Becca Wolford, Contributing Writer
Waking Times

For thousands of years industrial hemp was a common staple. It fed us, clothed us, housed us, sailed our ships with hemp rope and sails, it was part of our livelihood.

Then, in the early 1900s, it was banned and pushed aside.

Why? Why did this wonderful, useful plant get labeled with a criminal stamp?

Around the turn of the 20th century companies like DuPont created chemicals that were used in processing of paper; DuPont also created chemicals used for pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, which were used extensively by the cotton industry (cotton is MUCH more chemical and water intensive compared to hemp). While this was going on, William Randolph Hearst invested in timber and mills to produce the paper for his newspaper, which was the largest chain in the U.S. at the time. His investments in the timber industry were backed by Mellon Bank.

The U.S. Secretary of the Treasury at that time was Andrew Mellon, who happened to own Mellon Bank (and was one of the backers for DuPont as well). Mellon’s niece was married to Harry Anslinger who, incidentally, was connected to the alcohol prohibition campaign. He was out of a job (as were everyone else in that sector of the federal government) after the alcohol prohibition ended. To keep his family employed, Mellon created a new division of the federal government, the Bureau of Narcotics, and made Harry Anslinger the new head of that program.

Also during this time machinery was being developed to make hemp processing easier and more efficient. This was a threat to the paper, chemical, timber, and petroleum industries. Pharmaceutical companies were creating new medicines and drugs and were also threatened by the natural healing properties of the plant we know as hemp.

Harry Anslinger began looking into rumors of the Mexican population smoking the flowers of the hemp plant. Because racism was quite rampant at that time, Anslinger played on that and used the Mexican slang, marijuana, in place of the word ‘hemp’. He spread lies and rumors about blacks and Mexicans becoming violent while smoking it and also labeled it as a narcotic.

Hearst’s newspapers spread the slander and propogated stories about the ‘evil marijuana’ and of people committing rapes and murder while ‘under the influence’ of marijuana. This, of course, had the papers selling like wildfire, but they failed to mention the everyday uses of the hemp (rope, fuel, textiles, food).

After the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act was passed, Harry Anslinger ordered the hemp prohibition, using the excuse that his agents wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between hemp and marijuana, and that the farming of hemp made it too difficult to enforce the marijuana prohibition.

In 1942 the hemp prohibition was put on hold to allow farmers to grow hemp to provide the needed fibers to aid in the war effort. After the war, when the hemp was no longer needed, the Air Force and Marines were ordered to destroy all remaining hemp crops.

To this day, the ‘war on hemp’ is still in full force. However, more people are learning about the vast benefits of hemp – for food, medicinal purposes, textiles, fuel, and tens of thousands of other uses.

It’s time to let nature’s perfect plant flourish again. No more dependence on foreign oil; a return to natural, plant-based remedies for illnesses and diseases; no more petroleum based plastics; less dependency on chemicals that are harming our environment and health.

NOW is the time for HEMP to return.

About the Author

Becca Wolford is a writer, entrepreneur, artist, reiki practitioner, and hemp activist. She has experienced first-hand the nutritional and healing benefits of hemp and her passion is learning, writing, and educating others about the benefits of hemp – benefits that encompass nutritional health for humans, a healthy environment, and a healthier economy.

Becca also distributes Versativa, an amazing raw, clean, hemp-based nutritional supplement and Restoration90, a raw, clean, nutritional product with marine phytoplankton, hemp, and essential nutrients for optimum health. Please support her at her excellent blog Hemphealer.com.

This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.

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