Around 8,000 BC we humans began to cultivate a plant so versatile and so easy to grow that it made this one guy proclaim “There must be a God up there lookin’ out!” And everyone glanced around at each other, nodding enthusiastically, and the people were happy… the canvas, cloth, bedding, food, paper, and medicines the plant provided were strong and rejuvenating to both body and earth… human civilization took hold… calculus was invented… the West was won…

From The Children’s Encyclopedia,1909; pp. 321-32:

Fibre Plants - Hemp

The great hemp region of this country is the Blue Grass region in Kentucky, where a rich, moist, well-drained loam overlies limestone. The seed is sowed and rolled, but not cultivated after it comes up. The vigorous plants get the start of the weeds and kill them out. The roots plow deep, and the stems soar.”

Oh, how those mighty stems soared! Then, in the 1930’s, a few greedy people decided they could profit quite handsomely off the plant’s demise. You see, the greedy people had invented a very attractive synthetic alternative to the plant, called plastic. It lasted forever, and it sure looked new and exciting, but it was not a simpler alternative. It required many raw materials to produce. That list included crude oil, which was expensive and hard to get. The greedy people hired hungry people to get the oil for them, but they didn’t pay them very well. Then the greedy group (which included greedy politicians) made the plant, their main competition, illegal. Farmers had to abandon the crops they were once encouraged to grow. Educational films re-introduced the plant to schoolchildren as an evil, demonic weed. Parents were urged to keep their children safe, at any cost. Growers, sellers, and users were imprisoned. Many for life. Years of misinformation kept the plant hidden in the shadows. Stowed away as a taboo utilized by degenerates, criminals, and jazz musicians. Time flowed by. The greedy people died and became worm food, but their plastic products prospered.

Now, the need for the plant has returned. The synthetic alternative is tearing the world apart. Once abundant foodstuffs and ointments are all but disappeared. Because plastic doesn’t decompose like the plant, waterways and marine life we depend on are literally choking to death on the stuff. Our lust over oil has resulted in war, corruption, degradation, and another Academy Award for Daniel Day-Lewis. When will the madness end?

In 1916, USDA Bulletin No. 404, reported that one acre of cannabis hemp, in annual rotation over a 20-year period, would produce as much pulp for paper as 4.1 acres of trees being cut down over the same 20-year period. This process would use only 1/4 to 1/7 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 computer printout paper, corrugated boxes and paper bags.”

It is time to correct the sins of our fathers. We’re taking our plant back. Screw Big Oil. Screw Big Timber. Screw Big Eddie from down at the tire yard for selling me two bald Michelins at full price. Screw the Fat Cats in Washington who don’t care to realize the potential we have lost. We have a cash crop with over 25,000 uses at our disposal. Popular Mechanics had it right back in 1938.

Damn the man… it’s Hemp for Victory, baby!

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