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All about Hemp 1.1 ~ Introduction The fiber of Cannabis, the "True Hemp", is tightly woven into the tapestry of human life. Since earliest times, this great plant ally has provided people with cordage, cloth, paper, medicine, and inspiration. For all the many benefits it bestows, Cannabis hemp is a friendship well worth cultivating. Hemp is many things to many people, and it is known by hundreds of names. Poets sing its praises, and preachers damn it. Executioners hang condemned men with hemp rope, but sailors and mountaineers hang onto it for dear life. Doctors prescribe it as a medicine, yet prohibitionists proscribe it as a poison. Armies and navies make war with hemp, while lovers use it as an aphrodisiac. The resinous virtue generates real happiness, enlightenment and entertainment, equal in quality and worth to the similar joys of love, freedom, and good health --- and it complements them all, and it comforts those poor souls who are without such blessings. Hemp is a most interesting and paradoxical plant, one that defies control and begs understanding. Hemp is one of mankind's best (and few) friends on Earth, yet it is a prisoner within its own cells, bound in a Gordian Knot of laws. Yet again, hemp is Ariadne's Thread, a guideline out of the labyrinth of bureaucratic tyranny and into a new state of liberty and grace. James Allen expressed the sentiment most passionately in the closing words of The Reign ofLaw (1900): "O Mystery immortal! which is in the hemp and in our souls, in its bloom and in our passions, by which our poor brief lives are led upward out of the earth for a season, then cut down, rotted, and broken --- for Thy long service!" (1) 1.2 ~ Hemp & Health Cannabis has been used in medicine since about 2300 B.C., when the legendary Chinese Emperor Shen-Nung prescribed chu-ma (female hemp) for the treatment of constipation, gout, beri-beri, malaria, rheumatism, and menstrual problems. He classified chu-ma as one of the Superior Elixirs of Immortality. (2) Figure 1.1 Emperor Shen-Nung (by Waves Forest) Ayurvedic physicians regularly use bhang to treat dozens of diseases and other medical problems including diarrhea, epilepsy, delirium and insanity, colic, rheumatism, gastritis, anorexia, consumption, fistula, nausea, fever, jaundice, bronchitis, leprosy, spleen disorders, diabetes, cold, anemia, menstrual pain, tuberculosis, elephantiasis, asthma, gout, constipation, and malaria. Other folk medicine applications of cannabis include its use as a stimulant, sedative, analgesic and antispasmodic, to induce sleep, as a diuretic, and against hydrophobia, blood in the urine, arthritis, rheumatism, hay fever, asthma, skin diseases, and stomach disorders, and to treat hemorrhoids and burns. (3) Cannabis has been widely used in Asia to treat the diseases of animals. It is commonly fed to elephants and oxen to relieve their fatigue and give them greater endurance and strength. Wild hemp leaves are burned in heaps to disinfect stables and barns, and to treat respiratory problems. A bolus of hemp flowers, sugar and grain is fed to livestock to treat colic, constipation, diarrhea, worms, and rinderpest (a form of diptheria). The leaves are fed to cattle before they mate, and to increase lactation. In the second half of the 19th century, after Dr. William O'Shaughnessy reported from India on the medical uses of cannabis, it became an official member of the pharmaceutical repetoire in Europe and America. Cannabis was commonly used as a specific to alleviate the symptoms of tetanus, typhus, and hydrophobia. It was employed with varying degrees of success in the treatment of alcoholism, asthma, bronchitis, constipation, dropsy, dysentery, dysmenorrhea and uterine haemorrhage, epilepsy, insanity, migraine, palsy, rheumatism, anthrax, blood poisoning, incontinence, leprosy, malaria, snakebite, tonsilitis, parasites, and a legion of other maladies. (4) Dozens of medical uses have been demonstrated for the major cannabinoids (THC, CBN, and CBD) and other unique chemicals in Cannabis. The cannabinoids find therapeutic applications in cases of glaucoma, asthma, alcoholism, opiate addiction, insomnia, herpes, migraines, and ulcers. Cannabis is used as a diuretic, an anti-asthmatic, anti-convulsant, anti-inflamatory and anti-tumor agent, anti-biotic, anti-emetic, anti-depressant, and it has applications as an analgesic, anesthetic, and in gynecology. (5- 10) The public health effects of cannabis consumption, particularly as relates to crime and insanity, have been examined repeatedly by several official panels, beginning with the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission in 1893. None of the studies have found reason to proscribe cannabis, and a few have recommended its legalization: The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (11-13); The Canal Zone Studies (14, 15); The LaGuardia Committee Report (16); The Wooton Report (17, 18); The Schafer Commission (19); The Jamaica Study (20-22); The Costa Rica Study (23-26); The Greek Study (27- 29); The Coptic Study (30); The Expert Group (31); and The Relman Committee. (32) Cannabis is non-toxic. No deaths from an overdose of cannabis have ever been verified. A few poorly documented reports have given cannabis as the cause of death, but closer examination has shown the accusations to be untenable. It has been estimated that it would be necessary to smoke about 800 marijuana cigarettes to kill a human; even then one would probably receive a lethal dose of carbon monoxide first. In comparison, only 60 mg of nicotine or 300 ml of alcohol can kill a person. The LD50 for THC in animals is between 20-40 mg/kg/iv, or 800-1,400 mg/kg orally. (33) Driving performance is impaired by marijuana. Judgment, concentration, and car- handling skills are affected, and the influence may persist for a full day afterwards.(34) Marijuana has been a complicating factor in the emergency treatment of diabetes. Plasma glucose and insulin levels increase after its use. Marijuana should not be used by children or pubescent youths, by pregnant or nursing women, by people with chronic heart, lung, or liver disease, or by diabetics, epileptics, or psychotics. Do not use cannabis with penicillin drugs. The dust inhaled by soft hemp workers (hacklers and scutchers) can cause byssinosis or cannabosis, and otherwise causes more chronic lung disease and lower forced expiratory volume (FEV) than controls of the same age. A study of 100 Spanish hemp hacklers showed the average age of death to be 39.6 years, compared to regular farm workers whose average lifespan was 67.6 years. (35) 1.3 ~ Hemp in America Cannabis hemp probably evolved in northern China. It was the first fiber plant to be cultivated there at the dawn of human society. Cotton from India and Mediterranean flax were not introduced until thousands of years later. An abundance of archaeological evidence proves the continuous cultivation of hemp from prehistoric times, beginning with a 12,000 year old Neolithic site at Yuan-shan in Taiwan. (36, 37) After a long and illustrious career in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, cannabis hemp officially arrived in North America. Cannabis had already arrived in prehistoric times, perhaps borne by Chinese explorers, birds or storms. The Vikings and other ancient seafarers also brought seeds of hemp and other vegetables, to be planted in the event of shipwreck. The prehistoric Mound-Builders also utilized cannabis. (38, 39) Hemp was so important to the colonists that it was deemed mandatory to cultivate the crop. For many years, taxes could be paid with clean hemp fiber, and it was a strategic war crop during the Revolution. George Washington farmed hemp, and he mentioned the plant several times in his writings. In letters to his foreman, Washington urged him to "Make the most of the hempseed", and "Plant hemp everywhere." Thomas Jefferson also grew hemp, and he kept a record of his enterprises and thoughts on the subject in his account books, Notes on Tobacco, and other writings.(40-44) The Civil War later ruined the hemp industry that had developed by then. A brief resurgence of hemp cultivation occurred in the 1870s and 80s, when it was widely grown, especially in Illinois, Nebraska, and California. The increasing use of wire cables on ships, and the introduction of steamships and metal hulls, greatly reduced the demand for hemp rope, sails, and caulking. By the turn of the century, the market for hemp was limited to cordage, twine and thread. (45, 46) Hundreds of hemp-processing machines have been patented since Thomas Jefferson recorded his improvements on the mechanized hemp-break. Only the design perfected by George W. Schlichten worked with the high efficiency required to meet the demands of the market. The Schlichten Decorticator promised to revolutionize the industry by completely eliminating the need to "ret" (rot) hemp. It was explained thus to the American public in Popular Mechanics Magazine (February 1938), wherein hemp was declared to be "The New Billion Dollar Crop": "American farmers are promised a new cash crop with an annual value of several hundred million dollars, all because a machine has been invented which solves a problem more than 6,000 years old. It is hemp, a crop which will not compete with other American products. Instead, it will displace imports of raw material and manufactured products produced by underpaid coolie and peasant labor and it will provide thousands of jobs for American workers throughout the land. "The machine which makes this possible is designed for removing the fiber-bearing cortex from the rest of the stalk, making hemp fiber available for use without a prohibitive amount of human labor. "Under old methods, hemp was cut and allowed to lie in the fields for weeks until it "retted" enough so the fibers could be pulled off by hand. Retting is simply rotting as a result of dew, rain and bacterial action.