It would be interesting to see numbers on just how dependent the early American colonies were on tobacco exports. That's the sort of thing that would tend to be de-emphasized in low-level history textbooks.

I have never heard this. Citation please?

Ah, yes, Notorious M.I.T.

Which famous colleges do you have in mind here?

Yale, Brown, Duke, Kennedy School, Georgetown, Stanford, etc. Those are just a few I can think of off the top of my head, I'm sure there are at least another twenty.

Stanford made his money in railroads, not necessarily in the most seemly way, but hardly a drug. He did own wineries in Northern CA, but I was under the impression that those came much later. Are they what you were referring to?

According to Wikipedia he owned the largest vineyard in the world.

They aren't "famous colleges" if you can't think of them off the top of your head.

Depends. By this metric -- applied to me -- there are no famous American-football players, either.

The only obvious one I can think of is Duke.

LOL. What?? The Puritans were drug mules? What on earth are you talking about?

Tobacco, the triangle trade, opium, weed, etc. Several of the states actually had laws on the books that made it a criminal offense to not grow marijuana.

Yes, but hemp was used in industry to make rope, not smoked. Easy to make sensationalist remarks; a little responsible research takes time and trouble.

Regardless of whether or not it was smoked, industrial hemp is still considered a drug today. IIRC you're actually eligible for the death penalty if you grow enough of it.

I was referring to "Even today most of our famous colleges are named after drug families"