CaseyJones
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http://www.hnn.us/article/154461
Colorado’s recent landmark legislation reflects how popular demand is turning marijuana into big business, and it’s happening at a time when hemp is being touted as the nation’s most promising plant. This should come as no surprise to anyone, as perceptions of the one have been connected to perceptions of the other for quite some time now. After all, marijuana derives from hemp, so the fierce onslaught against the drug that surfaced in the 1930s was bound to have a detrimental impact on the image of the plant as a whole.
Over the past forty years, however, activists have been working to counter these attacks by showing how versatile the hemp plant can be as a medicine, oil, fiber, and recreational intoxicant. Now, armed with new research that significantly undermines the negative associations that have dominated the discourse for so long, advocates for “hemp awareness” have made significant headway in swaying public opinion towards lightening up on the plant -- and in Colorado, outright legalization.
In their efforts, these activists have appealed to a time long past when hemp had an important role to play in the Atlantic world, and in so doing have made claims about the plant -- that it was outlawed due to its potential to eat into profits of William Randolph Hearst and the Du Pont chemical empire -- that are grossly exaggerated. Granted, since the plant has a unique ability to express its genetic code in exceptionally diverse ways, new technological advancements could in fact transform it into a vital commodity for dozens of industries today. However, two hundred years ago, hemp seemed to cause more problems than it solved, and the tendency among activists to simply ignore this or postulate conspiratorial theories to explain why the plant fell out of favor has caused us to overlook the role that culture has played in transforming it from an important strategic commodity into a banned intoxicant over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.