Varieties of marijuana originating in India have been grown throughout the Caribbean and bordering coastal nations from Mexico to Brazil since 1834, when the British brought indentured Indian servants to their Caribbean colonies. Marijuana use did not become illegal in America until 1937, and large-scale commercial importation of hashish and marijuana into Europe and North America did not commence until the early 1960s.
Marijuana growing began in North America during the 1960s. At first, seeds cleaned from illicit shipments of marijuana were casually planted by curious smokers. Sinsemilla (Spanish for seedless) marijuana was almost unheard of. Nearly all domestically produced marijuana that lacked seeds was immature, and mature marijuana was fully seeded. Tropical varieties from Colombia and Thailand grown in North America rarely matured before frosts killed them. However, some of the tropical varieties regularly survived until maturity in coastal Florida, Southern California, and Hawaii, where the climate is warm and the growing season is long. Alternately, subtropical Mexican and Jamaican varieties often matured outdoors across the southern two-thirds of the United States. All of these early introductions were called sativas, a common name derived from the botanical name Cannabis sativa.
