You have almost certainly smoked more than one joint of the strain that carries his name without knowing he was a real person. That is right: Jack Herer, the slightly sativa leaning hybrid you have tasted so many times, is named after a real man.
Who is Jack Herer?
I have been smoking my whole life, sharing smoke with stoners more and less seasoned than me. I must have smoked Jack Herer a good twenty times and today, at 31, I have only just found out that this strain gets its name from a famous activist.
The real old heads of cannabis culture will know him for sure, but there is always some clueless stoner who has lost the plot and who, like me, had no idea where the name of this weed came from.
Since knowledge takes up no space, today I am telling you who Jack Herer was and what his role was in the fight to defend the holy plant.
The Hemperor
Jack Herer was one of the most important cannabis activists in the United States and in history. This American, also known as “The Hemperor”, spent many years of his life fighting against cannabis prohibition.
And did he fight! His name lives on in one of the most potent cannabis strains in the world, and for us that counts as completing the game. Jack made such an impact that his two books are still read today and have been translated into dozens of languages.
His two books
Obviously, if I did not know that the weed I was smoking was honouring some guy's name, I have not read his books either. But I have been digging around and they are pretty much required reading in the cannabis world.
The first one, G.R.A.S.S., worked as a tool that let Americans rate the quality of cannabis on a scale of 1 to 10.
With that first book published, Jack Herer decided to open the first hemp shop the United States had seen in many years.
The Emperor Wears No Clothes, his second book, is another near compulsory read if you are into the history of cannabis. They are genuinely interesting because he does not defend the plant purely from the recreational angle.
Hemp beyond smoking it
Most of Jack Herer's arguments centred on the industrial uses of hemp: the plant can be used as a source of fibre, renewable fuel and paper, and it grows in practically any part of the world.
The idea that such a versatile plant was banned made no sense to him, and he fought himself into the ground defending its legalisation.
That part of his message still holds up today: a good chunk of what we sell, from our rolling papers and our tips to our CBD flowers, exists because industrial hemp could legally be separated from cannabis containing THC.
Presidential candidate
The funny thing about the whole story is that Jack Herer decided to run as a candidate for President of the United States for the Grassroots Party.
In 1988 he ran against George Bush senior and got 1,949 votes. When he ran again in 1992, he got exactly 3,875 votes. Fairly logically, he did not have much institutional backing, but thousands of American smokers pushed his cause all the way to the end.
His legacy
After decades fighting the government over legalisation, Jack's health started to decline. Many people put his heart problems down to the constant campaigning and his devotion to the cause.
Jack died on 15 April 2010, aged 70, leaving behind a legacy never seen before in cannabis culture. Some historians argue that, had it not been for his efforts, the cannabis industry would still be completely stigmatised and banned in the United States.
Jack Herer is another one of those heroes without a cape we ought to honour every time we spark one up.
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