Jack Herer, born 1939, was an author and Cannabis activist who devoted more than three decades of his life to the re-education of the masses.
Jack Herer’s parents were conservative Polish Jewish immigrants; he was born in Brooklyn, NY and grew up in Buffalo, NY. He dropped out of school to join the Army and served as a military police officer in Korea. When he discovered that his first wife was smoking (and growing) cannabis, he threatened to divorce her. Jack was a conservative Republican and supported the US in it’s war efforts; even naming his first born after Barry Goldwater. In interviews, Jack has referred to himself as a “normal American nerd.”
His moment of enlightenment came in his 30’s when a friend finally convinced him to try Cannabis. The story goes that he tried it a few times before he finally had the experience – after that, he was hooked.
“Jack was in the armed forces and came to cannabis late in life. He became obsessed with cannabis after discovering that it enhanced the sexual experience. He did not grow up inside the counterculture like most of us, so many of his attitudes were from a different era. For example, many of us were vegetarians or vegans. Jack ate garbage food.” —Steven Hager, former editor of High Times
Once Jack tried Cannabis, he couldn’t understand why it was illegal. A prolific researcher, he spent the next few years studying everything about Cannabis and in 1973 c0-authored a comic magazine called G.R.A.S.S. – Great Revolutionary American Standard System: Official Guide for Assessing the Quality of Marijuana.
Jack opened a proper hemp store in Venice Beach, CA; he began inventing smoking accessories and selling Cannabis. If you’ve ever seen a false-bottom shaving cream can, you’ve seen the inventiveness of Jack Herer.
“Captain” Ed Adair, Herer’s best friend, is credited for “constantly encouraging” him to compile facts about Cannabis. By the late 70’s, they were so focused on legalization that they made a pact to work everyday until they were dead, Cannabis was legal, or they turned 84 – whichever came first.
“Captain Ed was 33 years old and I was 34. We took a pledge. Ed’s pledge…was that we’d swear to work every day to legalize marijuana and get all pot prisoners out of jail, until we were dead, marijuana was legal, or we could quit when we turned 84—we wouldn’t have to quit, but we could.
When we first made that pledge we were 50 years away from becoming octogenarians. Incredibly, we thought that in light of all the amazing information we had uncovered about hemp, that the battle for complete legalization of cannabis would easily be over in six months—two years at the most.” —Jack Herer
Herer was especially distressed by the criminalization of the Cannabis plant itself since he had come to understand that Cannabis/Hemp was the earth’s unsurpassable renewable resource. To Herer this meant that Cannabis could and should be used to “Save the World” by eliminating pollution, deforestation, the greenhouse effect, and providing food, fuel, medicine, and so much more.
With his magnetic personality and striking appearance, he worked to bring about change by working to change the system from the inside and the outside. Twice he ran for President of the United States in the Grassroots Party, a political third party established in 1986 to oppose drug prohibition, in order to bring attention to Cannabis activism.
“Get out everybody to vote. You have to vote,” he told Medical Marijuana News and Directory in 2009. “If they don’t vote for hemp, vote the fucking bastards out of office right now!”
In an interview, Jack’s widow Jeannie said that Jack “had the biggest heart of anybody that I’ve ever met. He loved people and he loved being out and talking to people and educating people. He saw how you can change a person’s thinking very easily if you educate them. And he was an educator. He was an educator who believed that he – that we – could save the world, if we just knew all the facts about hemp.” She recalled that he had a lot of respect for all kinds of people, especially unhoused veterans that he’d gotten to know in L.A., he hung out with them and they volunteered to help him with his initiatives.
“He was like a teddy bear,” she shared. “No matter how gruff he had to be to get his way, he always had that love underneath it. If he lost his temper one second, the next minute it would be over . . . He was not sweet, but he was always very loving, regardless.”
“The Emperor Wears No Clothes – The authoritative historical record of the Cannabis plant, Marijuana prohibition, and how hemp can still save the world.”
Jack Herer’s book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, has been in print for 40 years. It has been revised and updated at least 14 times and sold more than 700,000 copies. His book is the culmination of decades of research into the Cannabis plant, the ways that humans have interacted with it over thousands of years, and the truth behind prohibition.
While serving a two-week federal prison stint in 1983 (for refusing to pay a $5 fine for registering voters in a parking lot) that Herer started writing The Emperor Wears No Clothes, which was eventually published—on hemp paper, naturally—in 1985.
Herer identified one of the busiest intersections in the country and, in one of the longest occupations of federal property, they setup tents and held rallies in an effort to register voters and educate people. Jack saw the opportunity for free exposure and ran with it.
As legend has it, after Reagan won the 1980 Republican nomination for president he happened by and witnessed the rallies, then decided to put a stop to it. Using an old law meant to deter communists, Herer was issued a $5 ticket for registering voters on federal property after dark. Jack saw this as another excellent opportunity to make a stand. When he arrived in court, he refused to pay the ticket and was given a 15 day sentence in federal prison – and he was thrilled to do it.
At the time, he was not taken seriously by very many people; certainly not by NORML, which had refused to publish or get involved with his manuscript.
“I wanted High Times to publish it, and Jack wanted me to help him edit it, but my company refused as well. It was a conspiracy theory, so initially it was denigrated in most corners, and mostly rejected. During my reign at High Times, we exposed a long line of such conspiracies: from Iran-Contra cocaine to the many political assassinations, the sort of thing you never see written about anymore…. [T]he point of Jack’s book was that the synthetic petrochemical industry and banks had conspired to outlaw hemp and cannabis to assist the rise of their toxic alternatives.” —Hager
In an interview with High Times, Jack explained how the arms company turned chemical company DuPont had come to own German plastic patents due to WWII reparations – at zero cost. Within a few years, a DuPont employee invented nylon, a synthetic fiber made from petrochemicals. The invention of a hemp decorticating machine meant that, once again, Hemp was on its way to become the world’s most important industrial crop. Because of this, DuPont wasn’t able to produce their synthetic fiber at a competitive price.
Evidence suggests that DuPont conspired with Herman Oliphant, chief counsel to the Treasure Department, and in 1935 Oliphant wrote the secret Marijuana Tax Act. Two years later, the act was submitted to Congress and railroaded through. At the time, the distinction between Hemp and Marijuana was unclear and most people didn’t know it was the same plant. The country had only two days notice and most of the arguments supporting the bill were blatantly racist. References to black people smoking Marijuana causing white women to be at risk and other deplorable statements were used to force through prohibition.
Herer was able to prove that the government lied when it denied making the pro-hemp Department of Ag film “Hemp for Victory” during WWII and he loved screening the newsreel, which supported his claims that the government was fully aware of the power of hemp – when it suited them.
Jack’s commitment to educating the masses about Cannabis and fighting prohibition eventually led to Sensi Seeds, a Cannabis breeder based in Amsterdam, dedicating a cultivar to him.
“We were working on developing a very special strain before actually meeting Jack. The work took us several years, in fact. It was during the Cannabis Castle Tour we organized for the Cannabis Cup in 1994 that we officially dedicated the strain to him in recognition of his [commitment] to the cannabis plant and to the fact his actions led to a true hemp revolution. It was a very cool ceremony. Everyone from the industry was there. [W]hen we saw the mature plants, we knew we were onto something very special. Once we had dried and tasted it—the best testing method of the day—our minds were blown. The rest is cannabis history.” —Dronkers
When asked about the future of the American hemp movement Jack would often respond with a challenge. He’d want to know if you had spoken to your family members about the benefits of hemp. He said that ignorance is the only thing holding hemp back in America. Jack believed that people must arm themselves with the truth and then go out into the world and spread knowledge about the many uses of cannabis.
Finally, an excerpt from Jack Herer’s book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes (1992 edition):
“And more and more of my friends have been locked away in prison and/or had their homes, jobs and businesses taken from them as part of this escalating “War on Drugs” prohibition. This has become a draconian nightmare for many of our best citizens who, with trust in their own intellect and responsibility for their own health, have defied this bad public policy and have been prisoners of conscience; prisoners of war. I hope after reading this book you will stand up with me and recognize them, not as outlaws, but as the heroes who saved the seed that will save the planet.”
Jack Herer suffered a heart attack and major stroke in July 2000 which impacted his speech and movement of his body. By May 2004, Herer had mostly recovered and gave most of the credit to treatment with Amanita muscaria, a psychoactive mushroom. After a powerful speech at the Hempstalk Festival in Portland, Oregon, he suffered another heart attack on September 12, 2009 which left him with serious complications. Jack Herer passed away on April 15, 2010 at 70 years old and was buried at the Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Mission Hills, California.
There is still more work to be done. Jack’s legacy of relentless research and education continues to guide us.
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