Source: dailynebraskan.com
It’s hard to believe that pristine rows of budding marijuana plants in high-tech cultivation facilities are the same as bushy ditch weed on the side of the highway, but they are certainly both cannabis. The main separation between the two is their use.
Marijuana that is cultivated and sold is meant to be ingested or smoked for a high. The weed in the ditches, more commonly known as hemp, can be used for clothing, fuel, food, plastics, soaps and moisturizers.
The level of active chemical, Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), content and breeding strategies also differ. Tom Clemente of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Center for Plant Science Innovation said these traits basically make hemp and cultivated marijuana different plants.
“For hemp, when you want it for the fiber, you grow it very compact,” Clemente said. “Straight up; you want the stalks, not many leaves. For smoking, (you want) short, lot of flowers, specifically female flowers.”
Cannabis is dioecious, meaning the male staminate and female pistillate occur on different plants, with some exceptions. Female plants have a much higher THC content, thus growing facilities are full of only females. Ditch weed is the tall, fibrous male cannabis.
Though hemp and marijuana both contain THC, hemp has drastically less; usually less than 1 percent. Cultivated marijuana usually contains between 3 and 10 percent THC and tops out at 37 percent.
Smokers who live near ditch weed have speculated on combining their marijuana strains with the wild cannabis, thinking the THC-potent flower added to a hearty structure will produce some sort of super-plant. Clemente advises against this plot.
“You’re going after two different traits,” he said. “For the hemp, you’re going after the fiber. The energy’s going to be going to the fiber. You want something you want to smoke, you want that energy to go towards the female flower, the THC. So that’s a stupid idea.”
Though hemp and marijuana are biochemically different, they have been legally lumped into the same category. That means hemp hasn’t been grown industrially for decades — but the ditch weed remains due to hemp’s endurance, ability to grow in marginal lands and its dispersion by birds.
Hemp was first grown in the US for the British Navy, and then for the US Navy after the American Revolution. Thomas Berg, a UNL history lecturer, explained the history of the American hemp industry and its association with marijuana.
The remarkably strong fiber was used for hand-made rope and cable stays at the time. It took 55 to 60 tons of hemp to supply a large ship. Soon, Berg said, hemp became a tremendously important commodity.
“At this time there’s not even a hint of the concept of marijuana,” Berg said. “Because the marijuana-bearing plant and the hemp are different plants. But later these are going to be kind of cross-identified.”
As the 20th century approached, recreational drugs such as opium from China and marijuana from Mexico started making their way into America. It was during this time when people began to identify hemp and marijuana as the same plant.
Progressives lashed back against the new drug culture, their rationale more or less racist, in hope that a drug-free nation would be a kinder, gentler nation.
The government created the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1930, near the end of the Prohibition era. In 1937, Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, which prohibited hemp growth without a permit. Berg said this law largely curtailed the American hemp industry.
Despite the stigma, the plant still had incredible value for the navy. The Philippines was America’s No. 1 hemp supplier in World War II, but the country was occupied by the Japanese in early 1942. The U.S. government had to get creative.
“The federal government in 1942 says, ‘We need hemp,’” Berg said. “So it goes from being nasty bad to, ‘We need hemp; it’s your patriotic duty to grow hemp.’”
Government officials handed out hemp seeds to farmers, with the largest turnout coming from Kentucky and Wisconsin. But because of an increase in food demand during wartime and the lack of a hemp business infrastructure, the industry never again reached its previous prosperity.
Because of its association with marijuana, hemp vanished once more after World War II. This was when the director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics infamously labeled pot as a “gateway drug” at a time when drug use (besides alcohol) was seen as the antithesis of the American dream.
Berg said the misassociation of hemp with cultivated marijuana and the misassociation of marijuana with harder drugs has prevented hemp from continuing as an industry.
“It’s the marriage of marijuana in with the real hardcore drugs,” he said. “The cocaine and opiates, morphine, opium and all. And then later the new concept of drugs, like LSD.”
Activist Diana Sunshine Wulf of Staplehurst, Nebraska, has been photographing feral hemp in the state for five years.
“I wanted proof it grew here wild,” Wulf said. “I wanted to show the world the lies, the cover-ups and the truth.”
After being introduced to a Coloradan grow room in 2006, she said cannabis became a bona fide plant instead of a drug to her. She later moved back to Nebraska and researched it further.
“I found an article about Prohibition,” she said. “The story of what hemp was all about. Suddenly it was no longer about getting high; it was clear a true industry had been destroyed in my very state.”
She began advocating for the end of cannabis prohibition over Myspace, Twitter and Facebook. Supporting small farms and seed freedom with the American Hemp Seed Company of Colorado, Wulf is also active with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) Nebraska and the Nebraska Cannabis Coalition.
Her exploration of cannabis activism led her to Bill Achord, president of the Nebraska Hemp Association. This organization concentrates on the agricultural benefits that revamping the hemp industry would provide.
“My main focus there is getting another agricultural product for Nebraska farmers,” Achord said. “And the hemp we have had growing here for 200 years knows how to grow in Nebraska.”
He said the contrast between hemp and marijuana, in purpose and appearance, should be enough to let farmers grow it in the United States.
Last year, President Obama signed the Agricultural Act of 2014, otherwise known as the Farm Bill, into law. It reformed agricultural policy regarding crop insurance, subsidies and food labeling -- and allowed hemp to be grown by agricultural pilot programs and institutions for higher education. And a law passed in the Nebraska legislature last year allowed University of Nebraska institutions to grow industrial hemp for research purposes.
But the Nebraska state government hasn't facilitated any pilot programs yet. And while hemp can only grow in universities or ditches here, 13 other states have established industrial hemp programs along with the Farm Bill.
Achord said the many uses of hemp make it an extremely profitable plant. He said the seed alone cost around $160 per ounce in Colorado, but it would be easy to make most products of hemp.
“The cannabis in Nebraska, this feral hemp, is really important,” he said. “It’s an incredible state resource, and what we really need to do is get the legislature and Department of Agriculture to let us go out and gather this hemp seed...Seed is very difficult to get and it’s very expensive. We’ve got it.”
Nebraskan hemp could be used in many innovative and ecologically friendly projects, including chemical cleanup and hempcrete -- the pest-resistant wall material with a negative carbon footprint.
Achord also started the Hemp Advocates of Nebraska Facebook group. He said his vision for the group is a “grassroots, populist” coalition of agricultural and industrial hemp supporters.
When it comes to reversing nearly a century of prohibition, Achord said it is about getting the people who don’t know much about hemp educated and on board.
“I think that what we need to do in Nebraska is get our people,” he said. “Not just our farmers, but get our citizens to support the concept of hemp.”
news@dailynebraskan.com
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