‘Things you never learn in school’: Croatia’s cannabis museum | Arts

At the cannabis museum, visitors are guided through a multi-millennial tour of the plant’s past through videos, posters, and exhibits. (RooM Collection/ Getty Images)

• Croatia still outlaws the recreational use of marijuana. 
• Yet opposite to the main police station in Zegreb is a museum dedicated to the substance.
• Croatia’s new cannabis museum offers an experiential guide through the plant’s intoxicating history.

With an admission ticket that can be rolled and smoked, Croatia’s new cannabis museum offers an experiential guide through the plant’s intoxicating history, featuring odes to reggae music and stoner movies.

Just opposite Zagreb’s main police station in a country that still outlaws marijuana for recreational use, it is the latest in a string of quirky establishments in the Croatian capital, including museums dedicated to hangovers and broken relationships from the 1980s.

“The plant is present in the history of humanity in almost all civilisations and undoubtedly deserves a museum,” Tvrtko Kracun, the museum’s owner, tells AFP.

At the cannabis museum, visitors are guided through a multi-millennial tour of the plant’s past through videos, posters, and exhibits.

Cannabis is believed to have first been cultivated in Central Asia some 10 000 years ago. In the centuries since, cannabis has become a cultural and economic staple globally.

According to the museum, the plant has thousands of uses, including manufacturing oils, flours, cosmetics, animal feed, textiles, ropes, and building materials.

The museum also focuses on its “recreational use” – alongside written warnings about the health hazards of excessive marijuana consumption.

Rooted in history

There are exhibits dedicated to water bongs and displays about the legendary 1969 Woodstock music festival over which hovered a “cloud” of marijuana smoke emanating from the thousands of fans.

A tent also showcases the cannabis cultivation process, with special lamps and a live plant.

Igor Lokotar, a political science student from Zagreb, says he was impressed with the historical background, including a display detailing how Napoleon Bonaparte’s soldiers brought cannabis to France from Egypt in the early 19th century.

“These are things you never learn in school,” he says. 

Marijuana is legal only for medical use in the Balkan country.

Croatia allows for the purchase of cannabis with up to 0.2 percent THC content – the plant’s main psychoactive ingredient. The museum offers popular legal cannabidiol (CBD) products for sale in its lobby, including drinks, oils, and sprays.

The museum is just a stone’s throw from the police station is pure coincidence, says Kracun. Admission is free for employees of the interior, health, and agriculture ministries responsible for regulating cannabis.