Why was Hemp Criminalized?

At one time in the history of the USA, Hemp was a prominent and necessary crop so what happened to change that and why was hemp criminalized? Who was responsible?

There is a prevailing thought that the ban and criminalization of Hemp was orchestrated by a few of the prominent and influential people of the 1930’s to protect and preserve the industries that they were heavily invested in.

Hemp was a potential threat to their profits and possibly their industries entire existence because of its versatility and potential to be used in place of many of the new, petroleum based & pharmaceutical products that they were trying to bring to market.

Not only did the industry giants have reason to vilify and crush the cannabis/hemp production but so did an arm of the US Government.

In the late 1920’s, alcohol prohibition was failing and coming to an end. There were Government officials, such as Harry Anslinger, that were concerned for their future employment. If the Prohibition on Alcohol ended, what would they do? They had to create a new enemy to fight and so in 1930, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was created and Anslinger was named as its head.

Below are photos of the men that would suffer if Hemp production was allowed to expand:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

William Randolf Hurst: owned millions of acres of forest that he used to supply his expanding newspaper empire.

Lamont Dupont: owned many patents that used Petroleum Oil instead of Hemp Oil to make synthetic products.

Andrew Mellon: Banker for both Hurst and Dupont plus was the owner of Gulf Oil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Rochefeller and Andrew Carnegie: both of these Bankers were financing the Pharmaceutical industry that was intent on crushing the use of natural herbal treatments and remedies that were used at the time.

Harry Anslinger: became head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1930 and he began his crusade against Marijuana.

 

Timing:

Timing was an important factor also.

There were many years that Hemp was the best resource for creating many important and staple products but there was one big problem.

The labor intensive and slow method of processing the Hemp (separating the fibre from the stalk) was keeping itfrom becoming profitable.

The industry needed an efficient piece of machinery that could replace the time consuming and thus expensive manual labor but for some reason one was not available.

It is known that such a devise was built and used in Europe at this time but was not seemingly available in the US.

 

The machine that was slow to be invented (or sabotaged by the Oil industry) was the DECORDICATOR.It made the process of seperating the fibre from the stalk much easier and ultimately profitable.

 

 

As of today, the use and acceptance of Hemp has come a long way and the video below, which is now a little dated(uploaded in 2006), is still a great resource that puts together some Hemp history and a strong case for the Who, What, When and Why hemp was criminalized.

 

Length 20:30

 

Thank you for visiting.

 

Other posts you may be interested in:

CBD & THC. What is the difference?

Top 5 Ways Hemp Can Save the World!

Hemp Seed Nutrition