The Nation: The Grass in Cass

In what seems now an oddly innocent time, the Federal Government encouraged the farmers of Cass County, Mich., to cultivate marijuana. It was known then as hemp, and thought to be useful mainly for the World War II production of rope. The farmers of Cass County and some other parts of the U.S. sowed the weed in home-front zeal.

When the U.S. discovered nylon rope, the farmers plowed under their cannabis, but the wild weed does not die easily. Each spring new plants appeared, and winds and birds carried the seed throughout Cass County. With the coming of the pot culture, the young developed an unexpected passion for farming, sneaking into Cass County’s fallow fields by night to harvest the wild grass.

Now the Bureau of Narcotics has allocated $87,000 to induce the locals in Cass and ten other Midwestern counties to destroy their grass. Some of the agrarians worry that they might be sacrificing a golden goose. What, they ask, would happen if they killed off their marijuana—and found some day that it was legalized?