Marijuana

Cannabis has been used by people for at least two and a half thousand years. Mourners burned it in braziers in the Pamir mountains around 500 BC, Chinese herbals listed it, Indian texts made it sacred, and for most of recorded history the same plant was rope, sailcloth, paper and medicine. Then in the twentieth century a plant became a crime. Harry Anslinger built a bureau on it, Hollywood made Reefer Madness, a 1937 tax act ended the legal trade, and in 1970 the United States placed cannabis in Schedule I alongside heroin, where, formally, it largely remains. The war that followed filled prisons unequally and never removed the plant from a single city. Alongside all of it, cannabis kept doing what it had always done: it ran through jazz and reggae and hip-hop, it built its own cinema and its own comedy, and it became the subject of real science after Raphael Mechoulam isolated THC in 1964 and researchers found the receptor system it acts on. Then the law began to move, California in 1996, Colorado and Washington in 2012, Uruguay, Canada, Thailand, Germany. This is the whole arc: the plant, the archaeology, the propaganda, the records, the films, the raids, the research and the votes.

A chronological documentary of 571 moments spanning 4800 BC–2026 on Loreline.

Curated by Olivier · last updated 2026-08-22

1. c. 4800 BC - Cord-marked Yangshao amphora, c.4800 BC. Neolithic Yangshao amphora from Banpo, Shaanxi, decorated with cord impressions. Hemp cordage was used to make such marks; the vessel is dated to about 4800 BC and the photograph is a museum record of it.
2. c. 1550 BC - Ebers Papyrus, column 41. Column 41 of the Ebers Papyrus, an Egyptian medical text of about 1550 BC. It is among the ancient pharmacopoeias cited for early medicinal cannabis use.
3. 1542 - De historia stirpium, cannabis page. Page from Fuchs's De historia stirpivm commentarii insignes showing the cannabis plant, held by the Wellcome Collection.
4. 1542 - Renaissance herbal cannabis. Cannabis plate from De historia stirpivm commentarii insignes, a Renaissance herbal in the Wellcome rare book collection.
5. 1543 - Fuchs Kräuterbuch hemp, 1543. Hand-coloured woodcut of hemp from the German edition of Leonhart Fuchs's herbal.
6. 1620 - Pulling hemp from the retting pit. Wall painting from the workshop of Guercino showing hemp being pulled from the retting pond.
7. 1796 - Sturm botanical plate, 1796. Copperplate engraving of Cannabis sativa from Jacob Sturm's Deutschlands Flora in Abbildungen.
8. 1810 - Shiva under the influence of bhang. Kangra school painting in opaque watercolour and gold showing Shiva under the influence of bhang, made about 1810-20. Bhang is ritually associated with Shiva.
9. 1839 - O'Shaughnessy's gunjah plate, 1839. Illustration of Cannabis Indica (gunjah) from W. B. O'Shaughnessy's 1839 paper on Indian hemp preparations, the study that introduced cannabis to Western medicine.
10. 1850 - Cannabis Indica materia medica plate. Materia medica illustration of Cannabis Indica, Indian hemp, from the Wellcome Collection.
11. 1852 - Flora Homoeopathica cannabis, 1852. Hand-coloured plate of cannabis from Edward Hamilton's The Flora Homoeopathica, illustrating plants used as homoeopathic remedies.
12. 1880 - Cannabis sativa botanical plate. Classic engraved botanical plate of Cannabis sativa showing habit, flowers and seed detail.
13. 1887 - American Medicinal Plants, 1887. Cannabis plate from American Medicinal Plants (1887), a guide to plants used as homoeopathic remedies.
14. 1887 - Köhler medicinal plants plate. Chromolithograph of Cannabis sativa from Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen, the standard 19th-century atlas of medicinal plants.
15. 1890 - Hashish smokers, Egypt. Orientalist studio photograph captioned Hashishe Smokers, showing two men with long pipes; produced for the Egyptian tourist trade.
16. 1893 - Hashish Smoker, Émile Bernard 1893. Drawing of a hashish smoker by Émile Bernard, one of the works from his time in Egypt.
17. 1895 - Chanvre cultivé, French field atlas. Plate 96 of a French pocket atlas of field and meadow plants, showing cultivated hemp beside flax.
18. 1897 - Botanisches Bilderbuch plate, 1897. German botanical picture-book plate including Cannabis sativa alongside hops and other plants.
19. 1900 - Retting the hemp, Loire c.1900. Postcard of hemp retting at Ingrandes-sur-Loire, a major French hemp district.
20. 1900 - La fumeuse de haschisch, 1900. Orientalist painting by Émile Bernard of a woman smoking hashish, made during the artist's Egyptian period.
21. 1900 - Hemp smoking, Swaziland. Two young men seated, one smoking hemp, from the Wellcome iconographic collections documenting southern African practice.
22. 1900 - Hemp smokers, French Congo. Ethnographic postcard by Jean Audema captioned Types Bassokos, Fumeurs de chanvre, French Congo.
23. 1902 - Fibre plants lithograph, 1902. Lithographed plate of five fibre plants including hemp, from the New International Encyclopedia.
24. 1905 - Hemp spinner, Brittany. Postcard of a hemp spinner at Pluherlin in Brittany in the early twentieth century.
25. 1905 - Hemp retting at Ingrandes. Postcard showing hemp retting on the Loire at Ingrandes in the early twentieth century.
26. 1907 - Parke-Davis catalogue, c.1907. Front page of the Spanish-language Parke, Davis & Co. drug catalogue of about 1907, from the era when cannabis extracts were mainstream pharmacy stock.
27. 1910 - Die Giftpflanzen Deutschlands, 1910. Cannabis illustration from a 1910 German handbook of poisonous plants.
28. 1911 - Hemp and hop family plate, 1911. Plate 28 of the Hoffmann-Dennert botanical atlas showing male and female hemp plants with hops.
29. 1916 - Hemp hurds as paper stock, 1916. Plate from the USDA bulletin Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material (1916), the study later cited by hemp-paper advocates.
30. 1917 - Carding hemp in wartime Britain. A female worker carding hemp in a British factory during the First World War, from the Imperial War Museum women's war work collection.
31. 1919 - Demon Rum and the drug monsters, 1919. Oliver Herford editorial cartoon of 1919 showing Uncle Sam beset by Demon Rum and a train of drug monsters including hashish, an early image of American drug panic.
32. 1919 - USDA hemp fibre bulletin. Plate from a USDA bulletin on hemp fibre production, part of the department's fibre investigations programme.
33. 1920 - Hemp winding room, c.1920. The winding room of a hemp mill about 1920, where spun hemp yarn was wound into balls.
34. 1925 - Spanish drug catalogue, c.1925. Catalogue of medicaments from the Laboratorio Farmacéutico Nacional in Spain, about 1925, listing cannabis preparations.
35. 1928-12-07 - Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra - Muggles. Recorded in Chicago on 7 December 1928 with Earl Hines; 'muggles' was 1920s slang for cannabis, which Armstrong smoked daily for most of his life.
36. 1930 - Hemp cultivation, Frattamaggiore 1930. Hemp cultivation at Frattamaggiore, from the Touring Club Italiano historical archive. Italy was the world's second-largest hemp producer between the wars.
37. 1932 - Cab Calloway - Reefer Man. Cab Calloway's 1932 hit, the definitive jazz-era 'viper' song, released on Banner and popularised by his appearance in the film International House.
38. 1933 - Benny Goodman and His Orchestra - Texas Tea Party. A 1933 Goodman side with Jack Teagarden; 'tea' was jazz-age slang for cannabis, and the title is a coded joke.
39. 1933-11-24 - Bessie Smith - Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer. Bessie Smith's final recording session, 24 November 1933, whose rent-party lyric 'gimme a reefer' put cannabis into a mainstream blues record.
40. 1936 - Marihuana: The Devil's Weed, the full 1936 exploitation feature. Dwain Esper's 1936 exploitation picture, in which a young woman's first joint leads her to pregnancy, prostitution and dope dealing. One of the era's most lurid anti-cannabis films.
41. 1936 - Reefer Madness trailer, Coolidge Corner Theatre revival. A repertory-cinema trailer for Reefer Madness, framing the film's reefers, hot jazz and induced insanity.
42. 1936 - Marihuana (1936) original trailer. The theatrical trailer for Dwain Esper's Marihuana, restored in high definition from the Kino Lorber release.
43. 1936 - Reefer Madness, the full 1936 propaganda feature. The complete cautionary film, made as Tell Your Children and later recut for the exploitation circuit, in which cannabis drives high-school students to manslaughter and insanity. Posted by Shout! Studios.
44. 1936 - Mary Lane in Reefer Madness. Actress Dorothy Short as Mary Lane in Reefer Madness (1936).
45. 1936 - Reefer Madness poster, 1936. Poster for the 1936 exploitation film Reefer Madness, originally released as Tell Your Children, the best-known artefact of anti-cannabis propaganda.
46. 1936 - Reefer Madness film still. Still from the 1936 propaganda film Reefer Madness, which depicted cannabis as a cause of insanity and violence.
47. 1936 - Reefer Madness (1936). The full anti-marijuana exploitation feature, originally released as Tell Your Children and directed by Louis J. Gasnier, in which teenagers are driven to murder and insanity by reefer.
48. 1936 - Stuff Smith and His Onyx Club Boys - You'se a Viper. The 1936 original of the viper anthem, cut by violinist Stuff Smith's band at New York's Onyx Club on 52nd Street.
49. 1936 - Marihuana (1936). Dwain Esper's exploitation feature in which a young woman's first joint leads her step by step into drug dealing, a companion piece to Reefer Madness.
50. 1936 - Reefer Madness: Original Trailer. The original theatrical trailer for the 1936 anti-marijuana feature, promising the drug's 'soul-destroying' effects.
51. 1937 - Assassin of Youth, 1937 scare film part two. The second reel of Periscope Film's preservation scan of the 1937 anti-marijuana exploitation picture.
52. 1937 - Assassin of Youth 1937 trailer. Period trailer for the 1937 anti-marijuana feature, promising a warning about the drug menace among American youth.
53. 1937 - Marihuana Tax Act revenue stamp. The one-dollar revenue stamp issued under the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, the law that made cannabis effectively illegal in the United States.
54. 1937 - Assassin of Youth (1937). Elmer Clifton's anti-marijuana exploitation feature, preserved by an archival film collection, taking its title from Harry Anslinger's own magazine article.
55. 1938-03-24 - Harry Anslinger, 1938. Harry J. Anslinger, first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the architect of American cannabis prohibition, photographed in Washington in 1938.
56. 1938-03-24 - US-Canada marihuana control talks, 1938. Harry Anslinger and Canadian narcotics chief C. H. L. Sharman meeting in Washington on 24 March 1938 to coordinate cross-border marihuana control.
57. 1939 - Rope Making at Charlton (1939). British Pathe newsreel following manila hemp from the Philippines through a Charlton, London rope works, from dockside bales to finished cordage.
58. 1939-07-08 - Reefer Madness theatre ad, 1939. Newspaper theatre advertisement for Tell Your Children, better known as Reefer Madness, from 8 July 1939.
59. 1941 - Henry Ford's Plastic-Bodied Car (1941). Newsreel footage of Henry Ford striking the boot of his 1941 plastic-panelled experimental car with an axe to demonstrate the bio-composite body.
60. 1942 - Hemp for Victory: Trailer. Short trailer cut from the 1942 USDA film, showing hemp cultivation and processing into rope for the war effort.
61. 1942 - Hemp for Victory (1942). The US Department of Agriculture wartime film urging American farmers to grow hemp after Japanese conquest cut off Philippine abaca fibre supplies.
62. 1943 - Fats Waller - You're a Viper (The Reefer Song). Fats Waller's version of the viper standard, recorded in 1943; 'viper' was the era's word for a cannabis smoker.
63. 1944-04-30 - The Italian Hemp Industry (1944). Silent British Movietone footage shot 30 April 1944 of Italian workers plaiting and loading hemp rope of every type.
64. 1945-06-12 - Producer of Marihuana tax stamp, 1945. A United States special tax stamp for a licensed producer of marihuana, issued July 1945 during the wartime hemp programme.
65. 1950 - The Narcotic Story, a 1950s police-sponsored propaganda film. A feature-length 1950s anti-narcotics film produced with police co-operation, dramatising addiction and enforcement for public audiences.
66. 1950 - Hemp fields near Ferrara, 1950. Hemp cultivation near Ferrara in 1950, from the Touring Club Italiano archive.
67. 1950 - Hemp sheaves left to macerate. Sheaves of hemp left in water to macerate, the retting stage that loosens the bast fibre from the stalk.
68. 1950 - Hemp maceration, Italy 1950. Workers at a hemp maceration pond in Italy in 1950.
69. 1951 - Drugs: The Terrible Truth, a 1950s Cold War anti-drug film. A Cold War era short arguing that a single marijuana cigarette leads inexorably to heroin addiction, delivered by a hardboiled narrator in red-scare register.
70. 1951 - The Dangers of Marijuana Addiction, 1951. HISTORY channel presentation of a 1951 scare film warning that marijuana turns an all-American boy into a dope fiend.
71. 1951 - Drug Addiction, 1951 classroom scare film. A black-and-white 1951 educational film warning students that marijuana is a gateway to heroin addiction, in the era's standard escalation narrative.
72. 1951 - The Terrible Truth (1951). Sid Davis classroom scare film from the Prelinger Archives arguing that marijuana is the direct road to heroin addiction.
73. 1955 - Assassin of Youth: 1950s Narcotics Education Film. A later classroom anti-drug film of the same title, produced by the Narcotics Educational Foundation, distinct from the 1937 exploitation feature.
74. 1955 - A 1950s Anti-Drug Educational Film. Full period classroom film on narcotics and marijuana, typical of the American anti-drug education output of the 1950s.
75. 1956 - The Dangerous Drugs, 1956 Narcotic Educational Foundation film. A 1956 film from the Narcotic Educational Foundation of America on barbiturate and amphetamine abuse, part of the same classroom-film apparatus that carried the marijuana message.
76. 1956 - Narcotics: A Challenge to Youth, 1956 teachers' film. A 1956 colour educational film made for teachers, presenting cannabis as the first step in an inevitable slide into narcotic addiction.
77. 1962 - Narcosis, an early-1960s drug education scare film. A colour classroom film dramatising heroin and marijuana use, produced by Golden State and dated by the archive to the early 1960s.
78. 1962 - Anslinger hands over the FBN, 1962. Harry Anslinger transferring command of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to his successor Henry Giordano in September 1962, ending 32 years in the post.
79. 1963 - The Cave Ropemaker of Castleton (1963). British Pathe film of Bert Marrison, aged 78, the last craftsman making rope by hand inside Peak Cavern in Derbyshire.
80. 1966 - Bob Dylan - Rainy Day Women #12 & 35. The opening track of Blonde on Blonde (1966), banned by some radio stations for its 'everybody must get stoned' refrain.
81. 1967 - Stoned young Americans on national television, 1967. David Hoffman's archival footage of 1967 network TV interviewing young cannabis users, a period document of how the mainstream framed them.
82. 1967 - LSD-25, a 1967 educational scare film. A 1967 colour educational film on hallucinogens and California hippie culture, made in the same production tradition as the anti-marijuana classroom films.
83. 1967 - Narcotics: Pit of Despair, 1967 anti-drug film. A 1967 colour scare film following a teenager from a first joint to heroin addiction, widely shown in American classrooms.
84. 1967 - Universal Newsreel: 1967 marijuana legalisation rally in Los Angeles. Newsreel footage of roughly three thousand demonstrators at one of the earliest American marijuana legalisation rallies, held in Los Angeles in 1967.
85. 1967 - Hippies in Haight-Ashbury, 1967 to 1969. Documentarian David Hoffman's period footage of the Haight-Ashbury scene and its confrontations with the authorities.
86. 1967 - Summer of Love - hippies of San Francisco, 1967. ITN's archival documentary footage from Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love, the setting in which cannabis became a generational marker.
87. 1967 - Los Angeles Easter Sunday Love-In, 1967. Kinolibrary archival film of the 1967 Los Angeles love-in, the outdoor gatherings where open cannabis use became a public act.
88. 1967-08-22 - The Hippie Temptation, CBS News 1967. The complete CBS News special broadcast on 22 August 1967, reporting on the Haight-Ashbury counterculture and its drug use for a national audience.
89. 1967-11-11 - AP Archive: hippie culture in Haight-Ashbury, November 1967. AP newsfilm shot in San Francisco in November 1967 on the drug trade around the Haight-Ashbury hippie scene.
90. 1968 - 1968 television special report - Marijuana. A full 1968 American network special on marijuana, capturing the moment mainstream broadcasting first took the counterculture's drug of choice seriously.
91. 1968 - Marijuana: The Great Escape (1968). Period anti-marijuana dramatised short in which a young racing driver's experiment with cannabis ends in disaster.
92. 1969-07-31 - Kees Hoekert with hemp plants, 1969. Dutch activist Kees Hoekert among cannabis plants in 1969; his Lowlands Weed Company openly cultivated hemp to test Dutch law.
93. 1969-07-31 - Amsterdam hemp nursery, 1969. Cannabis cultivation in Amsterdam photographed by Anefo in July 1969.
94. 1970 - What Is Marijuana? A 1970 Explainer. CBC Take 30 segment from 1970 explaining what marijuana was and how Canadians were using it, years before legalisation.
95. 1970 - Parents Guide to Marijuana, 1970. Cover of a Seattle-published pamphlet, Parents Guide to Marijuana, from 1970.
96. 1970-07-04 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Purple Haze, live at the Atlanta Pop Festival. Hendrix performing his 1967 song at the Atlanta Pop Festival on 4 July 1970, six weeks before his death.
97. 1971 - Black Sabbath - Sweet Leaf. Opening track of Master of Reality (1971), built on a riff and a cough sample from Tony Iommi; the record that brought cannabis into heavy metal.
98. 1971 - Weed (1971). Encyclopaedia Britannica educational film surveying cannabis cultivation, its legal status and claimed effects at the height of the early-1970s drug panic.
99. 1971-06-17 - Nixon Announces the Fight Against Drugs (1971). Newsfilm shot in Washington on 17 June 1971 covering Nixon's announcement of a massive new federal narcotics effort.
100. 1972-02-10 - A Drugs Officer Calls for New Marijuana Law (1972). Newsfilm of 10 February 1972 in which a narcotics officer asks for new marijuana legislation and predicts eventual legalisation.
101. 1972 - Vote Yes on 19, California 1972. Campaign poster for California Proposition 19 of 1972, the first US state ballot measure to legalise cannabis. It was defeated.
102. 1973-03-22 - The Drug Abuse Commission Reports (1973). Newsfilm of 22 March 1973 reporting the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse urging an end to criminal prosecution for marijuana use.
103. 1973 - The Marijuana Commission Decriminalization Hearings (1973). Archival film of the US National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse hearings on decriminalisation, preserved by a film archive.
104. 1973 - Special Report: The Nixon Drug Laws (1973). Period television special report on the Nixon administration's drug legislation and the harsh new penalties it introduced.
105. 1973 - DOCUMERICA, Texas 1973. A young couple smoking cannabis in cedar woods near Leakey, Texas, photographed for the EPA DOCUMERICA programme.
106. 1973 - Steve Miller Band - The Joker. The 1973 US number one whose 'I'm a joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight toker' line put cannabis into the vocabulary of American radio rock.
107. 1973 - Smoking pot in the cedar woods, 1973. Two young women smoking cannabis on an outing near Leakey, Texas, from the EPA DOCUMERICA project by Marc St. Gil.
108. 1973-06-27 - Legal hashish shop, Kathmandu 1973. A then-legal hashish shop in Kathmandu in June 1973, a landmark of the hippie trail. Nepal banned the trade later that year.

…391 further moments continue the chronology here. Full text archive: /loreline-text/marijuana.md

500. 1974 - Bob Marley & The Wailers - Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock). From Natty Dread (1974); the lyric describes being stopped by Jamaican police with 'no herb' to declare, tying cannabis directly to policing.
501. 1975 - Should Marijuana Be Legalized? (1975). Full 1975 WMAQ Chicago teen discussion programme debating marijuana legalisation with a physician and other guests.
502. 1975 - Toots and the Maytals - 54-46 That's My Number, live at Winterland. Toots Hibbert performing the song about his 1966 imprisonment for cannabis possession in Jamaica, live at Winterland in 1975.
503. 1975 - Neil Young - Roll Another Number (For the Road). From Tonight's the Night (1975), Young's ragged post-Woodstock reckoning; official remastered audio.
504. 1976 - Peter Tosh - Legalize It. The title track of Peter Tosh's 1976 debut solo album, the single most famous cannabis-legalisation anthem in reggae and a record banned by Jamaican radio.
505. 1977 - Bob Marley & The Wailers - Rebel Music, live at the Rainbow Theatre. Marley performing the song at London's Rainbow Theatre in June 1977, one of the best-documented shows of his career.
506. 1978-04-22 - Peter Tosh - Legalize It, live at the One Love Peace Concert. Peter Tosh performing Legalize It at the One Love Peace Concert in Kingston, 22 April 1978, the night he lectured the assembled Jamaican politicians on cannabis law.
507. 1978 - Up in Smoke: the police bust scene. An official studio clip from the 1978 feature in which the police raid a party, played for farce against the era's real enforcement climate.
508. 1978 - Up in Smoke - the fattest joint ever, official clip. The 'Labrador' joint scene from Up in Smoke, one of the most quoted sequences in stoner cinema.
509. 1978 - Up in Smoke - original 1978 theatrical trailer. The trailer for Cheech and Chong's first feature, the film that created the stoner-comedy genre and grossed over $100 million.
510. 1978 - Peter Tosh - Bush Doctor. Title track of Tosh's 1978 Rolling Stones Records debut; 'bush doctor' casts the herbalist as healer against pharmaceutical medicine.
511. 1978 - Bob Marley & The Wailers - Easy Skanking. Opening track of Kaya (1978), a slow, unhurried smoking song that helped define the album's mellow reputation.
512. 1978 - Bob Marley & The Wailers - Kaya. Title track of the 1978 album Kaya; 'kaya' is Jamaican patois for herb, and the song is Marley's most explicit hymn to it.
513. 1978 - Rick James - Mary Jane, live TV performance. Rick James performing Mary Jane, his 1978 funk hit whose title is a long-standing slang name for cannabis, on the TV show Soul Alive.
514. 1980 - Cheech and Chong's Next Movie - official trailer. Studio trailer for the 1980 sequel, released by Shout! Studios from the original elements.
515. 1981 - Nice Dreams 1981 trailer. The trailer for the third Cheech and Chong feature, in which the duo sell cannabis from an ice cream truck.
516. 1981 - Nice Dreams: the under the table scene. An official studio clip from the 1981 Cheech and Chong feature.
517. 1981 - Nice Dreams original 35mm trailer scan. A 4K scan of the original 35mm theatrical trailer for the 1981 Cheech and Chong film, transferred from the film print.
518. 1982 - Reagan declares war on drugs and organised crime, 1982. President Reagan's 1982 speech announcing a federal offensive against drug trafficking and organised crime, the policy foundation of the decade's enforcement escalation.
519. 1982 - Fast Times at Ridgemont High - Spicoli orders a pizza. Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli in the 1982 Amy Heckerling film, the performance that fixed the surfer-stoner type in American film.
520. 1982 - Musical Youth - Pass the Dutchie. The 1982 UK number one by Birmingham teenagers Musical Youth; the original Mighty Diamonds song was 'Pass the Kouchie', a cannabis pipe, sanitised to 'dutchie' (a cooking pot) for radio.
521. 1983 - Still Smokin' 1983 trailer. The trailer for the fourth Cheech and Chong feature, in which the pair are stranded at an Amsterdam film festival.
522. 1983 - Licensed bhang shop, 1983. A licensed bhang shop in Varanasi photographed in January 1983.
523. 1986 - Just Say No PSA With Clint Eastwood. Period public-service spot pairing Nancy Reagan with Clint Eastwood for the Just Say No campaign.
524. 1986 - Bob Dylan - Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, live at Farm Aid 1986. Dylan performing the song at Farm Aid in 1986, backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
525. 1986-09-10 - Dutch police clear a cannabis greenhouse, 1986. Police removing a large quantity of cannabis plants from greenhouses at Aalsmeer, the Netherlands, in September 1986.
526. 1986-09-14 - The Reagans Address the Nation on Drug Abuse (1986). The full televised address of 14 September 1986 by President and Mrs Reagan launching the national campaign against drug abuse.
527. 1986 - Nancy Reagan Introduces Just Say No. Public-domain recording of the first lady's September 1986 anti-drug address, the launch of the Just Say No slogan.
528. 1987 - I learned it by watching you, 1987 anti-drug commercial. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America spot in which a father confronts his son over a box of drug paraphernalia and receives the era's most quoted retort.
529. 1987 - This Is Your Brain on Drugs (1987). The Partnership for a Drug-Free America spot in which an egg is cracked into a hot pan, the single most recognised anti-drug advertisement in the United States.
530. 1988-04-01 - Hash Bash, Ann Arbor, 1 April 1988. Full video of the 1988 Hash Bash on the University of Michigan Diag, the annual protest held every April since 1972 after John Sinclair's marijuana conviction was overturned.
531. 1990 - CBS Nightwatch 1990: High Times editor debates Operation Green Merchant. A recorded CBS Nightwatch episode in which High Times editor Steven Hager and Congressman Lawrence Coughlin debate legalisation in the wake of the DEA's Operation Green Merchant, which targeted grow-equipment suppliers and magazine subscribers.
532. 1991 - Brain on Drugs PSA, 1991 Canadian version. A 1991 Concerned Children's Advertisers anti-drug spot, the Canadian counterpart to the American frying-egg campaign.
533. 1992 - Dr. Dre - Nuthin' But a G Thang. The lead single from The Chronic (1992), whose video's backyard-party imagery defined the album that named itself after cannabis.
534. 1992 - Sublime - Smoke Two Joints. Sublime's 1992 cover of The Toyes' reggae song, from 40oz. to Freedom; the version that carried the song into American ska-punk culture.
535. 1992 - Dr. Dre - Let Me Ride. From The Chronic (1992), the album whose title and cover made cannabis the visual signature of West Coast hip-hop; the video won a Grammy.
536. 1993 - Dazed and Confused - official trailer. Richard Linklater's 1993 last-day-of-school film, set in 1976 Texas, that made Matthew McConaughey a star.
537. 1993 - DARE Officials Concede Failure, 1993. Period news item in which DARE programme officials acknowledge the programme's poor results.
538. 1993 - Wu-Tang Clan - Method Man. From Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993); the video's blunt-passing imagery is a foundational document of East Coast cannabis rap.
539. 1993 - Cypress Hill - I Wanna Get High. From Black Sunday (1993), which came with liner notes citing hemp history alongside the music.
540. 1993 - Cypress Hill - Hits from the Bong. From Black Sunday (1993), the album that made Cypress Hill the most openly pro-cannabis act in hip-hop and put them on the cover of High Times.
541. 1994 - Billion Dollar Crop. Australian 1994 documentary on the history and industrial uses of hemp and the campaign that drove the crop out of legal agriculture.
542. 1994 - Tom Petty - You Don't Know How It Feels. From Wildflowers (1994); MTV censored the line 'let's roll another joint', and the video was shot as a single continuous rotating take.
543. 1994 - Method Man - Bring the Pain. The lead single from Tical (1994), an album so saturated in cannabis imagery that its title is slang for the drug.
544. 1994 - Snoop Dogg - Gin and Juice. The second single from Doggystyle (1993), produced by Dr. Dre; its laid-back G-funk hedonism became shorthand for the West Coast cannabis era.
545. 1995-04-04 - AP Archive: Mexican anti-drug forces raid in Oaxaca. AP newsfilm from April 1995 showing Mexican forces destroying illicit crops under US pressure to intensify eradication.
546. 1995 - Friday - official trailer. Trailer for the 1995 Ice Cube and Chris Tucker comedy set over one day on a South Central porch, made for about $3.5 million.
547. 1995 - Cannabis Cup 1995 with Jack Herer, Ben Dronkers and Soma. Archival Cannabis Cup footage featuring Jack Herer, author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes, and Sensi Seeds founder Ben Dronkers.
548. 1995 - The 8th High Times Cannabis Cup, Amsterdam 1995. Feature-length footage of the 1995 Cannabis Cup, the annual Amsterdam competition and festival founded by High Times in 1988.
549. 1996 - Proposition 215: The Medical Marijuana Initiative. Short explainer from the UCI Center for the Study of Cannabis on Proposition 215, the 1996 California ballot measure that legalised medical marijuana.
550. 1996 - The ninth annual High Times Cannabis Cup, 1996. A period documentary of the 1996 Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, recording the judging, the seed companies and the coffeeshop scene of the era.
551. 1996 - Prisoners of the War on Drugs (1996). Full 1996 documentary on Americans imprisoned under mandatory minimum drug sentences.
552. 1996-11-01 - California After Prop 215: A Reporter's Look at the New Medical Marijuana Law. Local TV news report on how California's 1996 Compassionate Use Act played out in practice, and the legal ambiguity it created between state and federal authorities.
553. 1998 - Half Baked: a cheap date with Mary Jane. An official studio clip from the 1998 comedy, one of the film's best-known sequences.
554. 1998 - The Big Lebowski official trailer. The trailer for the Coen brothers' 1998 film, whose protagonist made the perpetually stoned slacker a lasting American archetype.
555. 1998 - Half Baked - official trailer. Trailer for the 1998 Dave Chappelle comedy he co-wrote with Neal Brennan; a box-office disappointment that became a cult staple on video.
556. 2000 - Next Friday - official trailer. Trailer for the 2000 sequel, in which Ice Cube's Craig moves to the suburbs and the franchise expands.
557. 2000 - Bone Thugs-N-Harmony - The Weed Song. From BTNHResurrection (2000), the Cleveland group's harmonised ode to cannabis.
558. 2000 - Afroman - Because I Got High. Afroman's 2000 novelty hit, a chart success in the US and UK that turned a home-recorded joke into the era's best-known cannabis song.
559. 2001 - How High - official trailer. Trailer for the 2001 Method Man and Redman comedy about two smokers who ace their way into Harvard.
560. 2001 - How High - pot ghosts scene. The scene that sets up the film's premise, in which smoking a friend's ashes summons him as a study partner.
561. 2001 - Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back - official trailer. Trailer for Kevin Smith's 2001 film centred on the two dealers who had recurred through his View Askew films since Clerks.
562. 2002-10-06 - Hemp stalk cross-section. A hemp stalk showing the woody core and the bast fibre layer that is stripped for rope and cloth.
563. 2003 - Legalising Medical Marijuana (2003). Journeyman Pictures documentary on California's medical-cannabis laws and the resulting conflict between state permission and federal prohibition.
564. 2004 - Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle - original theatrical trailer. Warner Bros.' own trailer for the 2004 comedy, notable for putting two Asian-American leads at the centre of a mainstream stoner film.
565. 2004 - Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle - the White Castle scene. The film's closing payoff, the destination that drives the entire 2004 road comedy.
566. 2005 - Weeds season one trailer. The trailer for the first season of Showtime's Weeds, which ran from 2005 to 2012 and followed a suburban widow who begins dealing cannabis.
567. 2006 - Grandma's Boy trailer. The theatrical trailer for the 2006 Happy Madison comedy, scanned from an original trailer negative.
568. 2006 - Katt Williams on weed, from Pimp Chronicles. The bit from Katt Williams's 2006 HBO special Pimp Chronicles Pt. 1, one of the most-quoted stand-up routines about cannabis.
569. 2006 - Ziggy Marley - Beach in Hawaii. From Love Is My Religion (2006), the album that won Ziggy Marley a Grammy and carried his father's herb-and-faith themes into a new generation.
570. 2007-04-07 - Hash Bash 2007 with David Arquette. Footage from the 36th annual Hash Bash on the University of Michigan Diag, 7 April 2007.
571. 2007-05-22 - Mechoulam on cannabinoids and neuroprotection. Conference talk describing cannabinoids as anti-inflammatory agents and possible neuroprotectants after brain injury.

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