History of Hemp

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Hemp was cultivated in England and in the English settlement of Jamestown, to help with the Navy's increasing demand for hemp rope (21). Farmers in Jamestown were ordered to grow hemp, and between 1763 and 1767. A farmer could get thrown into jail for not growing hemp (22 ).

In 1839 the homeopathy journal Americans Provers Union published the first of many reports on the effect of cannabis. The U.S. dispensatory first listed the effects of Cannabis in 1854 By 1896, several new Cannabis derivatives were developed among them Cannabin, Cannadindon(23).

Between 1840 to 1900 at least 100 major articles were published recommending Cannabis as a therapeutic agent for various health problem and disorders(24 ).

Queen Victoria used it to relieve menstrual cramps, the year she died (1901)a Royal Commission report said cannabis was relatively harmless and certainly not worth banning (25). Queen Victoria personal physician Sir Russell Reynolds wrote in the Lancet in 1890 that "when pure and administered carefully, cannabis is one of the most useful medicines we possess." (26).

Cannabis was the number one analgesic for 60 years before the rediscovery of Aspirin in around 1900. From 1842 to 1900 cannabis made up half the medicines sold(27 ).

Newspaper man William Randolph Hearst declared war on hemp.(28). Hearst also popularized the word "marijuana" a foreign sounding name instead of hemp. This was to help in the banning of the plant(29).

When technology in the 1930s advance enough to make hemp fiber-stripping machines and machines that conserved hemp's high-cellulose pulp available and affordable. This threat Hearst's timber stands and his paper manufacturing Kimberly Clark . Overall the timber for paper industry stood to lose billions. Also chief munitions maker for the U. S. federal government, Lammot Du Pont developed synthetic fiber nylon and wood-pulp paper sulfide process. Both processes could have been threatened by hemp. Du Pont chief financial backer was Andrew Mellon of the Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh, who in his role as secretary of the treasury, appointed Harry Anslinger to the head of Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Anslinger would become his nephew-in-law(30).