Yet just as rapidly as hemp rose, it fell. Postwar federal regulations, growing stigma and the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 halted legal hemp farming. Fields went fallow, mills shuttered and the plant was criminalized — alongside the intoxicating cannabis it was frequently confused with. Nevertheless, Minnesota’s wild hemp — dubbed “ditch weed” or “feral cannabis” — persisted, stubbornly growing along railroad tracks, parks such as Bruce Vento and highways like U.S. 10. Ironically, these feral plants were largely descendants of government-planted wartime crops.