A Number Of Jews Are Returning To Germany To Work In The Cannabis Industry

It is no secret that “Weed Day”—April 20—is also, historically, Adolf Hitler’s birthday. 

This is a bit of a historical (bad) joke. 

Despite reliance on methamphetamine, morphine, and heroin by the Third Reich, not to mention Hitler’s own personal pharmacopeia of medications, cannabis, as well as R&D on the plant, conducted largely by Jewish scientists, was banned by the middle of the 1930’s in Germany as the Nazis consolidated power.

After WWII, American federal government money flowed into cannabis research in Israel while similar efforts were banned both in the U.S. and Germany. The British company GW Pharmaceuticals was only founded in the last years of the 20th century.