20 Vintage photos that prove cannabis was more popular than you thought

If you thought that cannabis was a cool, modern substance, then there's nothing quite like looking back in time and discovering that our great-great-grandparents' generation was already using this plant in much the same way we do today, at least until the moral crusades of the 1920s cut the habit short. And what better to verify this than with photographs of cannabis use that reached all strata of our Western society, from the lowest with hemp production (for almost 3,000 years the largest agricultural crop on the planet) to the highest, where doctors, aristocrats and intellectuals used cannabis to heal body and mind; or to expand the consciousness. The romantic movement informed humanity that if you wish to transcend the limitations of the flesh, look to nature because nature has the answer. Some people took this literally.

The French music band 'Le Tam-Tam Bollenois' smoking a homemade hookah, 1884

Woman with her cat, her bird and her marijuana plant. Paris, 1910

Cannabis garden tended by Italian POWs under the control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at Ljubljana Castle, Austria (present-day Slovenia) during World War I, 1915-1919

Two little children in front of a Chinese hemp plant. New York, 1900

Australian soldiers pose with a captured Turkish sniper disguised as a cannabis bush. Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey, 1916

Japanese hemp field grown at the University of Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station. Lexington, Kentucky 1901

Unidentified student posing with a hookah at Harvard University, Massachusetts 1890

'Effects of ammonia sulfate on hemp' postcard, Haut Éclair, France 1890

Vintage Headshop. Roy Smythe in his 'pool hall and tobacco shop' selling hookahs and pipes, with opium pipes under the glass counter. Revelstoke, British Columbia, 1903

"In the veil of smoke from the clay pipe, I imagine my beloved in the distance." Stereoscopic view, 1906 — "In the veil of smoke from the clay pipe, I imagine my beloved from afar." Stereoscopic view, 1906

Unidentified man removing seeds from hemp plants, Kentucky, 1901

The annual collection of cannabis seized by the New York Police Department Narcotics Bureau during the year 1924

A botany lesson in Chatham, England 1905. Martha knew from the seedling, that she had that fire right here... — A botany lesson in Chatham, England 1905. Martha knew from the seedling, that she had that fire right there...

Victorian woman rolling a joint, 19th century hand-colored postcard

Wonderful attractions 'lest you forget', 1907 postcard

Postcard of he “Bargassado” (name used locally for hemp fibre breaking day). Massat, France before 1910

A man wearing a suit and a straw hat standing amongst hemp plants in a field. Wisconsin, 1912

Cannabis field in Russia, 1910. Photo by Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (taken in Russia along the Samara-Zlatoust railway, in the Sim River valley) and developed with his three-color photography process — Cannabis field in Russia, 1910. Photo by Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (taken in Russia along the Samara-Zlatoust railway, in the Sim River valley) and developed with his three-colour photography process

Man proud of his marijuana plant at 140 Hill St, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1918 — Man proud of his cannabis plant at 140 Hill St, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1918

"Don't you care, I'm only smoking rope", 1909 postcard

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2022-05-27 Cannabis and history