Hemp for Victory: 1940s US Gov. Film Urging Folks to Grow Tons of Weed

Above, Hemp for Victory, a 13-minute film produced by the US government in the 1940s which urged citizens to grow hemp during the war. During this earlier era of American crisis, farmers and 4-H clubs were encouraged to cultivate industrial hemp, the non-intoxicating cousin of what I like to call cannabis gettabis stonerus. And now, during our current American crisis, this same "non-drug" cannabis strain is the subject of a new bill put forth by Congressmen Ron Paul (R-TX) and Barney Frank (D-MA).

They and eight cosponsors, both Republican and Democrat, hope to legalize the plant so American farmers can begin supplying fibers for a wide array of products, with the overreaching goal of opening a new sector in American agriculture.

Anyway, back to the propaganda film. I think the world needs a post-econopocalyptic remix with a totally baked-out Cheech and Chong VO. (Via Ned's List)

• [Takuan]

  http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/08/portugal/index.html

• [Takuan]

  http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/04/mexican-president-us-authorities-complicit-in-drug-trafficking/

• [jphilby]

  “I think the world needs a post-econopocalyptic remix”

  Now *there’s* an insightful precis of the situation. Yes: whatever will put this millenial fever-induced ‘crisis’ modality we’ve been enjoying to rest for a thousand years sounds good to me!

• [Takuan]

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/11/AR2009041100767.html?hpid=topnews

• [Takuan]

  have to make Obama relax, he’s concerned about being the Pot President. Let’s give him some perspective:

  Ike
  The King
  The Cong Bomber
  Tricky Dicky
  The Stumbler
  The Peanut Guy
  The Brain Dead Gipper
  Shoe Boy’s Daddy
  The BlowJob Prezzy
  Shoe Boy
  The Pot President

  now, is that so bad?

• [Anonymous]

  I hope Dupont don’t get mad if people start doing this…hemp competes directly with Dupont’s propriety products and Dupont have lots of money to keep their products at the top.

• [Takuan]

  what are you on about? Everyone knows pot for smoking and hemp for industry will go hand in hand.

• [Takuan]

  DEA Cartel capo de tutti capo Don John (“Johhny Icepick “) Waters lied about wasting your tax money:
  http://digg.com/d1oS6K

• [Takuan]

  oh good! a fresher thread!
  http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/04/04/drugs/

• [Takuan]

  from 1994; hemp based plywood (bet there will plenty more storms coming through)
  http://www.ratical.org/renewables/plywood.html

• [Takuan]

  good for carbon sequestration too!
  http://www.hempnowbook.com/

• [JB NicholsonOwens]

  The Internet Archive has this movie too and you can get it in more formats and a nice high-res copy if you prefer. IA is a great website.

• [sworm]

  Good for making cars too:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rgDyEO_8cI

• [nanuq]

  “The Internet Archive has this movie too and you can get it in more formats and a nice high-res copy if you prefer. IA is a great website.”

  Of course, IA also features Reefer Madness if you want a taste of the anti-pot propaganda that was popular back then.

• [Ugly Canuck]

  Tons? Not mega-tons?

• [Takuan]

  four times more profitable than cotton?
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCnHxBc-AA8&NR=1

• [dainel]

  Why are they not growing this in Afghanistan?

• [Takuan]

  http://www.mpp.org/

• [Takuan]

  they do, huge fields of it.

• [Takuan]

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3704878.stm

• [Takuan]

  http://hempforvictory.blogspot.com/

• [Takuan]

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/19/drugs-decriminalisation-aids

• [mdh]

  I love my congresscritter. (D-MA)

• [mdh]

  #24 – all that DuPont money is worth a lot less in these bailout days.

• [Takuan]

  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Mexican_ambassador_US_should_take_marijuana_0412.html

• [Takuan]

  http://blog.thehill.com/2009/04/08/americas-new-marijuana-zeitgeist/

• [Anonymous]

  and sadly, Takuan, you’ve hit it right on the head.

  Because no one will want to take the time or cash to train law enforcement personnel to identify industrial hemp from hemp used for recreational purposes, there really isn’t any way to tell the difference…and so they don’t want to deal with the possibility of a) a 20-acre recreational hemp field, or b) the possibility of an all-out raid and burning of 20 acres of industrial hemp.

  Never mind the usefulness of the fibres…we can’t have it grown in the US, because JaYZUS, somebody might SMOKE it!

• [Eris Siva]

  Holy crap – I uploaded this video years ago and later realized there were other versions already out there. Didn’t expect it to be picked up by BoingBoing years later.

  Sweet!
  Oh, government – how you shine with hypocrisy. Remember kids! “More than 98 percent of all of the marijuana plants seized by law enforcement in the United States is feral hemp not cultivated cannabis”
  Most of it is just leftovers from the Hemp for Victory campaign.
  http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7033

  *snortgiggle*

• [Malus Malum]

  I hope the fear mongering drug monsters in Congress continue to make it illegal to grow in the U.S.

  It’s the ideal crop for our former tobacco farmers in the Oxford County and Tilsonburg areas. South western Ontario is the ideal sandy soil country for growing hemp.

  You can’t grow hemp legally, but you can import it legally.

  If you start growing it in the U.S. that would suck. You won’t need us to grow it for you, and then we won’t be able to export it.

  Please continue to be stupid and make it illegal to grow, and legal to import.

  We like it that way.

  It’s from the same genus and family as the EVIL MARIJUANA! Don’t grow it! Kids will not get high smoking it! It will encourage people to start secretly growing pot in farms all over America! Cops will be too stupid to tell the difference and farmers everywhere will end up in jail! Good American farmers in jail! Resist the temptation to grow marijuana in your own backyards.

  The next thing you know, grandma will be hooked on heroin!

  People will be growing hemp in their basements!

  OMG!

  Just let us foreigners grow it for you and send it on down.

  Everyone knows Canadians know how to grow this stuff :-)

• [Takuan]

  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090413.wPOLmarijuana0413/BNStory/politics/home

• [Anonymous]

  I grew up in the Midwest, and there are hemp plants growing EVERYWHERE as a leftover of the campaign to grow hemp for the war effort.

  A friend’s older brother spent all summer “harvesting” his brilliant idea, ferreting it away on scavenged pieces of plywood in the attic.

  he so carefully chopped it all, and carefully rolled an enormous j with his new treasure and business effort.

  Turns out — there’s not enough THC in a carload of the stuff to intoxicate a housefly, and all his work (and visions of wealth) went, erm, up in smoke.

• [Anonymous]

  it’s pretty easy to dtermine the industrial one from the recreational stuff: only problem is you haver to train officers into working a bong. :D

• [Takuan]

  http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/recent/feature.asp

• [Takuan]

  http://health.howstuffworks.com/medical-marijuana.htm

• [Takuan]

  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Harvard_economist_Legalize_drugs_to_reduce_0413.html

• [Takuan]

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/07/drugs-policy-legalisation-report

• [Buckets McGaughey]

  My understanding (as a Brit) is that hemp was, and remains, banned in the US as a result of lobbying by the cotton-growing industry, who were worried about getting put out of business by a crop which is much better than cotton for most practical purposes.

  Anyone with more of a clue than me care to confirm?

• [Takuan]

  http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/04/18/20090418med-marijuana0418.html

• [Takuan]

  http://www.theprovince.com/news/Mexico+begins+legal+debate+cannabis+legalization/1492110/story.html

• [Takuan]

  time to lean on Obama.