Comp 1
Brian Coleman
Persuasive Essay
Hemp and the U.S.
Hemp should be grown in the United States. At this moment in time hemp is
illegal to grow in the US. In 1937 the U.S. put a prohibition on the growth
industrial hemp, called the Hemp Prohibition Act of 1937. The hemp you use and
wear today is all imported. (Diemand).
Since it is illegal to grow hemp in the U.S., it all has to be imported from
Canada and Europe. It would be in our countries best interest to start growing it
here. Instead of buying it from other countries, it would only make since to keep
that money in our own country.
Hemp is a very strong fiber, one of the strongest on Earth. Hemp can and
has been used to make things you use everyday. Hemp fiber produces more
than 5,000 textiles like, paper, oil, cosmetics, dynamite and even some foods.
Hemp is very environmental conscious. Hemp can be grown in any state, in just
about any soil. The reason hemp can be grown any where is because it has
such a short growing season, about 120 days. If 10,000 acres are devoted to
hemp it will produce as much paper as a 40,000 acres of average pulp land. If
we were able to grow hemp in the United States it would allow us to cut fewer
trees and cause less production waste. It also does not take the irrigation or
pesticides unlike cotton. Hemp is the answer to many of our ecological problems
(“New Billion-Dollar Crop”).
Hemp it is still illegal mainly because of the multi-national enterprises like,
paper, cotton, and chemical and petroleum industries. These industries are the
Comp 1
Brian Coleman
ones who are actually trying to keep it illegal. They have financial interests in
keeping hemp illegal, because it could hurt them financially. You might have
heard that hemp is marijuana, well not quite; they are in the same family though.
The chemical in marijuana the makes you feel so good is caused THC. Hemp
has THC has less then three percent. So if you did smoke it all you would get
out of it would be a headache (Levetin & McMahon, 296).
From the facts stated above you can see that hemp is the way of the future.
You have heard and maybe even seen the goods that come from hemp, you
have also heard how it will help the economy and the environment. This is why I
believe that hemp should be legalized.
Comp 1
Brian Coleman
Works Citied
Diemand, C. and Company. “Who we are, what we’re about…” New Age Hemp
Co. Dec. 8, 2000 http://www.newagehemp.com/whoweare.html
Levetin, Estelle and Karen McMahon Plants and Society. 2nd ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1999.
“New Billion-Dollar Crop” Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938: