THE LOUVRE OF POT

Marijuana can make you forgetful. Michael Krawitz wants to help you remember.

Krawitz is a kind of curator of dope history. He's the founder of the
traveling Cannabis Museum, in San Francisco through today as part of the
convention of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

It's important for a museum curator to care deeply about his area of
expertise. Krawitz cares deeply. He inhales, he samples, and while he's at
it, he collects artifacts from the long history of cannabis, a museum
collection that now runs to about 1,500 pieces.

About the only thing missing from his Cannabis Museum is cannabis. There
were, however, some ashes in a nearby ashtray. Perhaps that part of the
exhibit accidentally caught fire.

The collection contains an amazing mixture of artifacts -- original
doctors' prescriptions for cannabis from the 1920s to treat pain or corns
on the feet, pop fiction demonizing the weed, old medicinal containers from
when it was used for such maladies as "sexual exhaustion.''

Much of it has been hard to come by, such as the medicinal containers.
"They're really scarce,'' said Krawitz, 39, whose enthusiasm shows in his
high energy and often manic gesturing. "Not because they didn't make a lot
of them, but because no one wants to part with them.''

Krawitz began his love affair with pot after he was in a motorcycle
accident in Guam in 1984, when he was in the Air Force.

"No,'' he said, "I wasn't stoned.''

Sent to Hawaii for rehabilitation, another patient offered him a smoke. "I
got a roach from a Samoan guy,'' he said. ``It was really good stuff.''

It also, he said, eased his pain and helped his recovery. He's been an avid
fan ever since.

"That led me to seeking information about the medical use of cannabis,'' he
said. Given that he used to work with his father, an auctioneer and
antiques expert, he naturally fell into collecting artifacts from the
history of marijuana.

Chris Porter got high in 1925, according to an original prescription
written for the Easton Pharmacy in Easton, Kan. In 1922, a doctor wrote a
prescription ordering his patient to apply a cannabis compound to his corn
each night.

It's possible the patient used "Seabury's Corn Plaster,'' an empty
container of which is in Krawitz's collection.

Another bottle boasts its contents as a tonic and recommends, ``One tablet
three or four times daily for melancholia, sexual exhaustion, hysteria and
nervous disorders.''

Then there are the wild books and posters from a bygone era, suggesting
that a puff on a marijuana cigarette will turn the puffer into a maniac.
One Dell paperback called ``It Ain't Hay'' claims that ``marijuana and
murder make a thrilling story.''

Other items include buttons and posters from campaigns to legalize pot, or
at least its medicinal use; arm patches from uniforms for police marijuana
eradication forces; detailed botanical drawings; and an employee badge
labeled "War Hemp Industries Inc.,'' from when the ropy weed was used for
such things as a ship's rigging.

For now, the museum has only a single image on its Web site:
http://www.cannabismuseum.org/ But within the next six months to a year,
Krawitz said, he hopes to have many of the collectibles photographed and
posted on the Web. He's been gathering his artifacts for about seven years.

"The Internet is going to be the major source of the displays,'' he said.

The next stop for the peripatetic display will be a medical cannabis
conference in Portland, Ore., on May 3 and 4.

If You're Interested

The memorabilia is on display at the Crown Plaza Union Square Hotel, 480
Sutter Street, San Francisco.