High on hemp: nature's perfect plant makes a comeback

Vegetarian Times, August, 2002 by Alan Pell Crawford

In a cluttered storefront on Main Street in the quiet Mennonite community of Blue Ball, Pennsylvania, Shawn Patrick House pulls a faded print from a stack of old magazines, sales brochures and posters. The print, from a photograph taken on September 24, 1908, shows a farmer in a broad-brimmed hat, long sleeves and suspenders, riding along on his mechanical mowing machine behind a team of white horses. Standing tall behind them, and fallen in rows at their feet, are acres of hemp, once a mainstay of the American agricultural economy.

"Since the 1600s, all Dutch and German farmers in this area grew hemp to make ropes, sails and ship riggings, fabrics and oil," House says. "But an entire way of life has been wiped out. Farmers are hurting, and more and more of them are turning to carpentry or other trades. It shouldn't have to be that way."

A wholesaler of Hempzels pretzels and other products made from hemp grown in Canada, the thirty-something Pennsylvania native is determined to revive Lancaster County's economy and introduce a new generation to a crop that decades of misguided governmental policy have all but destroyed. The war on commercial hemp--rooted in the belief that commercial hemp and recreational marijuana are the same thing--is a tragedy not only for farmers but for consumers. If hemp is not nature's perfect plant, it is as close as we may ever come to it.

The North American Industrial Hemp Council estimates that more than 25,000 products can be manufactured with hemp, from cosmetics to auto-body parts. The first diesel engine was fueled by hemp oil, found inside hempseeds. The seeds are used to make foods such as bagels, corn chips, breads, cookies and animal feed. The oil can be used in skin lotions, moisturizers, shampoos, lip balms, paints, inks, sealants and varnishes. The fiber, taken from the outside of the stalks, is versatile too. Fabrics, found in clothing, accessories, carpeting and upholstery, are made from the fiber, while the stalks are used in teabags, fiberglass and plastics.

"Hemp is our most versatile and environmentally benign crop," says Albert Lewis, owner of Hempy's, a San Diego manufacturer of hemp-based clothing and accessories sold in the United States, Canada and Japan. "It's a natural fiber and a renewable resource that can be grown organically."

"The government's opposition to hemp defames mankind's single most useful, nutritious plant," says Richard Rose, author of The HempNut Health and Cookbook and founder of HempNut, Inc., a Northern California food company with sales in the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan.

House believes his Hempzels are far more nutritious than conventional pretzels. "Mine are made with whole wheat, shelled hempseed and organic brown rice and no preservatives," he says. "They're a great source of protein, fiber and omega-3 fatty acids, essential for healthy metabolism, brain cell development and fighting high blood pressure."

Mass marketing even these healthy foods represents a huge challenge. Hemp has been associated in the popular consciousness with marijuana since the late 1960s and remains tainted by that connection. Despite hemp's illustrious past--George Washington grew it at Mount Vernon, Betsy Ross sewed her American flag with it and Benjamin Franklin owned a hemp mill--hemp-growing in this country was regulated out of existence starting in the Great Depression, when the Marihuana [sic] Tax Act of 1937 was passed. The only exception to the crackdown was in World War II, when supplies of hemp fiber, obtained from the Philippines, were interrupted, and a wartime Hemp Industries Board encouraged its cultivation for military use. A million acres of "Hemp for Victory" were grown and, after the war, when hemp could be obtained from overseas again, the government sold its mills for surplus. In 1958, the last industrial hemp crop in America ceased operations.

The recreational drug use of the '60s only steeled the federal government's determination to make all forms of Cannibas sativa illegal. Although commercial hemp and marijuana are two different plants--the latter has 30 times as great a narcotic content--the federal government regards them as identical.

You can't "get high" smoking commercial hemp, as policymakers in more and more agricultural states have come to realize. A number of states have asked Washington to relax its restrictions, and others have commissioned studies to assess hemp's commercial potential. Eager to use hemp in building materials and as a source for ethanol, Hawaii is working with the federal government to plant hemp under an experimental program. How long it will take to reverse decades of prejudice is anybody's guess. Until laws change, American manufacturers will continue to import hempseed flour and fiber from Canada.

"To outlaw one crop because its cousin has psychoactive properties is crazy," says Frank Angiuli, co-owner of Santa Monica's Natural High Lifestyles, which supplies hemp-based clothing to yoga studios and high-end retailers like Fred Segal and Urban Outfitters.