5 surprising facts about hemp

By EMILY GRAY BROSIOUS
Source: suntimes.com

Hemp may look a lot like marijuana to the untrained eye, but the two plants are used for very different purposes.

Here are 5 interesting things you may not know about hemp:

1. Hemp is the sister plant to marijuana, but it won’t get you high, according to LiveScience. Although both are from the cannabis species, hemp contains virtually no THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana), and if you smoke hemp you’ll probably just get a headache.

Hemp products on display at Cannabis Conference Chicago 2015. (Photo/ Emily Gray Brosious)

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2. The hemp industry sold more than $450 million worth of products in 2013, according to Salon. Hemp can be used to make products including food, tea, industrial lubrication, diesel fuel, paints, varnishes, plastics, paper and even a lightweight concrete substitute called ‘hempcrete’.

Hemp can even be used in automobile manufacturing too. Henry Ford experimented with hemp to build car bodies, and BMW is experimenting with hemp materials in an effort to make cars more recyclable, according to the North American Industrial Hemp Council Inc.

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3. Hemp goes back more than 12,000 years and is believed to be the oldest example of human industry, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

According to MIT’s “The People’s History”:

“Hemp has been one of the most significant crops for mankind up until this last century. It is astonishing to see how the widespread use of hemp has been deteriorated to such an extent that people barely recognise it as anything but a plant that ‘gets you high’.”

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4. Hemp has been effectively prohibited in the U.S. since the 1950’s, however 22 U.S. states have enacted laws relating to industrial hemp, and 13 states have enacted statutes establishing commercial industrial hemp programs, according to National Conference of State Legislators. Those 13 states are: California, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.

5. Hemp could once be exchanged for legal tender in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland. And in the 17th century, the American government encouraged growing hemp for the production of rope, sails and clothing. Virginia even required farmers to grow hemp in 1619, according to the Public Broadcast Service.