Hemp and History

I read an artical on cnn.com yesterday about a couple of farmers who are suing the US government to be allowed to grow hemp. Now, make no mistake, hemp is not marijuana. Although hemp looks a lot like its potent cousin, marijuana, hemp lacks the ingredient that makes a person "high".

When America was still forming, hemp was a very important cash crop, more important even than tobacco. Virginians were required to grow it. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written on hemp paper. Betsy Ross's flag was made with hemp cloth. The US navy used hemp rope and sails on its ships for years (canvas is the Dutch word for cannabis), and America's production of hemp has helped our country to win wars. Even George Washington grew hemp at Mt. Vernon. One acre of hemp can produce as much paper as four acres of trees. Besides paper and cloth, hemp can be used to make food, beauty products, plastics, and fuels. In fact, the first Model T was built to run on hemp gasoline!

The United States still imports hemp, but it became illegal to grow it in 1937. Why? Some sources think that the giant Hearst Paper Manufacturing Company (with its acres and acres of forests) and Dupont (the company that patented the process of making plastic from petroleum) had something to do with it. The 1930s produced "Reefer Madness" and other propoganda, which touted the violence and insanity-producing effects of the plant soon to be known by the Mexican slang word, "marijuana". Sometime after 1937, all references to hemp were removed from our history textbooks.