HEMP Mankinds' Oldest, and Most Versatile Crop

Cannabis, family Cannabaceae; species: Cannabis indica, Cannabis ruderalia, and Cannabis sativa L., has been found on every continent in this hemisphere, it was used long before its first recorded uses. It’s safe to believe, that no historian knows which peoples were first to experience her treasures.

"Hemp" and "Marijuana" often refer to the same plant. This is NOT true. Though of the same species, they are totally different in growth pattern, look and even use.

Hemp plants grow up to 20 feet tall, and are thin. Marijuana plants grow in a more "bushy" pattern, and not so tall as hemp.

About 3,500 years ago, Chinese healers needed an anesthetic. Noticing that some animals became lethargic after eating from the hemp plant, they started to study it. Over the centuries, they were able to breed the "Mother" hemp plant into a more powerful aesthetic - Marijuana.

Marijuana has a high psychoactive resin (THC) content, while hemp has an extremely low (nearly nonexistent) psychoactive resin (THC) content.

Both hemp and marijuana have well over 750 active components that are being used for various nutritional & medical benefits.

Marijuana is used worldwide as an anesthetic and is highly psychoactive.

Hemp is used world wide as a nutritional supplement, as food, as medicine, for fiber used in making rope, clothing and sails, as animal feed, as oil for lamps, lubrication and fuel. Hemp, in fact, has thousands of both industrial and medical uses. Cannabidiol (CBD) is the active ingredient in hemp that has been found to be the most useful for health benefits.

Here is what Wikipedia says about CBD Oil:
"Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of at least 113 active cannabinoids identified in cannabis. It is a major phytocannabinoid, accounting for up to 40% of the plant's extract. CBD is considered to have a wide scope of potential medical applications - due to clinical reports showing the lack of side effects, particularly a lack of psychoactivity (as is typically associated with THC), and noninterference with several psychomotor learning and psychological functions."

(Read the rest of Wikipedia's report)

The medical/health benefits of hemp is of such tremendous possibility, that even the world wide medical communities are publishing more and more reports, studies, researches and findings, promoting the use of hemp.

Cannabis use has existed for over ten thousand years, and is one of the oldest crops used for cultivation. It was cultivated in China as early as 4000 BC. Most cultures viewed hemp as a gift, or treasure, from the Divine Sprit, to be used during ceremonies, at which time it was either burned as incense, ingested for deep meditative and heighten awareness, smoked for pleasure, or worn for clothing.

Hemp has been mentioned in many important documents over its recorded history. The Zend-Avesta, a sacred book used by the peoples of India dating back to 600 BC, spoke of hemp.

The Chinese emperor and herbalist, Chen-Nung, wrote about hemp’s medicinal uses 5000 years ago. His pharmacoepia recorded its effects on malaria, female disorders, and many other illnesses, hemp was referred to as, Ma-fen “hemp fruit”.

The Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1621 recommended hemp for depression. The New English Dispensatory of 1764 suggested applying hemp roots to the skin for inflammation.

In Africa hemp was used for dysentery, fevers, to treat snake bites, and women smoke it before childbirth. During the seventeenth century peasants believed in the magical power of hemp, and practiced their traditions. On Saint John’s Eve, farmers would pick flowers from their hemp plants and feed them to their livestock to protect the animals from evil and sickness.

A western physician by the name of W.B. O’Shaughnessey published in 1839 of the benefits of cannabis for the treatment of rabies, rheumatism, epilepsy, and tetanus. He also reported that a tincture of hemp and alcohol taken orally was found an effective analgesic.

Henry VIII required the cultivation of one quarter acre of hemp for every sixty acres of land under tillage, for maritime purposes in England.

The British began cultivating hemp in its Canadian colonies in 1606, cultivation began for Virginia in 1611. The Pilgrims introduced cultivation to New England as early as 1632, they learned about the cultivation of hemp from the Native Americans people.

Hemp was already in the new world when the first European colonist arrived, thought to have been introduced from China by explorers, migrating birds from across the Bering Strait, or possibly drifting shipwrecks.

The colonists were not eager to grow hemp, but England wanted hemp, and cultivation was deemed mandatory. The Puritans at Jamestown grew hemp, as part of their contract with the Virginia Company. Jean Talon at the order of France Quebec colony minister, confiscated all thread the colonist possessed and forced them to buy it back from him with hemp.

Talon supplied the seeds to farmers, which had to be reimbursed after hemp crops were harvested. Mandatory cultivation of hemp continued throughout the New World. The General Court in 1637 at Hartford Connecticut, and the Massachusetts courts in 1639 ordered all families to plant one teaspoon of hemp seed. “That we might in time have supply of linen cloth among ourselves.” Several colonies passed legal tender laws, hemp was so valued it was used to pay taxes.

Until 1776 many colonies passed laws to encourage farmers to produce hemp. Virginia designed laws to compel farmers, fining those who did not comply. Lobbyist were hired to promote, and educate the public about the importance of hemp. Books were published that wanted to establish hemp as America’s trademark product.

Colonies under the crown were banned from spinning and weaving hemp, this fostered dependence to England, which was demanding raw materials from the colonies as a way to increase its labor forces. The exported fibers were then bought back as finished products from England.

As the market was flooded with hemp, immigrant weavers from Ireland arrived in Massachusetts, setting up shop and passing their skills to the peasantry. What may have seem a small movement, grew into self-sufficiency from the British Crown, to the extent of a boycott of English fabric products. These were some of the conditions which lead into the War of Independence from the British. The American paper industry was born of hemp, linen, and cotton rags which provided writing materials throughout the war, essential for communication.

In 1777, Edward Antil wrote in his introduction of Observations on the Raising and Dressing of Hemp, “hemp is one of the most profitable productions the earth furnishes in northern climates; as it employs a great number of poor people in a very advantageous manner, if its manufacture is carried on properly: It becomes worthy of the serious attention of every trading man, who truly loves his country.”

In preparation of war, mandatory cultivation laws were passed, and colonist increased their production of hemp for paper and clothes. Colonist were convinced to take up arms, as they read pamphlets published on hemp paper. Thomas Paine in 1776 encouraged colonist to fight for freedom with Common Sense he writes “in almost every article of defense we abound. Hemp flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage.”

The founding fathers of this nation, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were both promoters of hemp, as noted in their farm diaries. Throughout Washington’s farm diary he spoke about the quality of seeds, always taking care to sow seeds in best areas on his farm. He documented the importance’s of cultivating seeds at the proper time taking care to pull the male plants from the females.

In 1790’s Washington began cultivating “Indian hemp” which he said produced the best quality of plant, and noted its superior quality to common hemp mostly grown during that time. Both Washington and Jefferson disliked tobacco, and on occasion they would exchange gifts of smoking mixtures of their hemp.

Jefferson was also a promoter of hemp, and during his tenure as Governor of Virginia he kept reserves of hemp. In May of 1781 used hemp as currency when money from the government was in short supply.

Jefferson believed hemp to be a superior crop to tobacco, which he said exhausted the soil, used too much manure and provided no nourishment for cattle. Hemp, on the other hand, “was of the first necessity to commerce and marine, in other words to the wealth and protection of the country.” Around 1815 Jefferson received the first US patent for his hemp breaking machine, which reportedly did the work of ten men.

Kentucky was a large supplier of hemp, primarily because the soil would not sustain a grain crop. In 1792 its legislature levied a tax of twenty dollars per ton on imported hemp. This worked to Kentucky’s advantage and by 1850 domestic hemp crops increased and the amount of imported hemp dramatically decreased.

The belief that hemp was one of the most important crops to the common wealth, continued throughout the 19th century. As production increased, more states like Illinois, California, and Nebraska began to grow hemp. With more domestic hemp available, creative ideas for hemp use increased. In 1841, Congress ordered the Navy to buy domestic hemp, and in 1843 they appropriated fifty thousand dollars to purchase American hemp.

Hemp Production was a hard and tedious process. In 1861 G.F. Schaffer of New York patented the Hemp Dresser, used to prepare hemp for manufacturing. After Schaffer invention, many improvements to his machine followed.

By the early 20th century, industrialization lead to inventions of machines that would do the work of many. One of the most important inventions to the hemp industry was the Decorticator machine. It was hailed as the invention to revolutionize the hemp industry. An article from Popular Mechanics magazine (dated February 1938) spoke of hemp as a cash crop soon to be worth a billion dollars.

Unfortunately, its praises came one year to late. The passage of the Marihuana Tax Act HR 6385 was enacted, which required a $100 transfer tax on the sale of marihuana.

The underhanded manner in which this tax was enacted led to charges of Government/Corporation corruption and collusion. Those who gained the most were Hearst, who owned large timber holdings which feed the paper industry. DuPont, who dominated the petrochemical market, which manufactured plastics, paints, and other products of fossil fuels and the Secretary of the Treasury, and owner of Gulf oil, Andrew Mellon who pushed legislation through congress giving tax breaks to oil companies.

The Conspiracy was against hemp as it threaten vested financial and industrial interest especially those in the paper and petrochemical industries. The U.S. Government used all forms of propaganda to convince the citizens that hemp was worthless and dangerous.

10,000-year History of Marijuana & Hemp use in the World

8,000+ BC Use of hemp cord in pottery identified at ancient village site dating back over 10,000 years, located in the area of modern day Taiwan. Finding hemp use and cultivation in this date range puts it as one of the first and oldest known human agriculture crops. As explained by Richard Hamilton in the 2009 Scientific American article on sustainable agriculture "Modern humans emerged some 250,000 years ago, yet agriculture is a fairly recent invention, only about 10,000 years old ... Agriculture is not natural; it is a human invention. It is also the basis of modern civilization." This point was also touched on by Carl Sagan in 1977 when he proposed the possibility that marijuana may have actually been world's first agricultural crop, leading to the development of civilization itself (see 1977, below).
6,000 BC Cannabis seeds and oil used for food in China.
4,000 BC Textiles made of hemp are used in China and Turkestan.
2,737 BC First recorded use of cannabis as medicine by Emperor Shen Neng of China.
2,000-800 BC Bhang (dried cannabis leaves, seeds and stems) is mentioned in the Hindu sacred text Atharvaveda (Science of Charms) as "Sacred Grass", one of the five sacred plants of India. It is used medicinally and ritually as an offering to Shiva.
1,500 BC Cannabis cultivated in China for food and fiber. Scythians cultivate cannabis and use it to weave fine hemp cloth.
600 BC Hemp rope appears in southern Russia.
700-300 BC Scythian tribes leave Cannabis seeds as offerings in royal tombs.
500 BC Scythian couple die and are buried with two small tents covering containers for burning incense. Attached to one tent stick was a decorated leather pouch containing wild Cannabis seeds. This closely matches the stories told by Herodotus. The gravesite, discovered in the late 1940s, was in Pazryk, northwest of the Tien Shan Mountains in modern-day Khazakstan. Hemp is introduced into Northern Europe by the Scythians. An urn containing leaves and seeds of the Cannabis plant, unearthed near Berlin, is found and dated to about this time. Use of hemp products spread throughout northern Europe.
200 BC Hemp rope appears in Greece. Chinese Book of Rites mentions hemp fabric.
100 BC First evidence of hemp paper, invented in China.
23-79 Pliny the Elder's The Natural History mentions hemp rope and marijuana's analgesic effects.
70 Dioscorides, a physician in Nero's army, lists medical marijuana in his Pharmacopoeia.
100 Imported hemp rope appears in England.
130-200 Greek physician Galen prescribes medical marijuana.
200 First pharmacopoeia of the East lists medical marijuana. Chinese surgeon Hua T'o uses marijuana as an anesthetic.
300 A young woman in Jerusalem receives medical marijuana during childbirth.
570 The French queen Arnegunde is buried with hemp cloth.
500-600 The Jewish Talmud mentions the euphoriant properties of Cannabis.
850 Vikings take hemp rope and seeds to Iceland.
900 Arabs learn techniques for making hemp paper.
1000 Hemp ropes appear on Italian ships.
1532 French physician Rabelais's gargantua and Pantagruel mentions marijuana's medicinal effects.
1533 King Henry VIII fines farmers if they do not raise hemp for industrial use.
1563 Portuguese physician Garcia da Orta reports on marijuana's medicinal effects.
1578 China's Li Shih-Chen writes of the antibiotic and antiemetic effects of marijuana.
1600 England begins to import hemp from Russia.
1606-1632 French and British cultivate Cannabis for hemp at their colonies in Port Royal (1606), Virginia (1611), and Plymouth (1632).
1616 Jamestown settlers began growing the hemp plant for its unusually strong fiber and used it to make rope, sails, and clothing.
1621 Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy suggests marijuana may treat depression.
1753 Linnaeus classifies Cannabis sativa.
1764 Medical marijuana appears in The New England Dispensatory.
1776 Kentucky begins growing hemp.
1794 Medical marijuana appears in The Edinburgh New Dispensary.
1800 Hemp plantations flourished in Mississippi, Georgia, California, South Carolina, Nebraska, New York, and Kentucky.
1840 In America, medicinal preparations with a Cannabis base are available.
1842 Irish physician O'Shaughnessy publishes cannabis research in English medical journals.
1850 Cannabis is added to The U.S. Pharmacopoeia.
1850-1915 Marijuana was widely used throughout US as a medicinal drug and could be purchased in pharmacies and general stores.
1906 The Pure Food and Drug Act is passed, regulating labeling of products containing Alcohol, Opiates, Cocaine, and Cannabis.
1910 Mexican Revolution caused an influx of Mexican immigrants who introduced the habit of recreational use of Marijuana.
1914 The Harrison Act in the U.S. defined use of Marijuana (among other drugs) as a crime.
1916 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) chief scientists Jason L. Merrill and Lyster H. Dewey created paper made from hemp pulp, which they concluded was "favorable in comparison with those used with pulp wood" in USDA Bulletin No. 404. From the book "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" by Jack Herer the USDA Bulletin N. 404 reported that one acre of hemp, in annual rotation over a 20-year period, would produce as much pulp for paper as 4.1 acres (17,000 m2) of trees being cut down over the same 20-year period.

This process would use only 1/7 to 1/4 as much polluting sulfur-based acid chemicals to break down the glue-like lignin that binds the fibers of the pulp, or even none at all using soda ash. The problem of dioxin contamination of rivers is avoided in the hemp paper making process, which does not need to use chlorine bleach (as the wood pulp paper making process requires) but instead safely substitutes hydrogen peroxide in the bleaching process.

If the new (1916) hemp pulp paper process were legal today, it would soon replace about 70% of all wood pulp paper, including copy paper, corrugated boxes and paper bags. However, mass production of cheap news print from hemp had not developed in any country, and hemp was a relatively easy target because factories already had made large investments in equipment to handle cotton, wool, and linen, but there were relatively small investments in hemp production.

1915-1927 In the U.S. Cannabis begins to be prohibited for nonmedical use. Prohibition first begins in California (1915), followed by Texas (1919), Louisiana (1924), and New York (1927).1919 The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol and positioned marijuana as an attractive alternative leading to an increase in use of the substance.
1924 Russian botanists classify another major strain of the plant, Cannabis ruderalis.
1937 U.S. Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act which criminalized the drug. In response Dr. William C. Woodward, testifying on behalf of the AMA, told Congress that, "The American Medical Association knows of no evidence that marijuana is a dangerous drug" and warned that a prohibition "loses sight of the fact that future investigation may show that there are substantial medical uses for Cannabis." His comments were ignored by Congress. A part of the testimony for Congress to pass the 1937 act derived from articles in newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, who had significant financial interests in the timber industry, which manufactured his newsprint paper.
1938 DuPont patented the processes for creating plastics from coal and oil and a new process for creating paper from wood pulp.
1941 Cannabis is removed from the U.S. Pharmacopoeia and it's medicinal use is no longer recognized in America.
1951 The Boggs Act and the Narcotics Control Act in the U.S. increases all drug penalties and laid down mandatory sentences.
1960 Czech researchers confirm the antibiotic and analgesic effects of cannabis.
1970 The US National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) forms. That same year the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act repealed mandatory penalties for drug offenses and marijuana was categorized separately from other narcotics.
1971 First evidence suggesting marijuana may help glaucoma patients.
1972 The Nixon-appointed Shafer Commission urged use of cannabis be re-legalized, but their recommendation was ignored. U.S. Medical research picks up pace. Proposition 19 in California to legalize marijuana use is rejected by a voter margin of 66-33%.
1975 Nabilone, a cannabinoid-based medication appears.
1976 The U.S. Federal government created the Investigational New Drug (IND) Compassionate Use research program to allow patients to receive up to nine pounds of cannabis from the government each year. Today, five surviving patients still receive medical cannabis from the federal government, paid for by federal tax dollars. At the same time the U.S. FDA continues to list marijuana as Schedule I meaning: "A high potential for abuse with no accepted medical value."
1977 Carl Sagan proposes that marijuana may have been the world's first agricultural crop, leading to the development of civilization itself: "It would be wryly interesting if in human history the cultivation of marijuana led generally to the invention of agriculture, and thereby to civilization." Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden, Speculations on the Origin of Human Intelligence p 191 footnote.
1977-1981 U.S. President Carter, including his assistant for drug policy, Dr. Peter Bourne, pushed for decriminalization of marijuana, with the president himself asking Congress to abolish federal criminal penalties for those caught with less than one ounce of marijuana.
1986 President Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, reinstating mandatory minimums and raising federal penalties for possession and distribution and officially begins the U.S. International"war on drugs."
1988 U.S. DEA administrative law Judge Francis Young finds, after thorough hearings, that marijuana has a clearly established medical use and should be reclassified as a prescriptive drug. His recommendation is ignored.
1992 In reaction to a surge of requests from AIDS patients for medical marijuana, the U.S. Government closes the Compassionate Use program. That same year the pharmaceutical medication dronabinol is approved for AIDS-wasting syndrome.
1996 California (the first U.S. state to ban marijuana use, see 1915) became the first U.S. State to then re-legalize medical marijuana use for people suffering from AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses. A similar bill was passed in Arizona the same year. This was followed by the passage of similar initiatives in Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
1997 The American Office of National Drug Control Policy commissioned the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to conduct a comprehensive study of the medical efficacy of cannabis therapeutics. The IOM concluded that cannabis is a safe and effective medicine, patients should have access, and the government should expand avenues for research and drug development. The federal government completely ignored its findings and refused to act on its recommendations.
1997-2001 In direct contradiction to the IOM recommendations, President Clinton, continuing the Regan and Bush "war on drugs" era, began a campaign to arrest and prosecute medical cannabis patients and their providers in California and elsewhere.
2001 Britain's Home Secretary, David Blunkett, proposes relaxing the classification of cannabis from a class B to class C. Canada adopts federal laws in support of medical marijuana, and by 2003 Canada becomes the first country in the world to approve medical marijuana nationwide.
Nov 2012 The States of Colorado and Washington legalize marijuana / cannabis.
July 07, 2014 Cannabis City becomes Seattle's very first legal marijuana shop for over-the-counter purchase & recreational use. This generated worldwide media attention and a serious discussion over the legalization of marijuana and a possible end to the American "drug war." The first purchase, by Deb Green a 65-year old marathon-running grandmother from Ballard, is part of the collection of the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle, Washington.
Nov 2014 The States of Alaska and Oregon legalize marijuana / cannabis for recreational use.
July 24, 2015 With Senate Bill 5052, Washington State medical marijuana comes under the control of the Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB).
December 2018 President Trump signs a historic Farm Bill. It takes control of hemp away from the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and puts it as a "crop" under the Dept. of Agriculture. This allows each state to determine if it's grown locally and removes the restrictions on hemp products. This should open up the whole economy to the wonders of the hemp plant!