The Museum of Weed, at 720 N. Cahuenga Blvd (north of Melrose), is a temporary installation that opened August 3 and will close on September 29. It’s open Wednesday through Sunday. You may check the hours and buy tickets on their website. Admission is $35.
I visited it today and I was impressed. The location is a beautiful giant warehouse built of wood, high beam ceilings, luxurious bathrooms, with even a shower. There’s a gift shop, a coffee bar and a dining area. A large staff of two dozen young people offer live explanations in each of the rooms. The exhibits are curated with deep knowledge of the history and the issues around the cultivation of hemp through the centuries until today. I did not know that first US president George Washington grew hemp for industrial use at Mount Vernon, and that it was current president Donald Trump who in December 2018 made it legal again to grow hemp, after decades of prohibition. The funniest quote is from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: “It’s not a drug. It’s a leaf.”
First you enter though multicolored neon “doors of perception”, then you start with a room called pre-history, in the second room wall-size posters highlight how the use on marihuana, particularly on the part of Mexicans, was demonized, as causing perversity. In the following room the infamous 1936 B&W movie Reefer Madness is playing, posters of other movies, such as The Devil’s Weed, 1949, line the walls.
Psychedelic swirls on the floor of a room accessed though the doors of a Volkswagen van signal the arrival of the 60s, with its hippie culture, feminism, the Civil Rights movement, anti-war demonstrations, the sexual revolution. “Cannabis turned into a symbol of freedom, love, and rebellion from the establishment.” In the next room I noticed a BW photo of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg holding up a sign saying “Pot is a reality kick.”
I loved the poster for a Janis Joplin concert in San Francisco in 1967.
Then came the backlash under Richard Nixon, in 1970 marijuana was declared a controlled substance, like heroine and cocaine. And on the federal level it still is, despite having been legalized for recreational use in many states, like California.
The most heartwarming exhibit was the bedroom as a typical stoner, with a lava lamp and a poster of the 1978 movie Up in Smoke with Cheech and Chong.
The most chilling exhibit was a hospital room for AIDS patients. It was during that epidemic in San Francisco in the mid 80s that marijuana was used to alleviate the nausea caused by drug AZT. That is what started the movement of legalization for medical purposes. The first legal medical marijuana shop in San Francisco is lovingly recreated.
As we used to say in the 60s, “it was a trip,” and I recommend you take it.
Text and photos by Elisa Leonelli