Marijuana has been known by that name in the U.S. only since the 1920s. There are many ideas of where the name originated, but the story that a cannabis smoker in Pancho Villa’s army was a female soldier named Mary seems as likely to be true as a number of other stories. Mexicans also called the plant mota. Before the 1920s marijuana was known as cannabis and sometimes as hemp. Although the hemp plant is a member of the cannabis family, the word cannabis is now typically associated with the variety of the plant with psychoactive properties: what we also call marijuana, dank, reefer, bud, tea, chronic, pot, ganja, weed, indigo, sense, locoweed, Mary, Mary Jane, skunk, herb, jive, muggles, and other names, including the ancient Chinese name for it, ma, and the African name for it, dada. The name hemp is now most commonly used for the plant that contains only trace amounts of the psychoactive substance (tetrahydrocannabinol [THC]) and is grown for industrial uses.
As Martin Booth explains in his excellent book, Cannabis: A History, the plant was given the botanical name of Cannabis sativa by a Swedish botanist named Carolus Linnaeus in 1753. In 1783 a Frenchman named Jean-Baptiste Lamarck assigned the Indian variety of the plant the name Cannabis indica. In 1924 a botanist in Russia named Janischewski gave a third variety of the plant the name Cannabis ruderalis.
Hemp is one of the easiest plants to grow. The seeds germinate within days, develop into male and female, and sometimes both, and the plant thrives in a variety of climates and soil conditions.
Cannabis plants are dioecious, which means there are male and female plants. Those who grow it for the psychoactive properties often destroy plants displaying male characteristics. This is because female cannabis plants produce greatly stronger psychoactive resin than the male plant. The flowering tops of the seedless, unpollinated cannabis plants are called sinsemilla (Spanish for without seed), and are highly sought for psychoactive properties.
In his book, Booth explains that the different varieties of cannabis seem to be somewhat more of a singular plant than the names imply. This is because within a few seasons of growth, the plants grown from the seeds of one variety will adapt to the characteristics of the other variety when grown in the near those associated with that other variety.
Today we associate the name cannabis with marijuana, and hemp with the industrial plant that gets its modern name from hanap, an Old Saxon name, or henap, an Old English name.
While all varieties of the plant appear to have originated in some area of central Asia, the difference is that cannabis can get you “stoned” while hemp can get you fed, sheltered, cleaned, moisturized, clothed, and warmed, and the growing hemp plants will provide oxygen while absorbing air pollution and improving certain soil conditions, but hemp won’t provide any psychoactive fun if you smoke or ingest it.
Ancient people living in various parts of the world grew hemp for many uses. Some people speculate that hemp was the first crop to be cultivated by humans. It is likely that the first plant-based fabrics were made out of hemp fiber, giving people an alternative to wearing animal skins. The ancient Chinese created woven fabrics from hemp fiber. Early humans also made food from crushed hemp seeds and used hemp stalks to build shelter.
“It would be wryly interesting if in human history the cultivation of marijuana led generally to the invention of agriculture, and thereby to civilization.”
– Carl Sagan, in his book The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence. Using the pseundonym Mr. X, Sagan wrote an essay for Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Lester Grinspoon’s 1971 book Marihuana Reconsidered
Thousands of years ago the Chinese made fabric, food, rope, and utensils from hemp. Upon examining ancient Chinese paper, scientists have found it consisting of a combination of mulberry bark or other bark pulverized with hemp and dried under the sun. Ancient Chinese burial sites have been found containing various hemp materials as well as containers holding hemp seeds.
“I must mention that hemp grows in Scythia, a plant resembling flax, but much coarser and taller. It grows wild as well as under cultivation, and the Thracians make clothes from it very like linen ones – indeed, one must have much experience in these matters to be able to distinguish between the two, and anyone who has ever seen a piece of cloth made from hemp, will suppose it to be of linen.”
– Herodotus, Dorian Greek historian, fifth-century bc. From Herodotus, The Histories B. 4: 71-76, trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt, ed. A. R. Burn; Viking Penguin, Inc.: New York, 1972; page 294
Hemp was a common material in other parts of the world as well. The ancient Arabs and Egyptians made hemp rope and paper. Hemp rope had been used in the construction of the ancient pyramids. The Romans and Greeks traded in hemp. Hemp materials have been found in the ruins of Pompei. The Vikings made sails out of hemp. By the eighth-century the hemp papermaking techniques from China had spread to Arabia and Persia. In about 1150 the Moors started manufacturing hemp paper in Spain.
“Without [hemp rope] how could water be drawn from the well? What would scribes, copyists, secretaries, and writers do without it [hemp paper]? Would not official documents and rent-rolls disappear? Would not the noble art of printing perish?”
– Francois Rabelais (1495-1553), French humanist and satirist during the Renaissance; quote from At the Edge of History, by William Irwin Thompson, 1971; page 124
Before the Renaissance the Italians were cultivating large fields of hemp to make fabric, cordage, and sails. When the sails had served their purpose and been worn by the wind, rain, and sun, they were turned into clothing, tablecloths, bedding, painters’ canvases, cleaning rags, hats, insulation, and paper.
In the 1400s Johan Gutenberg took the idea of the Chinese woodblock printing process and created his famed printing press, which he used to print the first printed Bible on paper made from a variety of materials, including flax and hemp rags. Over the next several hundred years hemp paper was also used to publish political statements, fueling the revolutions.
People in the Baltics use hemp seeds in their traditional foods. In Poland hemp seeds are tossed at weddings.
In modern times there have been more laws applied against hemp and cannabis cultivation and more money spent to control the plants than on any plants in history. This is being done to a plant that is closest to the needs of humans than any plant.
Because it is illegal to grow hemp in the U.S., all hemp products that are sold in the U.S. are imported from other countries. As a result, the U.S. loses hundreds of millions of dollars by importing hemp products and raw hemp material to make hemp products. If hemp were legal to grow in the U.S., hundreds of thousands of jobs would be created to farm hemp, process raw hemp, and to manufacture and sell hemp products, including fuel, food, nutritional and lubricating oils; cosmetics, clothing, linen, paper, candles, insulation, fiberboard, and many other items.
In 1994, when a company called Hempstead got a federal license to grow one half-acre of hemp near the town of Brawley in California’s Imperial Valley, they had many companies interested in what they were doing. Sponsors included the Ohio Hempery and the Save the Earth Foundation. Two beds of hemp were planted, one for seeds and one for fiber. As the plants grew and began to produce seeds flocks of birds showed up and began to feast. To prevent the birds from consuming the seed crops ceramic owls were placed on poles to scare away the birds. When the state attorney general’s office heard about the hemp fields they sent officers from the Imperial Valley Narcotics Task Force to investigate. On July 29, a week before harvest, drug enforcement workers foolishly plowed under the 20,000 hemp plants. Your tax dollars at work.
“This (hemp) is becoming a serious commodity. You have farmers in North Dakota dealing with depressed soy and corn prices. They see Canadians farming industrial hemp. Why are we cutting American farmers out of this rapidly emerging market?”
– David Bronner of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, Escondido, California; 2005. Since this statement was made, corn prices have risen in relation to the demand for ethanol production. However, hemp is a better crop to use for ethanol because it is used to make cellulosic ethanol, which creates less pollution, and provides better engine performance than starch ethanol made from corn.
China is the world’s largest exporter of hemp products. China also imports hemp from Australia and China. The Chinese military produces hemp seed nutrition packs for its soldiers. The hemp food packs include hemp protein food bars, hemp chocolate, hemp milk, and hemp coffee.
The hemp industry is growing around the world. Korea and Thailand allow farmers to grow hemp. The imperial family of Japan owns a small hemp farm to make fabric for their clothing. Germany lifted its 1982 ban on industrial hemp in November 1995. There are hemp paper manufacturing plants in Slovenia. Poland grows hemp for a variety of reasons, including to decontaminate soil and to manufacture building materials. Russia maintains a hemp industry. Other European countries, such as France and Spain, are also growing hemp and manufacturing products with it. Switzerland hosts a hemp convention called Cannatrade. Great Britain lifted its prohibition on hemp in 1993. Canada has allowed hemp to be grown on a “research” basis since 1995, and now exports hundreds of millions of dollars worth of hemp.
Australia has been developing a hemp market since the 1990s and farmers there are now cultivating many acres of hemp. New Zealand began growing hemp in 2001. However, while Australia and New Zealand allow hemp farming for industrial uses, as of 2008, their food regulations continue to disallow hemp from being used as a food source for humans, but do allow it for pet food and farm animal feed. Farmers in Australia and New Zealand are growing hemp for a number of reasons, including for seed oil, wood sealant, paint oil, animal feed, absorbent materials, insulation, fiber board plywood, animal bedding, biodegradable plastics, fabric fiber, and paper pulp. At least one Australian company is producing hemp masonry, which are bricks consisting of compacted hemp fiber hardened with lime, for use in construction of low cost green housing.
“Industrial hemp has the potential to provide farmers with a much-needed additional fast growing summer crop option that can be used in rotation with winter grain crops. It’s a potentially lucrative industry due to the environmentally friendly nature of (hemp) and there is strong interest for hemp products in the market.”
– Ian Macdonald, Australia’s NSW Minister for Primary Industries
In addition to Canada, the U.S. imports hemp materials and products from other countries such as Chile, China, England, Finland, Hungary, India, the Netherlands, and Romania.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., industrial hemp farming remains in a legal limbo.
Some blame the limbo on the hydrocarbon industry, some blame it on the paper industry, some blame it on the cotton industry, some blame crooked politicians or businesspeople, or some combination of all of these and others.
Keep reading, and decide for yourself.
Then do your part to help bring the hemp industry into the modern age.