Applegater Summer 2017
9
DIRTY FINGERNAILS AND ALL
It’s not all smoke
BY SIOUX ROGERS
Once a forbidden topic, cannabis
now seems appropriate for dinner-table
conversation—especially in the Applegate
Valley. If you want to impress your dinner
companions, here are some interesting
facts to impart.
• In 1997, a hemp rope dating back to
26,900 BC was found in Czechoslovakia,
making it the oldest known physical
object to be associated with cannabis
(mastersoflinen.com/eng/histoire).
• Hemp was outlawed in 1937, but
saved the life of George Bush Sr. in 1944
when he was forced to parachute from his
burning military airplane. Fortunately for
Mr. Bush, hemp had been brought back
into popularity in 1942 due to numerous
military needs, and US-grown cannabis
hemp had been used to create the webbing
of his parachute. Fire hoses, rigging, and
ropes of the ship that picked up Bush were
woven from hemp, and parts of his military
aircraft engine had most likely been
lubricated with hemp seed oil. Cannabis
hemp was also used to stitch military shoes
like the ones Bush Sr. wore that day.
Basket made from hemp
(s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com).
Diagram from azmarijuana.com/marijuana-info/what-is-hemp.
• Both hemp and marijuana come from
the same cannabis species, but there is
a major difference between the two: the
levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
While hemp has virtually no trace of THC,
pot has around 10 percent; some strains of
marijuana can have as much as 27 percent.
It’s the THC in marijuana that gets people
high. Hemp produces a cannabinoid called
CBD, a non-psychoactive component
of the cannabis plant that blocks the
high typically associated with marijuana,
according to the National Center for
Biotechnology Information (livescience.
com/24552-what-is-hemp.html).
• There are over 25,000 uses for hemp
according to estimates by The North
American Industrial Hemp Council.
Hemp in its entirety—its fiber, seeds, and
oil—is so versatile that it has been used in
clothing and food and as an ingredient in
building material. Hemp paper was also
used for maps, logs, and even for Bibles
that sailors brought on board ship.
• More than 120,000 pounds of hemp
fiber was needed to rig the 44-gun USS
Constitution, America’s oldest navy ship,
affectionately called “Old Ironsides.”
• During the Revolutionary War the
demand for hemp soared due to its
durability, availability, and natural
resistance to decay. The British colonies
were legally required to grow hemp.
• “Hemp fiber was so important to
the young republic that farmers were
compelled by patriotic duty to grow it and
were allowed to pay taxes with it. George
Washington grew hemp and encouraged
all citizens to sow
Sioux Rogers
h e m p w i d e l y.
Thomas Jefferson bred improved hemp
varieties and invented a special brake for
crushing the plant’s stems during fiber
processing” (farmcollector.com/farm-life/
strategic-fibers).
• The first hemp laws, passed in 1619,
were “must grow” laws. If an American
farmer did not grow hemp, the farmer
would be jailed or kicked out of the
country as a non-patriot.
• From 1631 until the early 1800s,
cannabis hemp was legal tender (money)
in most of America (darcfoundation.org/
history-of-hemp.html).
• There were an estimated 8,400 hemp
plantations in 1850.
• The demise of hemp was cinched in
1937 when Congress passed the Marijuana
Tax Law. This was clearly an ill-conceived
law, as World War II presented numerous
needs for hemp, as evidenced above.
• Competing industries successfully
managed numerous smear campaigns,
linking marijuana and hemp as one and the
same, calling it the “evil weed,” but it was
the 1936 radical propaganda film, Reefer
Madness, that was the nail in the coffin of
cannabis. Another movie, Hemp for Victory,
released in 1942, encouraged patriotic
farmers to re-start their hemp production.
Hemp is once again legally being
grown in specific states. To verify where
new legislation is encouraging industrial
cannabis, visit this site: ncsl.org/research/
agriculture-and-rural-development/state-
industrial-hemp-statutes.aspx.
Dirty Fingernails and All,
Sioux Rogers
541-846-7736
dirtyfingernails @fastmail.fm