Jack Herer is a familiar strain name on dispensary menus, and it is named after a real person. Jack Herer was a cannabis activist and the author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes, a book about hemp and cannabis prohibition, and a Dutch seed company named a strain after him.
This is the story of the man and how his name ended up on a jar.
Who was Jack Herer?
Jack Herer was an American cannabis and hemp activist, known among supporters as "The Hemperor." He spent decades campaigning to end cannabis prohibition, and he founded and directed an organization called Help End Marijuana Prohibition, or HEMP.
Herer came to cannabis relatively late. Weedmaps' profile of him, written by a former assistant, says he served as a military police officer during the Korean War and did not try cannabis until he was about 30. After that, it says, he set out to learn everything he could about the plant.
His first cannabis book came in 1973: G.R.A.S.S., an adult coloring book. Weedmaps calls it a cult success and says it led to the idea for his better-known book a decade later.
He died on April 15, 2010, in Eugene, Oregon, at 70. NORML, the cannabis reform group, reported that he had suffered a heart attack after speaking at the Portland Hempstalk festival in 2009, spent several days in a physician-induced coma, and spent the following months recovering before his death.
What is The Emperor Wears No Clothes?
The Emperor Wears No Clothes is the book that made Herer's name. It was first published in 1985 and argues that hemp is a valuable plant whose prohibition was a mistake; NORML's tribute summed it up with the book's tagline, "How hemp can still save the world." NORML put its sales at more than 600,000 copies.
Weedmaps, in a profile written by a former assistant of Herer's, says he began drafting the book in 1984, after an arrest for registering voters without a permit.
Once the book was out, Weedmaps says, Herer promoted it with book-signing tours at dispensaries, head shops and alternative bookstores. Erowid's bibliography lists a second edition in 1990.
The book argues a case rather than surveying the evidence. Some of the hemp-history claims that still circulate do not hold up against the records. Our article on Hemp for Victory and the history of hemp in America looks at three of them.
How did a strain get his name?
The strain was created by Sensi Seeds, the Dutch seed company, which describes it as "an ode to Jack Herer himself." Leafly's strain profile says it was created in the Netherlands in the mid-1990s. Sensi's own 2019 strain feature says it "graced the world more than 20 years ago."
Most strain names come from a place, a parent strain, a breeder or marketing, which makes one named for an activist stand out. Our guide to cannabis origin stories explains how strain names developed.
What is Jack Herer's lineage?
Sensi Seeds calls Jack Herer a "masterful 3-way hybrid" and says that, because of its complex lineage, it has four main phenotypes. Its own pages do not name the parents.
Leafly describes the cross as a Haze hybrid combined with a Northern Lights #5 and Shiva Skunk cross, and Weedmaps describes a similar three-way cross of Haze, Northern Lights and Skunk. Treat that as the commonly reported version rather than a breeder-confirmed recipe.
Is it indica or sativa? Leafly lists it as a sativa, while Sensi Seeds' own seed page describes a hybrid whose phenotypes vary. Our guide to indica, sativa and hybrid explains why those labels say less than they seem to.
What strains came from Jack Herer?
Jack Herer has also been used as a parent. Leafly lists Amnesia and Cinderella 99 among the strains descended from it. Those family trees come from strain databases rather than breeder records, so read them the same way as Jack Herer's own lineage: as the commonly reported version, not a confirmed one.
Is every "Jack Herer" the same plant?
No. The name appears on flower, pre-rolls, vape cartridges and edibles from many different producers. A strain name tells you what a grower or brand chose to call a product. It does not guarantee that two products share the same genetics.
If you want to know what is in a specific product, the lab results on the label are a better guide than the name. Our guide to choosing cannabis flower covers what to look at.
That applies to every product that carries the name. If two products are both labeled Jack Herer, comparing their lab results tells you more about how alike they are than the shared name does. The name is a starting point for a conversation at the counter, not a guarantee of what is in the jar.
Sources
- Paul Armentano, NORML Remembers The Hemperor, Jack Herer, NORML, April 2010
- Erowid, Jack Herer Vault
- Mary Schaefer, Who was Jack Herer? The cannabis activist behind the famous strain, Weedmaps
- Sensi Seeds, Cannabis Strain Focus: Jack Herer from Sensi Seeds, 2019
- Sensi Seeds, Jack Herer regular seeds
- Leafly, Jack Herer strain profile
