What's all this fuss about hemp?

-What is hemp-

For our purposes, hemp is the plan t called `cannabis sativa.' There are other plants that are called hemp, but cannabis
hemp is the most useful of these plants. In fact, `cannabis sativa' means `useful (sativa) hemp (cannabis)'. `hemp' is any durable plant that has been used since pre-history for many purposes. Fiber is the most well known product, and the word `hemp' can mean the rope or twine which is made from the hemp plant, as well as just the stalk of the plant which produced it.


-What is cannabis-

cannabis is the most durable of the hemp plants, and it produces the toughest cloth, called `canvass.' (Canvass was widely used as sails in the early shipping industry, as it was the only cloth which would not rot on contact with sea spray.) The cannabis plant also produces three other very important products which the other hemp plants do not (in usable form, that is): seed, pulp, and medicine.

The pulp is used as fuel, and to make paper. The seed is suitable for both human and animal foods. The oil from the seed can be used in as a base for paints and varnishes. The medicine is a tincture or admixture of the sticky resin in the blossoms and leaves of the hemp plant, and is used for a variety of purposes.

-Where did the word "marijuana" come from-

The word `marijuana' is a Mexican slang term which became popular in the late 1930's in America, during a series of media and government programs which we now refer to as the `Reefer Madness Movement.' It refers specifically to the medicine part of cannabis, which Mexican soldiers used to smoke. Today in the U.S., hemp (meaning the roots, stalk, and stems of the cannabis plant) is legal to possess. No one can arrest you for wearing a hemp shirt, or using hemp paper. marijuana (The flowers, buds, or leaves of the cannabis plant) is not legal to possess, and there are stiff fines and possible jail terms for having any marijuana in your possession. The seeds are legal to possess and eat, but only if they are sterilized (will not grow to maturity.)

Since it is not possible to grow the hemp plant without being in possession of marijuana, the United States does not produce any industrial hemp products, and must import them or, more often, substitute others.

(There is a way to grow hemp legally, but it involves filing an application with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the DEA very rarely ever gives its permission.) This does not seem to have stopped people from producing and using marijuana, though. In many of the United States, marijuana is the number one cash crop, mostly because it fetches a very high price on the black market.