Research Trip for Broke Historian
I am a young historian asking for a few bucks to help fund a research trip for my upcoming book, Grass Roots: An Environmental History of Cannabis in the American West (Oregon State University Press).
I will use your donation to procure food, lodging, and gas for 6 days as I make my way by car from Denver, CO to Medford, OR this summer. I will be conducting interviews and visiting libraries as I attempt to get a handle on the current state of Cannabis horticulture and its impact on the Western American landscape, from the Colorado High Plains to the California Bay Area and Oregon's Applegate Valley.
I work part-time for a local non-profit and, with the help of my wife, just saved enough money to buy the vehicle I will use for this trip. Since I'm panhandling on the internet instead of a streetcorner, you can probably take a good guess at my background: twenty-something, educated (MA-history, 2014), broke as hell, in debt, and living in a bogus idealistic dreamscape in which a few thousand strangers care enough to help another stranger achieve his bookwriting goals.
...and yet you should! Here's why: like it or not, Cannabis (the marijuana plant) has become a mainstream agricultural enterprise, consuming large amounts of energy, water, and other "inputs" - fertilizers, pesticides, etc. While many people are familiar with the history of the drug marijuana, few understand the history of Cannabis as a plant, which renders most of us - especially our politicians - woefully incapable of properly understanding and regulating the production of this newly legal crop.
My book will help people understand the history of Cannabis agriculture in the US, explaining how we got to our present, fascinating, and important relationship with this plant. It will emphasize lessons from that history that can help build a Cannabis industry that is at once profitable, health-conscious, and environmentally sustainable. Also, it won't be a phrase longer than 200 pages - I promise!
Thank you for your interest and for your spare change, and please feel free to email or comment on my blog for more information!
Cheers,
Nick Johnson, MA
