The hemp revival

The hemp plant, one of the world’s oldest industrial resources, is back. The rediscovery of this renewable resource is making it the fibre of choice for future textiles, personal care products, building materials, paper and fuel. Hemp has been grown for paper, textiles, food and medicine throughout human history. The earliest known woven fabric, made of hemp, dates back to the eighth millennium (8000-7000 BC). The majority of all sails, clothes, tents, rugs, towels, paper, rope, twine, art canvas, paints, varnishes and lighting oil were made from hemp. Hemp seeds were regularly used as a source of food and protein for centuries. Hemp’s drastic decline in use and importance within a matter of fifty years is widely considered to have been brought about by the timber and petrochemical industries in America. By the mid- 1930s, changes in technology were beginning to impact on the hemp industry. Mechanical stripping equipment and machines to conserve hemp’s high-cellulose pulp became available and affordable. Timber and paper holding companies stood to lose billions of dollars if hemp were to be grown on a large scale. A resurgence of the hemp industry also threatened the emerging petro-chemical companies which had patented the chemicals for pulp processing. Newspaper articles began to appear, linking hemp with violent crime. The term used, however, was ‘marijuana’ to distance it from hemp used for industrial purposes. Because few people realised that marijuana and hemp came from the same plant species, virtually nobody suspected that the Marijuana Prohibition of 1938 would…