I have been reading from different sources that hemp production was quite big in USA back in early 1900s, the goverment even produced a propaganda film named "Hemp for Victory" during WW2 to lure farmers to grow hemp to produce ropes and such.
But news paper mogul William Randolph Hearst, helped oil and timber industry to discretid hemp and marijuana, hemp being an inexpensive source for petroleum and paper substitute since hemp produces harvest annually as opposed to forests that take up to 80-100years to grow. Hearst himself hit profit during this lobbying campaing to generate reader bias of stories of car accidents involving marijuana and not informing them about the medical use of hemp as colic medicine, Hearsts news papers never told that Marijuana and Hemp were actually the same plant, but often printed rediculous "facts" about Marijuana and exaggerated the supposed damages of recreational use.
But now thanks to these oil and timber industry moguls of 1940s, most national forests of US have been cut down (endangering animals like the national bird American Bald Eagle), instead of using Hemp as a source for paper and oil.
If Hemp was used for oil I suppose we could have avoided wars against Afganistan and Iraq (I do not comment on if the war was about oil or actual terroris threat since neither of these two reasons have been proven in any way) :roll:
