The Emperor Wears No Clothes
by Jack Herer · first published 1985
11mentions
6recommended by
10HN commenters
2010–2025first – last mentioned
60% recommend40% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Argues that cannabis prohibition grew from political and economic motives, not safety concerns, tracing industrial, paper, and policing interests; recommended for readers wanting the history of drug prohibition.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Cover title. Includes bibliographical references.
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I've been extremely poor most of my life. I've been homeless. And neither of our personal anecdotes have any bearing on the reason why the drug war began. I suggest checking out The Emperor Wears No Clothes for a background behind the start of drug prohibition as a new way to discriminate and make use of bolstered police forces after the failure of alcohol prohibition, as well as prevent the disruption of…
on “I Used to Be Homeless” ↗Jack Herer's book 'The Emperor Wears No Clothes' highlights this and is the source for a lot of the pro-hemp sentiment. It is also available online, here is a link to the chapter that highlights the paper industry lobbying to make hemp illegal - https://jackherer.com/emperor-3/chapter-4/
on “Congress just voted to legalize hemp” ↗I highly recommend The Emperor Wears No Clothes by the late Jack Herer for a comprehensive insight into the history and reasons for drug prohibition. It doesn't touch just on the social implications like fueling police states and for-profit prisons…
on “Magic mushrooms are changing the lives of terminal cancer patients” ↗For more reading on exactly why BigCo wanted cannabis to be illegal, see the book ”The Emperor Wears No Clothes” by Jack Herer: https://jackherer.com/emperor-3/chapter-1/ It is a rather long read, but to summarise, cannabis prohibition has roots in the industrialising 19th century where it could have competed…
on “Colombia boosts budding cannabis industry by removing ban on dry flower exports” ↗…immigration-focused discrimination and allowing institutions to extract wealth from poor communities while ensuring their continued generational poverty. I would recommend checking out Jack Herer's seminal The Emperor Wears No Clothes [2], especially chapters 5, 13 and 14. I'd also look into William Randolph Hearst [3], his involvement in drug prohibition, and the racially-motivated tactics used to make it happen, by first convincing…
on “That DEA agent's 'credit card' could be eavesdropping on you” ↗Check out Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer
on “Tobacco out, hemp in for Tennessee farmers” ↗…tax revenue is often declining. Seems some folks don't yet know that a) it was originally criminalized for political, not safety reasons, and b) LOTs of people enjoy it. One interesting book is "The Emperor Wears No Clothes", where they have a well-researched bibliography showing that the invention of the "Hemp Jennie" was the root cause, as it would have dramatically cut into cotton profits. It was the Cotton Lobby that…
on “Everything worse than previously thought” ↗…revised print now: Die Wiederentdeckung der Nutzpflanze Hanf, Jack Herer, Mathias [Bröckers] I found an English title by one of the authors, but I don't know to which extend they are comparable: The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack [Herer] The German one, [Bröckers], is quoting tons of German publications, it's for sure not just a translation. [Bröckers] https://books.google.com/books/about/Die_Wiederentdeckung_de... [Herer]…
on “A Brief Global History of the War on Cannabis” ↗…prohibition caused the strain to matter, and to be smoked in the first place. Additionally, legalization and regulation does not touch dabbing and edibles which are much more potent than smoking. source: "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" by Jack Herer
on “Smoking high-strength cannabis may damage nerve fibres in brain” ↗The Emperor Wears No Clothes (Jack Herer, come ON!) is a widely referenced and generally regarded as a reliable source. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_Wears_No_Clothes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Herer
on “Conde Nast refuses to run Prop 19 ads on reddit” ↗…years. My godfather was the late Jack Heror who was the first person to legalize pot in America. The cap will also be made of hemp. You can read about the uses of hemp in my godfather's book called the Emperor Wears No Clothes. The beauty of making this out of hemp is that we will obtain CBD oil as a byproduct which will also be distibuted for free, but paid for by ads. This business model is 10X more profitable than any retail…
on “FreeWater is the world's first free beverage company” ↗