Quote Originally Posted by mrdevious
We're gonna need a little more evidence than just the fact that he grew hemp. Tonnes of farmers have grown hemp, and obviously it doesn't get you high. One does not necessitate the other.
Modern industrial hemp doesn't get you high, because it's been specifically bred not to have significant amounts of THC in it. The kind that was grown by Washington and Jefferson back in the 18th century was surely just regular cannabis with regular THC levels in it.

However, it's still rather unlikely that they ever smoked it. It just wasn't known in western European and American cultures of the time as a plant that would get you intoxicated if you smoked it. There's no mention of cannabis smoking in the literature of the time, and no historical evidence of cannabis smoking devices or anything like that. And of course, farmers didn't just smoke their crops to see what would happen. So chances are they never even knew they were growing a drug.

It wasn't until the early decades of the 20th century that cannabis smoking really became known in the US, being brought here by Mexican immigrant workers.