Joe Rogan on hemp: what the evidence says · JRE #2143
SUBJECT: HEMP
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
Do you know the first draft the Declaration of Independence was written on hemp? I've heard that. Yeah
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
The final signed Declaration on display at the National Archives was engrossed on parchment (animal skin), not hemp paper. The claim about the drafts also lacks support: conservators and the Papers of Thomas Jefferson project concluded that the paper Jefferson used for his rough draft, which is Dutch in origin, was most likely made from linen rags with flax as the primary component, not hemp. The idea that the drafts were on hemp traces largely to hemp-advocacy writing (notably Jack Herer) rather than to any conservation analysis. PolitiFact rated the statement that the Declaration was penned on hemp as False (2016) and a related meme as Mostly False (2019), noting Monticello's position that the hemp-paper claim is, as far as is known, not true.