"All the years Abe was growing up, the dirt poor Lincoln family wore tow-linen, home-grown hemp cloth they wove themselves."
OK. so Lincoln wore hemp, but did he smoke it?
Four years ago, the website Potent did some research on the subject and dug up this alleged Lincoln quote:
"Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica."
The article explains:
"The quote supposedly came from a letter Lincoln wrote to the Hohner Company, a letter written by most estimates in 1855. Supposedly, this served as an endorsement of Hohner harmonicas.
"If a letter like this existed, surely it would be preserved, or at the very least be utilized by the Hohner Company. Lincoln promoting hemp smoking would, no doubt, make headlines... But therein lies one issue: Hohner didn't make harmonicas until two years after 1855.
"OK, so maybe the letter is incorrectly dated. We can reconfirm when it was written when we have our hands on it. OK, but where is it?
"The truth is that this letter simply does not exist."
So, put that in your corncob pipe and smoke it on the birthday of arguably America's greatest president.
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