The True Story of Hemp

Re-legalizing industrial hemp in the US guarantees the benefits of a free capitalist market; it has been grown for thousands of years and its incredibly recent illegality is unfounded. It has over 40,000 uses, would allow non-corporate independent farmers to finally have a reliable cash crop and if widely produced, could easily support a national fuel transition from oil to methanol.

President George Washington and Founding Father Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp and considered it vital to US agriculture interests. US Presidents Pierce, Taylor and Jackson, all military men, smoked it with their troops. Pierce wrote to his family that it was "about the only good thing" about that war.

It can effectively replace cotton which requires 50% of the world’s pesticides. It yields 3-8 dry tons of fiber per acre, which is four times what an average forest yields, is the fastest growing crop on the planet, requires less chemicals to be pulped than wood, and can be recycled 4 times more than ordinary paper. It can replace wood fiber which would save forests for watershed, wildlife habitat, recreation, oxygen production and carbon sequestration.

Hemp fibers are longer, stronger, more absorbent, mildew resistant and UV protected than cotton. The plant has natural anti-biotic properties, does not require pesticides or herbicides, and grows in a variety of climates and soil types. It is known to out-compete weeds for nutrition and leaves fields weed-free after a successful harvest. Hemp oil is 81% polyunsaturated essential fatty acids, the richest known source. It also contains some essential amino acids, including gamma linoleic acid (GLA), a very rare nutrient found in mother's milk.

Hemp has such a low THC content compared to marijuana, that smoking large amounts of it would be almost unbearable. The two genders are easily recognizable and attempting to plant females hidden in hemp crop would pollinate and significantly lower the THC content of the pregnant buds. Hemp is also planted in thin rows to maximize fiber production while marijuana must be grown in wide open spaces to maximize the amount of buds.

It is impossible to overdose on THC, as the body does not consider it a threatening toxin. If it were a priority, the body would eventually reject and expel it, yet THC stays in the system for a long period of time (specifically the hair follicles).

It can be used for textiles, fabrics, paper, rope, canvas, paint, varnishes, bio mass energy, medicine, soil repair, tea, animal bedding, car frames more dent resistant than steel, insulation, plaster, livestock and bird feed, plywood, drywall, soap, cosmetics, paint, detergent, beer, food, building materials, lubricant, recreation, creativity, economic stability, profit, cement, asthma, glaucoma, tumors, nausea relief, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, back pain, muscle spasms, antibiotic CBD disinfectants, arthritis, herpes, cystic fibrosis, lung cleaner, sleep relaxation, therapeutic emphysema, stress, migraine relief, increase appetite, and reduce saliva, to name a few of its estimated 40,000 uses.

Federal Bureau of Narcotics head Harry Anslinger (forced to retire by John F. Kennedy, who used cannabis and supported legalization) is largely responsible for the criminalization of hemp. At the beginning of his career in the 30s, it was called hemp, yet since it was used for such a variety of purposes, he began calling it marijuana from Spanish. He was intensely racist towards blacks and Mexicans. He claimed it was a violent narcotic which made black men rape white women and unsuspecting white children murder their families in an amnesic frenzy.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency classifies all cannabis sativa varieties as "marijuana." While it is theoretically possible to get permission from the government to grow hemp, DEA would require that the field be secured by fence, razor wire, dogs, guards, and lights, making it cost-prohibitive. Yet, over 30 industrialized democracies, including Canada, distinguish hemp from marijuana. International treaties regarding marijuana make an exception for industrial hemp.

Hemp Timeline

3200 BC
The term cannabis is older than Latin. The first version of the word was recorded by the Sumerians as K(a)N(a)B(a), phonetically translated from cuneiform. It is one of the oldest root words in existence. It is also mentioned numerous times in the original language of the Biblical canon as kanehbosm, meaning “fragrant reed.”

1619 AD
The Jamestown Colony passes legislation ordering all farmers to grow apocynum cannabinum, later made mandatory in 1632. Hemp becomes a staple of the region and is frequently used for barter and trade. During times of shortage, farmers were sent to jail for not growing hemp.

1791 AD
Thomas Jefferson mentions hemp in his journal in regards to the state of agriculture in Virginia in order to influence future policy:
"The culture [of tobacco] is pernicious. This plant greatly exhausts the soil. Of course, it requires much manure, therefore other productions are deprived of manure, yielding no nourishment for cattle, there is no return for the manure expended. The fact well established in the system of agriculture is that the best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil. The former article is of first necessity to the commerce and marine, in other words to the wealth and protection of the country. The latter, never useful and sometimes pernicious, derives its estimation from caprice, and its value from the taxes to which it was formerly exposed. The preference to be given will result from a comparison of them: Hemp employs in its rudest state more labor than tobacco, but being a material for manufactures of various sorts, becomes afterwards the means of support to numbers of people, hence it is to be preferred in a populous country."
In addition to Jefferson, The newly elected US President, George Washington, set duties on hemp farming to help encourage the domestic industry.

1850 AD
The industrial age starts to come out in full swing. Petrochemical industries start to boom and the decline of hemp begins. Paper that is less labor intensive to produce is introduced and steamships start to replace sailing vessels. Hemp fades from the economies of the world for over 60 years.

1916 AD
A new pulping process capable of processing hemp fiber and converting the hurd into various papers and plastics is invented by USDA scientists Dewey Lyster and Jason Merill, making hemp economically viable once again. The USDA issues bulletin No. 404 listing increased production and superior quality as advantages to using hemp hurds for paper pulp.

1934 - 1938 AD
The first commissioner of the Treasury Department's newly created Federal Bureau of Narcotics Harry Anslinger did not himself consider marijuana a serious threat to American society until in the fourth year of his tenure (1934), at which point an anti-marijuana campaign aimed at alarming the public abruptly became his primary focus. US Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Anslinger's appointer and boss for two years, was a prime backer (through his Mellon Financial Corporation) of the DuPont petrochemical company, to which hemp now presented a serious competitive threat. Anslinger, DuPont petrochemical interests and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst together created the highly sensational anti-marijuana campaign to eliminate hemp as an industrial competitor. Some savory titles include "Marihuana Makes Fiends of Boys in 30 Days" and "Hasheesh Goads Users to Blood-Lust, create terror of the killer weed from Mexico". Hearst's papers also fuel racial stereotypes of the time, combining the two topics. Various articles speak of "marijuana-crazed negroes" raping white women and playing "voodoo-satanic" (Jazz) music.

1937 AD
Thanks to incredible effort from Harry Anslinger, The US Congress passes the Marijuana Tax act of 1937, banning the production of hemp. The following year Canada also prohibits production of hemp under the Opium and Narcotics Control Act. Over the next 45 years the hemp ban spreads throughout the West due to similar politics and economic interests.

1938 AD
Popular Mechanics runs an article on the so-called "billion-dollar crop" (when a million dollars was an unspeakably large amount of money). The article had been written in the spring of 1937 before the anti-hemp legislation had been passed.

1941 AD
Popular Mechanics introduces Henry Ford's new plastic car, manufactured from and fueled by hemp (an early biodiesel variant). Hoping to break the petroleum industries' monopoly of control on his company, Ford illegally grows hemp for over a year.

1942 AD
The Japanese invasion of the Philippines cuts off the US supply of Manila hemp, among other vital resources. The US government immediately disregards the previous ban and distributes over 400,000 pounds of hemp seed to farmers in order to limit the supply gap as much as possible. Farmers are required to attend the propaganda classic movie Hemp for Victory.

1962 AD
US President John F. Kennedy forces the 32 year Federal Bureau of Narcotics head Harry Anslinger into retirement after Anslinger attempts to censor the work of Professor Alfred Lindsmith, author of The Addict and the Law. Years after the assassination in 1963, Kennedy associates reveal that the former president used cannabis for back pain and was considering supporting legalization in his (unfulfilled) second term.