Hemp - Past, Present and Future

[Linnea]

excerpted from Paul Benhaim's book, H.E.M.P. - Healthy Eating Made Possible - Fusion Press/London 2000

The Conspiracy

'It is easier to believe a lie you have heard a thousand times than a fact you have never heard before.'

In 1937 Mr DuPont of DuPont Industries patented new processes for making paper from wood. His company also had interests in synthetic fibres as well as processing cellulose. Their aim to replace natural fibres with synthetic was threatened by hemp. Along comes Mr Hearst, a friend who was a media giant with newspapers and interests in the paper industry. Hemp comes along and, producing four times the amount of pulp in 14 weeks as 30 years worth of trees grown on the same acerage, becomes a serious contender. As far as I can see they could not monopolize hemp growing as it was too easy at that time for local producers to take care of themselves. Nor was it worth throwing away years of technology and patents directed at using trees for the same end, trees that were at that time standing in relative abundance.

This led to Harry Anslinger being hired to travel the US and give hemp a bad name. A massive smear campaign was carried out, aimed at judges, police and large organizations that would affect millions of people for many years to come. Marijuana the 'orgy, violent and agressive' drug was created as an entity. Although hemp had been grown for centuries all over the world including the US, it was now the killer weed. Unsupported claims of its damaging effects were spread to the public using Jearst's newspaper chains. Hemp became illegal. Its use as a food, in fibre, paper, fuel and medicine were ignored and the rest of the world proceeded to wage a war against as innocent party, industrial hemp. Still today, in some countries hemp is illegal to grow and in others too strictly regulated. Mr DuPont, I am led to believe, ended up in an asylum for the mentally ill - note definition for Karma.

In Europe we feel lucky to be able to grow hemp again under government license, when in the US, Australasia and some developing countries, marijuana is still used to bribe, blackmail and restrain so called free and democratic societies. Currently seed strains are strictly controlled and optimum producing strains are being held back by seed supplying monopolies.

The founder of an inaccurate hypothesis creats a monster, which only serves to combat and strangle truth. This struggle will only last for some time as truth must, of necessity, ultimately prevail.

The Hemp Food Industries Association and other organizations continue working to make it easier to grow economically viable crops of hemp. We have many years of research into industrial machinery to catch up on, but with worldwide support this is happening fast. We have few trees left, our cattle are becoming diseased, our cities are now polluted, our fish and corals are dying. Carrying on in this greedy manner is no longer a choice. With the efforts of, amongst others, Hemp PLastics (UK), hemp is being used to produce sustainable, biodegradable forms of plastic. With today's technology, and use of the internet we are all able to gain access to this knowledge. It is not as easy to hide the truth anymore. We just have to be open to it. 'Any powerful idea is absolutely fascinating and absolutely useless until we choose to use it.'

As our forests die, our landfills fill-up, the sea warms and destroys coral life, our water becomes too polluted to drink from the rivers, the ice-caps melt and our air becomes un-breathable, governments ignore the possibility of thinking again, as it would admit too many mistakes. Instead they reserach bio-spheres, places where 'we' can live when our planet is destroyed. Can this work for everyone or just an elite circle of 'colleagues'? What can we do to change the world? Let us start with ourselves and surround ourselves with what we know or understand to be sustainable. The time has come for hemp to be a part of our daily lives. There is nothing like an idea whose time has come.

http://www.hemp.co.uk