Marijuana: Brooklyn's Official Plant?

New York Mag is calling for an expansion of the "Develop, Don't Destroy" campaign to include BK's once flourishing cannabis crops.

Yes, according to a Daily Intel post yesterday (via Carroll Gardens Patch via a librarian at the BPL), Gowanus and Downtown BK were once home to gigantic cannabis plantations.

Says Daily Intel:

"Of course, the fifties was a more innocent time. Many residents didn't even realize what was growing in their own backyards. In an attempt to wipe out the native green, officials warned residents, “If you spot these leaves in your back yard, growing in a tall, erect stalk, you have a budding marijuana crop on tap and the Sanitation Department would like to know about it.” In the summer of 1951, sanitation workers dug up and incinerated 41,000 pounds of marijuana from 274 lots around New York."

Alas, it's been a very long time since I inhaled myself (do dime bags still exist?), but I love the shit out of the fact that our great borough's official plant *may* in fact be marijuana. Can we get a proclamation from Marty to that effect?

God knows, I can think of a few people round here who would def be better off after a renewed embrace of this historic bud.

Just think of all those hemp products Etsy types could be selling. Perhaps a life-sized pot plant for the new NYPD mascot? Medicinal pot farms in blighted hoods like Park Slope and Carroll Gardens?

I guess the Gowanus Canal wouldn't really be the best pot spot to grow the stuff any more, what with the superfund site designation and all, but I think this has some potential for Erica and Smartmom's new joint save the local storefronts venture.

E Cannabis Unum!