According to many proponents, hemp (Cannabis sativa) was made by God as a gift that was supposed to help people with, well, everything – to serve as food, medicine, as a perfume, fuel, construction and textile material, food for cattle, for obtaining various industrial products, and more.
Of all the 300,000 plant species on Earth, no other plant source can match the nutritional values of the hemp seed, coming in an optimal digestive form, as well. Many believe that, should the cultivation of hemp become free, there would be no more famine in the world ever again.
Some believe that hemp is actually of extraterrestrial origin since it’s the only plant on Earth that exhibits two visible sexes – there are male hemp plants and female hemp plants, both clearly discernible. Normally, establishing the sex of a plant in any other species requires a special chromosome analysis, so this is just one of the aspects in which hemp demonstrates its uniqueness and superiority to other plants.
A Bit of History
It appears that hemp was even mentioned in the Bible: “I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more.” (Ezekiel 34:29)”
In addition to being considered a gift from God and a lifeform of alien origin, Cannabis sativa is also believed to be the main ingredient of the nectar of demigods described in the ancient Vedas, the elixir called soma.
In any case, what we do know for certain is that hemp was cultivated in ancient Egypt 6,000 years ago, as well as in ancient China, which gave us the oldest preserved note on how to grow and use hemp. In fact, in many countries of the world, hemp was the first crop ever cultivated by man.
Early cultivation in the USA
Cultivating hemp and manufacturing its derivates used to be one of the most lucrative businesses in the world, especially in the USA, where it was called “a million-dollar crop.” It was a time when selling a single hemp harvest could earn you more than a billion dollars, often in cash. Up until the 20th century, hemp was the single most lucrative crop on the market, peaking in 1850 in Kentucky, when a total of 40,000t of this wonderful crop was produced and harvested.
It’s a little-known fact that hemp deliveries used to be a legal means for paying taxes in America from 1631 to 1800. Not just that – another testimony of the importance of hemp in the 17th and 18th century is the fact that those who refused to grow hemp had to pay higher taxes, the evasion of which sometimes even led to imprisonment. On the other hand, the state of Virginia offered special incentives for hemp farmers.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and many other great American statesmen used to grow hemp. Jefferson even smuggled hemp seeds from China to France and then to America. He designed and patented a device for separating hemp stems from the useful mass and the fibers much faster than doing it manually. The great Benjamin Franklin was also into hemp production, having owned one of the first hemp factories in America.
Finally, there are historians who claim that the 1812 war was fought because of hemp since Napoleon wanted to cut the export from Russia to England. Why was hemp so important to the English? Well, because of the navy, above all. Back then, 90 percent of ropes and veils for shops were made from this remarkable industrial plant, and without powerful ships, England could have become easy prey for the French.
Hemp’s Natural Supremacy
Did you know that the first Bible, most of the ancient naval maps, flags, even the first draft of the American Declaration of Independence, as well as of the Constitution, were printed on paper or cloth made of hemp? For 150 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was printed on hemp paper. In fact, all school books were printed on hemp paper up until 1880.
Furthermore, many of the paintings by great masters such as Rembrandt, Thomas Gainsborough, and Vincent van Gogh were painted on canvas made from hemp.
And there’s a good reason for this.
Hemp fibers are of much better quality compared to wood. It requires far less corrosive chemicals to obtain paper from hemp than from wood. Hemp paper does not turn yellow and is very durable. The plant grows fast and matures within one season, while trees take years or even decades to reach the same degree of maturity, or to grow at all.
In 1916, the American government estimated that by 1940 all of the paper in use could be made of hemp and there would be no more need to cut down trees for that purpose. The same study found that a one-acre field of hemp yields the same amount of material for paper as do 4.1 acres of trees. Not to mention that hemp cultivation does not endanger the environment in any way.
Hemp can even be used for manufacturing more eco-friendly plastics. If all plastics were made of hemp, instead of oil derivatives, by pressing oil from hemp seeds, the plastics would decompose completely and naturally. All it would take is to crush them after use. Plastics obtained from oil derivatives, on the other hand, do not decompose.
Finally, hemp is powerful natural medicine. Hemp-based medication was supported and promoted by the American Medical Association for years. Today, cannabis for medicinal purposes is administered only to a limited number of people, while the rest have to use chemical-based drugs. And yet, hemp is the only medicine proven beneficial and safe for the human body.
The Beginnings of False Propaganda
If hemp is such a miraculous and beneficial plant, how come it suffers from such a bad reputation? It’s a result of meticulously planned and executed propaganda by those whose financial interests were affected by the cultivation of hemp.
The famous American mogul and publisher Wiliam Hearst commissioned from his editors a number of articles aimed against the dangerous plant called marijuana, following the interests of oil and pharmaceutical companies that saw hemp as a threat to their business. The word marijuana was taken from the Mexican slang with the intention of causing further bias and panic. Hemp was so ubiquitous and familiar, it was like someone today claiming that chamomile is a dangerous hallucinogenic drug. They had to actually invent a name since all the negative and terrifying qualities they intended to propagate couldn’t possibly be connected with hemp during that time, and Spanish-speaking communities were, at the time, associated with crime.
The fake articles defamed Mexicans, African Americans, jazz musicians, and other “problematic” groups claiming they abused a drug called marijuana, targeting particularly New Orleans with its predominantly Black population. The readers were then “informed” about the catastrophic effects marijuana has on the human psyche, claiming it had caused a number of traffic accidents, murders, suicides, as well as the immoral behavior of young women.
And that’s how, in 1937, the most useful known crop in the world became a dangerous drug – marijuana. It was a big victory for private, corporate businesses and a huge loss for the American people and the nation.
Cannabis was criminalized, and the American Medical Association was slow to oppose the newly proposed laws, although they realized (albeit too late) that marijuana is just a passive form of hemp used for hundreds of years as a medication.
The new law introduced hundreds of dollars of taxes for just one ounce of hemp, as well as taxes on any form of trade. This rendered hemp an unattractive commodity and its popularity plummeted. Instead of continuing to cultivate hemp, America was now forced to import all the hemp it needed for various industrial purposes.
Corporate Business Prevails
When hemp import drew to a complete halt during World War II, the American government asked for the abolishment of the hemp tax law. And not just that – the US Department of Agriculture urged American farmers to grow hemp as much as they could. That’s also when the slogan Hemp for Victory was coined. The same government that just five years earlier taxed hemp as a dangerous drug was now calling on farmers to plant 350,000 acres of this plant and built 71 farms for processing hemp.
As soon as the war was over, the tables turned yet again for hemp. In Congress, corrupt politicians brought hemp back where the powerful oil magnates wanted it – it was once again labeled as marijuana and demonized. A Federal Bureau of Narcotics official testified in front of Congress, stating that marijuana was detrimental to the country’s interests in war (and this was at the time when the USA was preparing for wars in Korea and Vietnam) as the soldiers who consumed it “became so numb that they lose every will to fight.”
In 1951, Congress passed the so-called Boggs Act which raised the sentences for all violations of the law regarding hemp cultivation. The prisons started filling up, particularly with young people who were caught smoking cannabis. The propaganda machinery kept rolling and until the cultivation of hemp for any purposes, including those that were once deemed economically beneficial, was reduced basically to zero.
A Few Facts to Remember
As the production of hemp was reduced by 80 percent, the petrochemical industry flourished. Byproducts of this industry, dangerous toxins, were systematically dumped to the point where the planet is no longer able to process them.
The Earth can no longer breathe, not only because of enormous amounts of plastic and toxic gases but also because of deforestation for paper-making purposes. In addition, the processing of wood pulp for obtaining paper involves highly toxic acids, which is not the case with hemp-based paper.
Hemp biomass, on the other hand, could in theory make up for all the energy needs for which we normally use oil.
Hemp bark contains the longest-lasting and most resilient fibers of all plants. These can be used for obtaining almost all types of construction materials, including plywood, roof covers, flooring, walls, paint, varnish, daub, reinforced concrete, indoor insulation, bricks, and biodegradable plastic composites which are stronger than steel.
Ecologically sustainable, hemp does not require the use of any herbicides or pesticides. It creates humus, purifies the soil from heavy minerals, and absorbs enormous amounts of carbon from the air. Hemp can yield 250 percent more fiber than cotton, with less water consumption, and 600 percent more fiber than flax.
The secret of hemp’s incredible qualities lies in the anatomy of its stem. If all the fossil fuels and their derivatives, along with the use of trees for paper and construction material, were banned in order to save the planet and reverse the Greenhouse Effect, only one annually renewable natural source would remain to provide the majority of paper and textile in the world, while simultaneously reducing the pollution, helping the soil recover and cleaning the atmosphere.
If all these practical uses are not enough to demonstrate the benefits of hemp, then the nutritional value of hemp seeds should do the trick. Hemp seed is proven to be one of the best natural sources of protein. Hemp contains a type of fatty acid that can completely cleanse the body from cholesterol. And this type of fatty acid can only be found in hemp.
Nutritional research of hemp seeds has shown other remarkable properties as well. They contain antioxidants, protein, carotene, phytosterols, phospholipids, and a number of minerals, most notably calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron, zinc, and phosphorus.
Hemp seeds contain all 20 known amino acids, including the nine essential ones. They are rich in vitamin A, C, D, and E, which are natural antioxidants, as well as B1, B2, B3, and B6 – all coming in an easily digestible form.
Hemp seed oil is extremely rich in essential fatty acids. It is the single most balanced natural oil for human consumption. It can cover all of our needs for essential fatty acids throughout life, thanks to its 80 percent essential fatty acid content. The 10 percent which makes up the saturated fatty acid content provides energy for the body, while the essential fatty acids serve as building blocks for cells and promote a healthy hormonal status.