As the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Museum explains, cannabis has been consumed going back to that most blazed of Chinese emperors, Shen Nung, circa 2727 B.C.E. The cannabis plant grew wild long before it was collected and domesticated, and as the marijuana seed bank MSNL says, it still grows wild in places like Nepal, Mexico, and Jamaica. If left untouched, this cannabis grows into its “largest and most potent” version, especially if harvested in autumn.

As MSNL continues, hemp also grows naturally in places in the United States like Nebraska, Minnesota, and Oklahoma. Notably, hemp doesn’t contain tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), the compound that produces the psychoactive THC that makes people high. The University of Saskatchewan reported in 2011 that a “simple genetic switch” turns off THCA production (via American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). “Essentially, this means that over thousands of years of cultivation, hemp farmers selectively bred Cannabis sativa into two distinct strains — one for fibre and seed, and one for medicine,” the AAAS wrote.