Of course, hemp, Cannabis Sativa, is known to be very low in THC compared with the more medicinal Cannabis Indica. "Afterall," as Raoul put it, "if it had any powers of intoxication at all it wouldn't still be growing there by the side of the road."
I'd seen a documentary once about hippies driving to Kansas in the 1970s to harvest "K-pot" or "ditch weed." They'd use it to cut more precious supplies, or to bilk the squares and tourists on Haight Street knowing that if they got busted, the weed would probably test too low in THC to get them in any serious trouble.
As we drove along through Kansas and Iowa, Raoul and I would ocasionally scan the roadside foliage for signs of the storied plants. "Spot the pot" was meagre at first, with a shady maybe here and a half-hearted "That had to be some" there. We stopped once and walked with cameras ready along a big ditch for a while, but it was really just an excuse to get out of the car and stretch our legs and we didn't find anything resembling marijuana.
A few hundred miles later, at 11:00 AM, Raoul put the hazards on and steered over to the shoulder again, and this time we scored. There they were, two straggly little weeds down in the bottom of a barrow pit where a culvert crossed under the highway.
© 1997,98 Henry Kingman