ghty-percent of the West's hemp supplies, and the British armed forces were major consumers(the average warship required up to one0hundred tons of hemp a year and ninety-percent of it came from Russia). Both President George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp. In 1794, George Washington declared, "Make the most of the hemp seed and sow it everywhere". The War of 1812 between America and Great Britain was actually mainly about access to Russian Hemp, while also Napolean's foremost reason for invading Russia in 1812 was due to Russian Hemp supplies. Citizens of the U.S. were legallybound to grow!
             hemp during the Colonial Era and Early Republic. From 1,000 BC to 1883 AD, Cannabis/Hemp was our planet's most widely used agricultural crop and its most important industry for its thousands of uses. The federal government strongly supported hemp during World War II and U.S. farmers grew about one-million acres of it as part of that program to support American troops. Even today when hemp is partially-prohibited(especially ion the armed forces), it is ued on some ships because of its resistance to mildew, weathering, and because it remains pliable in extreme conditions where plastic-based ropes become brittle and crack. From 8,000 BC to presnt day, there has been documented about 25,000 products from the hemp plant.
             In the 1930s, newspaper publisher Willian Randolph Hearst led the way to ban hemp. W. R. Hearst owned millions of acres of timberland and to his misfortune, a new machine had been invented that simplified the process of making paper from hemp. Hearst used his public power to his advantage by publishing editorials about the "evils" of hemp and marijuana(naming them as the same thing) to cause public panic(commonly ccalled the time of "Reefer Madness"). Pierre DuPont, owner of DuPont Industries, was another big-hemp advocate. 'Chemical pulping' paper was invented at this time by DuPont Chemicals, as part of a m...