Back in the ‘30s, usage of hemp was manipulatively lumped in with cannabis in general and outlawed by means of cutthroat competition amongst industries and powerful people. Even though hemp and marijuana come from the same cannabis species, they are genetically distinct, used differently and have a different chemical makeup. Hemp can’t get you “high”, containing virtually zero THC.
Early on, hemp was the basis for almost every patent medicine prior to the discovery of aspirin. It was used for rope, twine, and cloth. Sailing ships were loaded with hemp. Sails were made of hemp because salt water deteriorated cotton. Old sails were made into wagon covers and ultimately original Levi’s Jeans. Everyone knew what hemp was. But nobody knew what marijuana was.
The 1900’s saw two powerful rivals, agriculture and industry, face-off over several multi-billion-dollar markets. When Rudolph Diesel produced his engine in 1896, he’d assumed it would run off of hemp, which is superior to petroleum. Just think, a fuel grown by farmers — superior to foreign oil! History would have been rewritten!
In the meantime, an elite group of ‘special interests’ dominated by Du Pont petrochemical company and its major financial backer and key political ally, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon who took over Gulf Oil Corporation.
In the 1930’s, the Ford Motor Company opened gas stations with ethanol fuel (extracted from hemp) to compete with Du Pont’s gasoline additives and also Dupont’s process that made trees into paper. The war was on. Federal pot prohibition resulted from a conspiracy plot by the Hearst and DuPont business empires to squelch hemp as a possible competitor to wood-pulp paper and nylon. Those allegations went virtually unchallenged.
When the new mechanical hemp-fiber stripping machines became state of the art and affordable, Hearst’s enormous holdings in timber acreage and investments in paper were in danger of being replaced by low-cost, high quality paper made from hemp. Also, 80 percent of DuPont’s business would never have materialized. During the same period, Du Pont was developing products from fossil fuels as well as becoming a leader in the development of paint, and chemicals, etc. Hearst had always supported any kind of prohibition, and now he wanted cannabis included in every anti-narcotics bill. He continued to use his power of the press to impress the evils of the “marihuana” plant and well has promote the concept of “Reefer Madness” accepted by hysterical white Americans.
When the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was formed in 1932, Mellon’s nephew Harry Anslinger was appointed its head. Although worldwide, hemp was still big business, in 1935 the Treasury Department began secretly drafting a bill called the ‘Marihuana’ Tax Act. General counsel Herman Oliphant was put in charge of writing a bill to get past both Congress and the Court disguised as a tax revenue bill. So, in 1937, he stated under oath “This drug is entirely the monster ‘Hyde’, the harmful effects of which cannot be measured”. In the guise of a tax revenue bill it was brought to the six-member House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Du Pont ally Robert Doughton. This bypassed the House and passed over to the Senate Finance Committee, controlled by another ally, Prentiss Brown, where it was rubber stamped into law. Anslinger would “administer” the licensing process to make sure that no more commercial hemp was ever grown in the United States.
The act passed without a full congress vote and put all hemp industries firmly under the control of the very special interest groups that most benefited from its repression and in collusion with the petrochemical companies, the timber companies, the alcohol and tobacco industries and the pharmaceutical companies,
In that same year, 1937, Du Pont filed its patent on Nylon, a synthetic fiber that took over many of the textile and cordage markets that would have gone to hemp. More than half the American cars on the road were built by GM, which guaranteed Du Pont a captive market for paints, varnishes, plastics, and rubber, all which could have been made from hemp. All competition from hemp had been outlawed.
Hemp is often called God’s gift to mankind. Society missed out on many benefits because of the marijuana conspiracy. In addition to fuel from hemp, the biggest forfeiture, there was a revolutionary potential for balanced nutrition, clothing and textiles, and medicines for an abundance of ailment, such as cancer, epilepsy, mood disorders and many more. Hemp is also experiencing a revival, hopefully to a large-scale shift towards a hemp-based economy, including a transfigured greener housing sector!
If you eat a hemp brownie you will not get high but eating a pot brownie you will, “Sometimes putting you into a mental fog.”
