Sow it everywhere.? Colonies were pushing so hard for people to grow hemp that for industrial reasons that in 1671, the colony of Maryland offered local growers one pound of tabacco for every pound of hemp that was traded. Some colonist even built plantations where hemp was the main crop. Two early plantation owners were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Having these two former presidents growing hemp shows how important this crop was to early Americans. In the mid 1800s, more than 160 factories in Kentucky alone manufactured hemp bagging, bale rope, and cordage. Factories like these employed several thousand workers. Hemp was widely used during the 18th century that it was considered the age of hemp. Hemp prospered until in 1937, Popular Mechanics named hemp to be the new billion-dollar crop. Despite this statement, legislation pushed the 1937 Marijuana prohibition tax act into law. This law prohibited the growing, planting, and possession of marijuana illegal. Because hemp and marijuana share the same name, cannabis sativa, hemp fell under the new strict law. In 1942, during world war two, the US government made a film calledHemp for Victory? that encouraged farmers to grow hemp for wartime needs like ropes and uniforms. Just five years after the prohibition of hemp and marijuana the government was urging farmers to grow hemp which shows that government officials recognized the difference between the two plants.
The government left hemp in the marijuana prohibition because they claimed that marijuana could be hidden in hemp fields and won't be seen from the air due to the similarities of the plants. This statement is untrue because hemp can grow as tall as ten feet within seventy days compared to marijuana's average height of five feet. Hemp also has small yellow flowers compared to marijuana's small branches with resinous buds. The hemp plant sheds pollen, which cause any nearby marijuana plants to lose more than half it's THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) percentage depending on the amount of pollen the plant is exposed to.