five years after the Marijuana Tax Act effectively banned cannabis, the United States government launched a massive campaign to encourage American farmers to grow it.

When World War II cut off Asian hemp supplies needed for military rope, canvas (the word itself comes from "cannabis"), uniforms, and rigging, the government performed a complete 180. The USDA produced a propaganda film called "Hemp for Victory," distributed seeds to farmers, and offered draft deferments to those who grew hemp.

The same government that had spent years telling Americans that cannabis was a menace to society was now telling them it was their patriotic duty to grow it. The cognitive dissonance is staggering.

After the war ended, the campaign disappeared. The government even denied the "Hemp for Victory" film existed for decades until researchers found copies in library archives. The brief return to America's hemp-growing roots was memory-holed.

The Nixon Era: Schedule I and the War on Drugs (1970)

If the Marijuana Tax Act was the first blow, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 was the knockout punch.

President Richard Nixon signed the CSA into law, creating the drug scheduling system we still use today. Cannabis was placed in Schedule I — the most restrictive category, reserved for substances with "no currently accepted medical use" and "a high potential for abuse."

This classification was supposed to be temporary. Nixon commissioned a report — the Shafer Commission — to study cannabis and recommend appropriate scheduling. The commission came back with a clear recommendation: decriminalize cannabis. It's not dangerous enough to warrant Schedule I.

Nixon ignored the report entirely. Internal White House recordings and aide testimonies later revealed the real motivation. The War on Drugs was never about public health — it was about political control. Targeting cannabis gave the government a tool to disrupt communities that opposed the administration.

Schedule I classification had devastating consequences beyond criminalization:

• Medical research became nearly impossible (you can't study a Schedule I substance without extraordinary DEA permission)
• Banking was cut off from any cannabis-related business
• Federal employment disqualified anyone with a cannabis conviction
• Housing discrimination became legal against cannabis users
• Mandatory minimums sent people to prison for decades over a plant

The Long Road Back: 1996 to Present

California's Proposition 215 in 1996 marked the first crack in the prohibition wall, establishing the nation's first medical cannabis program. It took another 16 years for Colorado and Washington to legalize recreational use in 2012.

Since then, the dominoes have been falling in the other direction:

• 38+ states now have some form of legal cannabis
• Multiple states have adult-use recreational programs
• The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp and hemp-derived cannabinoids
• Federal rescheduling from Schedule I to Schedule III is currently underway
• Congressional votes on banking and veteran access are passing with bipartisan support

Where We Are Now: The Rescheduling Moment

As of 2026, we're living through the most significant shift in federal cannabis policy since 1970. The rescheduling process — moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III — is underway. While it won't legalize cannabis outright, it represents the federal government officially acknowledging what the Shafer Commission said in 1972: cannabis doesn't belong in the same category as heroin.

It took 54 years. But here we are.

The Lessons of History

What does 400 years of cannabis history teach us?

1. Cannabis prohibition was never about science. The plant was legal, useful, and unremarkable for 300 years before racism and political opportunism made it illegal.

2. Government positions on cannabis have always been contradictory. Required to grow it, then imprisoned for growing it. "Hemp for Victory" during war, denial of that campaign after war.

3. Normalization is a return to baseline, not a radical experiment. When we legalize cannabis, we're not trying something new. We're returning to the default state that existed for most of American history.

4. The damage of prohibition was always the point. The communities targeted by cannabis enforcement were targeted intentionally. The "collateral damage" was the primary objective.

5. Change takes time but momentum matters. From California's 1996 medical program to today's rescheduling took 30 years. But the pace of change has accelerated dramatically in the last decade.

The Bottom Line

From mandatory colonial crop to legal tender to approved medicine to 500 hashish parlors in NYC to Schedule I narcotic to the verge of federal rescheduling — cannabis in America has been on a four-century roller coaster.

Understanding this history matters because it inoculates us against the idea that prohibition was ever normal, natural, or evidence-based. It wasn't. It was a 90-year aberration in 400 years of American cannabis culture.

The plant is older than the nation. And it's going to outlast prohibition. That much is already clear.

Looking for a verified shop carrying products like these? Browse Budpedia's dispensary near me directory to find licensed cannabis retailers in your state with up-to-date menus.