Originally posted by: spidey07
Originally posted by: sdifox
I still don't understand why there is such restriction on hemp.
More reading says it's a federal law thing. A lot of states seems to be pushing to have that ban lifted though.
Cut and paste from wiki, and accurate IMO
Cliffs
USDA bulliten 404 in 1916 reports Hemp production for pulp and paper produces roughly 4 times the yield per acre of timber and produces less toxins and can replace 70% of pulp and paper production
Timber, paper, newspapers and wood pulp processing and plastics in the US were controlled by William Randolf Hearst and Andrew Mellon(Dupont)
Hearst and Mellon had serious conections including family members in government. Mellon's nephew-in-law was appointed head of newly created FBNDD and enacted the 1937 marijuana tax act which criminalize MJ, thus eliminating the competition maintaining their wood/pulp/paper/plastic empires
WIKI
DuPont, William Randolph Hearst, and hemp
The decision of the United States Congress to pass the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was based on hearings,[21] reports[22] and in part on testimony derived from articles in newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, who had significant financial interests in the timber industry, which manufactured his newsprint.[23]
Cannabis activist Jack Herer has researched DuPont and in his 1985 book The Emperor Wears No Clothes, Herer concluded DuPont played a large role in the criminalization of cannabis. In 1938, DuPont patented the processes for creating plastics from coal and oil and a new process for creating paper from wood pulp. If hemp had been largely exploited, Herer believes it would have likely been used to make paper and plastic (nylon), and may have hurt DuPont's profits. Andrew Mellon of the Mellon Bank was DuPont's chief financial backer and was also the Secretary of the Treasury under the Hoover administration. Mellon appointed Harry J. Anslinger, who later became his nephew-in-law, as the head of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (FBNDD) and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), where Anslinger stayed until 1962.[24]
In 1916, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) chief scientists Jason L. Merrill and Lyster H. Dewe created paper made from hemp pulp, which they concluded was "favorable in comparison with those used with pulp wood in USDA Bulletin No. 404."[25] In his book Herer summarized the findings of Bulletin No. 404:[26]
USDA Bulletin No. 404, reported that one acre of hemp, in annual rotation over a 20-year period, would produce as much pulp for paper as 4.1 acres (17,000 m2) of trees being cut down over the same 20-year period. This process would use only 1/4 to 1/7 as much polluting sulfur-based acid chemicals to break down the glue-like lignin that binds the fibers of the pulp, or even none at all using soda ash. The problem of dioxin contamination of rivers is avoided in the hemp paper making process, which does not need to use chlorine bleach (as the wood pulp paper making process requires) but instead safely substitutes hydrogen peroxide in the bleaching process. ... If the new (1916) hemp pulp paper process were legal today, it would soon replace about 70% of all wood pulp paper, including computer printout paper, corrugated boxes and paper bags.
Hemp was a relatively easy target because factories already had made large investments in equipment to handle cotton, wool, and linen, but there were relatively small investments in hemp production. Big technological improvements in the wood pulp industry were invented in the 1930s; for example the recovery boiler allowed kraft mills to recycle almost all of their pulping chemicals, and other improvements came later. There was also a misconception hemp had an intoxicating effect because it has the same active substance, THC, which is in potent cannabis strains; however, hemp only has minimal amount of THC when compared to recreational cannabis strains.