3 ms·

In the early 1990s I stumbled upon a book about hemp. It made bold claims. Like: the original Levi's jeans were made of hemp. Cash bills were made of hemp pa

by froh 6y ago

In the early 1990s I stumbled upon a book about hemp. It made bold claims. Like: the original Levi's jeans were made of hemp. Cash bills were made of hemp paper. You could make clothing of hemp in qualities comparable to cotton, even silky ones. It would grow extremely well, in many climates and would need little to no fertilizers or herbicides. As an oil seed it would have a higher yield than canola/rapeseed or sunflower. It would be amongst the fastest/ highest yield biomass producers. It would improve soil quality in traditional crop rotation. And it had been used by Elisabeth of England as a pain medication against period cramps, and would be helpful to chemo patients against nausea and pain, and benfitial for other long term pain patients, like some quadriplegics, also because of its few side effects and being free from habituation effects. But, the book furthermore claimed, it's a direct competitor to wood, cotton, petrochemicals --- and: despite, so the claims, having no lethal dose and being non-addictive to psychologically stable adults, it was convenient to declare it a criminal drug. I couldn't believe what I read, but the book presented itself as scientific, with tons of quotes. So as a curious student I went to my universities library, and randomly checked out quoted articles and books, three or four from each chapter. Dozens of them. Old stuff, from the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s. Some even 18xx. And few recent ones, for the medical section. Mind you: we were talking about a "dangerous substance", a horrible entry level drug. Contemporary papers about canabis were hard to find in the 1990s. And every single quote I picked was correctly quoted. Every. Single. One. There sure are some who benefit from having canabis sativa prohibited. If I was running a private prison, for example. Or if I wanted to suppress cheap workers and keep them down, low and cheap. Or, as the hypothesis of the book goes, if I was in a competing industry, wood for paper, fire wood, cotton for clothing, plant oils. Or pain relievers or other medical synthetic drugs with overlapping use. But whoever benefits from prohibiting canabis sativa, it's not us, the people. The book in Germany is in 43rd revised print now: Die Wiederentdeckung der Nutzpflanze Hanf, Jack Herer, Mathias [Bröckers] I found an English title by one of the authors, but I don't know to which extend they are comparable: The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack [Herer] The German one, [Bröckers], is quoting tons of German publications, it's for sure not just a translation. [Bröckers] https://books.google.com/books/about/Die_Wiederentdeckung_der_Nutzpflanze_Han.html?id=qe13DwAAQBAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/Die_Wiederentdeckung_de... [Herer] https://g.co/kgs/rwZE5w https://g.co/kgs/rwZE5w

jakear 6y ago
Interesting that the authors consider the culprit to be Big Plant. This would seem to go against the traditional capitalist playbook, are there other examples of an industry banding together to say “X raw material would make producing goods too easy, let’s have it outlawed so we all have to do more work and spend more money”?
- akiselev 6y ago
  William Hearst's relationship with Anslinger (as well as the latter's racist views) and his financial interests in lumber are well documented. It's not about wanting to spend more money, it's about wanting to spend just enough money to keep competitors from springing up, which is what really keeps profits high within an industry. Hemp's behavior as a weed would have allowed very low capital cost upstarts at a time when industrialization was eating everything in its path and creating natural barriers to entry.
wirrbel 6y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_Wears_No_Clothes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_Wears_No_Clothes
- froh 6y ago
  Yes, that's the Herer book, which seems to be the the starting point to the Bröckers one.
yodsanklai 6y ago
I may be wrong, but I thought hemp was a non-potent form of cannabis, which is still legal in a lot of countries. Isn't decline of hemp related to competition with cotton, rather than war on drugs?
- Lazare 6y ago
  In many countries, hemp was banned as part of the ban on cannabis. The US effectively banned hemp production prior to WWII, although temporary exceptions were made during WWII due to needing hemp fibre for war time production. Hemp production was only legalised at a federal level in 2018(!). Why hemp was banned is an open question. Various theories involving the DuPont family, Andrew Mellon, and Randolph Hearst exist, although evidence supporting them is scant. Alternatively, the whole thing may just have been a mistake; cannabis was often called "Indian hemp" back then, and it does contain trace amounts of THC. In any case, at least as far as the US goes, hemp was competing quite well with cotton (it was a major crop in Kentucky prior to the civil war); the decline was caused by the legal system, not economics.

by froh 6y ago

jakear 6y ago

Interesting that the authors consider the culprit to be Big Plant. This would seem to go against the traditional capitalist playbook, are there other examples of an industry banding together to say “X raw material would make producing goods too easy, let’s have it outlawed so we all have to do more work and spend more money”?

akiselev 6y ago
William Hearst's relationship with Anslinger (as well as the latter's racist views) and his financial interests in lumber are well documented. It's not about wanting to spend more money, it's about wanting to spend just enough money to keep competitors from springing up, which is what really keeps profits high within an industry. Hemp's behavior as a weed would have allowed very low capital cost upstarts at a time when industrialization was eating everything in its path and creating natural barriers to entry.

wirrbel 6y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_Wears_No_Clothes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_Wears_No_Clothes

froh 6y ago
Yes, that's the Herer book, which seems to be the the starting point to the Bröckers one.

yodsanklai 6y ago

I may be wrong, but I thought hemp was a non-potent form of cannabis, which is still legal in a lot of countries. Isn't decline of hemp related to competition with cotton, rather than war on drugs?

Lazare 6y ago
In many countries, hemp was banned as part of the ban on cannabis. The US effectively banned hemp production prior to WWII, although temporary exceptions were made during WWII due to needing hemp fibre for war time production. Hemp production was only legalised at a federal level in 2018(!). Why hemp was banned is an open question. Various theories involving the DuPont family, Andrew Mellon, and Randolph Hearst exist, although evidence supporting them is scant. Alternatively, the whole thing may just have been a mistake; cannabis was often called "Indian hemp" back then, and it does contain trace amounts of THC. In any case, at least as far as the US goes, hemp was competing quite well with cotton (it was a major crop in Kentucky prior to the civil war); the decline was caused by the legal system, not economics.