Logan Yonavjak (@Loganyon) makes a case for allowing farmers in the United States to grow hemp.
Industrial hemp was once a dominant crop on the American landscape. This hardy and renewable resource (one of the earliest domesticated plants known, with roots dating back to the Neolothic Age in China) was refined for various industrial applications, including paper, textiles, and cordage.
Over time, the use of industrial hemp has evolved into an even greater variety of products, including health foods, organic body care, clothing, construction materials, biofuels, plastic composites and more (according to one source, more than 25,000 products can be made from hemp).
In the U.S., the first hemp plantings were in Jamestown, Virginia, where growing hemp was actually mandatory. From then on hemp was used in everything from 19th century clipper ship sails to the covers of pioneer wagons. The Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper, and even the finest Bible paper today remains hemp-based.
Industrial hemp being grown for fiber and grain in France. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the early 20th century, hemp-derived cellulose was promoted as an affordable and renewable raw material for plastics; Henry Ford even built a prototype car from biocomposite materials, using agricultural fiber such as hemp.
After that things started to go downhill. In 1937, the passage of “Marihuana Tax Act” occurred, and, despite the U.S. government’s “Hemp for Victory” campaign during World War II, misplaced fears that industrial hemp is the same as marijuana combined with targeted harassment by law enforcement discouraged farmers from growing hemp. The last crop was grown in Wisconsin in 1958, and by 1970 the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) formally prohibited cultivation (although the state of Hawaii is home to the first industrial hemp crop to be cultivated since the passage of the CSA).