Wonder hemp
“Make the most of hemp
seed and sow it everywhere.”
* George
Washington, 1794
Did you know that canvas was
named for cannabis, the Latin term for hemp, because Renaissance
artists used hemp cloth for their paintings? Or that our founding
fathers wrote the first two drafts of the Declaration of
Independence on hemp paper? Hemptech, a company trying to
reintroduce industrial hemp in the United States, describes the
history of this now-illegal crop and its future potential in a
booklet printed on – what else? – 70 percent hemp paper. Hemptech
says hemp can be used for products as diverse as paints and
dynamite, and, unlike its medicinal cousin marijuana, industrial
hemp has low THC levels and is not psychoactive. The crop’s fans
say it grows fast, needs fewer pesticides than most crops and that
in one year, a single acre can yield as much paper as four acres of
forest. Industrial hemp is legally grown in many countries such as
China, England, France, Holland, Hungary and Russia, and the
governor of Kentucky recently formed a task force to evaluate it as
a supplemental crop to tobacco. But opposition remains firm: A
sheriffs’ association and a group called Drug Watch International
recently defeated a Colorado bill to allow hemp production, calling
it a smokescreen for marijuana legalization. For more information
or a copy of the 48-page Industrial Hemp, contact Hemptech, P.O.
Box 820, Ojai, CA
93024-0820.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Wonder hemp.
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