The Truth About Hemp - Part 2
In 1792, Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton urged congress to place an import tariff against hemp at $20 per ton in order to stimulate domestic production of the plant.
The first marijuana law was enacted in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 requiring all farmers to grow Indian hemp seed. More mandatory hemp cultivation laws were enacted in Massachusetts in 163, in Connecticut in 1632 and in the Chesapeake Colonies into the mid-1700's. Why? Because over 50,000 different products (from paper and cloth to oil and food) can be made from the plant.
Hemp was considered legal tender in most of America from 1631 until the early 1800's. You could pay your taxes with hemp throughout the country for over 200 years.
Ben Franklin started one of America’s first paper mills using hemp so as to allowed America to be independent from England to supply the need for paper.
Various hemp extracts were used in some of the most prescribed medicines until the 1890’s. Eli Lilly, Parker-Davis, Smith Brothers, Squibb and several major European companies produced medicines with hemp extract.
Van Gogh painted masters on canvass made from the stalk & with paints made from the seed.
G
eorge Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson grew it. Abraham Lincoln read by lamps that burned it. Levi Strauss built an empire making clothes from it.Yet the plant remains illegal today!
