HIGH NETWORK: THE STANFORD & MIT POT STORY 🌐

Описание: HIGH NETWORK: THE STANFORD & MIT POT STORY 🌐

PRESENTED BY ‪‪@nuggnotes‬ ‬

Before the web, before Wi-Fi, the first “online deal” wasn’t stocks, sneakers, or CDs—it was weed.

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🧠 What You’ll Learn:

• How the ARPANET connected Stanford’s AI Lab (SAIL) and MIT’s AI Lab in 1971, laying the foundation for the internet

• Why grad students testing this new “instant communication” system used it to arrange a small pot pickup—the earliest known digital transaction

• How early hackers and computer scientists overlapped with ’70s counterculture, moving between terminals, labs, and Grateful Dead shows

• Why this exchange mattered more than money—showing networks could shrink distance and connect people beyond institutions

• How journalist John Markoff confirmed the story decades later: the first use of a government-funded research network for peer-to-peer exchange was cannabis, not commerce

• How this act foreshadowed the entire internet’s ethos—connection first, capitalism later

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💻 Long before Silicon Valley IPOs, two labs proved what the network was really for—sharing what mattered between friends.

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🪴 Follow ‪‪@nuggnotes‬ for cannabis history & cultural origin stories
💬 What’s your favorite “tech meets weed” moment?

#Arpanet #Stanford #MIT #InternetHistory #WeedCulture #Counterculture #JohnMarkoff #CannabisHistory #WeedAndTech #nuggnotes

SOURCES:
1. Mike Power, The Guardian (2013)
Mentions John Markoff’s account that the world’s 1st online transaction was a drug deal: Stanford students using ARPANET accounts at the Stanford AI Lab arranged a marijuana sale w/ MIT students. 
2. VICE (Kate Knibbs, 2013)
“The First Thing to Be Bought and Sold on the Internet Was Some Weed” directly quotes Markoff’s passage about Stanford students using ARPANET to quietly arrange the sale of an undetermined amount of marijuana to MIT counterparts. 
3. Neatorama (2013)
“The World’s First E-Commerce Transaction Was a Drug Deal” repeats Markoff’s quote about the 1971–72 ARPANET marijuana transaction between Stanford & MIT and frames it as the seminal act of e-commerce. 
4. Alchimia (2021)
“What Was the First Thing Sold Online? Cannabis, of Course!” retells the story: in 1972, Stanford students at the AI Lab used their ARPANET account to sell a small amount of marijuana to MIT students, long before Amazon or eBay. 
5. BetterBe “Famous Firsts of the Internet” (c. 2021)
Lists “1973 – First Internet Transaction” & notes Stanford students used ARPANET to sell marijuana to MIT students, with the amount sold “still undetermined.” 
6. Grunge (2023)
“Wild Historical Stories That Involve Cannabis” cites John Markoff’s book and summarizes his claim that the 1st transaction in internet history may have been a cannabis deal over ARPANET between Stanford & MIT.