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.
And the cover of Popular Science Magazine in, I think it was 1930, find out what year that cover was. It says, hemp, the new billion dollar crop, because they came up with a new machine and it was called a decorticator.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
The famous article does exist and its core framing is correct: it hailed hemp as the New Billion Dollar Crop on the strength of a new fiber-stripping machine called the decorticator. Rogan gets two details wrong, both of which he flags as uncertain. The piece ran in Popular Mechanics, not Popular Science, and appeared in the February 1938 issue, not 1930. Coverage of hemp history in Forbes confirms that in 1938 Popular Mechanics wrote about hemp's economic potential and deemed it the billion-dollar crop. The article famously appeared just months after the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 effectively curtailed the domestic hemp industry, which is why its optimism is often noted as ironic.