Virginia farmers had to grow hemp, or be arrested.

1619 America’s first hemp law is enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia, ordering all farmers to grow hemp.

1763 - 1767 Farmers who do NOT grow hemp can be arrested and jailed in Virginia.

[link to www.gozarks.com]

Some other interesting info on hemp:

1631 to early 1800s Hemp is ‘legal tender’ and taxes may be paid with hemp throughout most of the Americas.

1837 - 1901 Queen Victoria uses cannabis resins to treat menstrual cramps, sparking enormous interest in the uses of cannabis as a medicine in the English-speaking world.

1842 - 1890 Extracts and derivatives of the hemp plant are the second and third most prescribed medicines in the U.S.A. Eli Lilly, Parke-Davis, Squibb, Brothers Smith and other firms produce these medicines through 1930. During this time, not one death or severe side-effect is attributed to use.

1930s Mechanical hemp-fiber stripping and pulp conserving machines are invented and developed to state-of-the-art. Timber-based paper manufacturing industries (Hearst, Kimberly Clark, St. Regis) recognize combined technological advances (re: hemp) as a potential threat to their prosperity. During this same timeframe, DuPont patents two new (chemically intense) processes. One to make plastics from fossil-fuel oil and coal and another to make paper from wood-pulp.

1950s - 1960s The U.S. Army sponsors numerous tests to determine the effects of cannabis smoking on soldiers. The first study showed no loss of motivation or performance after two years of continual “heavy” smoking. This study is replicated six more times by the U.S. military and dozens of times by independent universities, always with the same basic findings.

Drs. Ungerlieder and Shaeffer of UCLA study 10 of America’s “heaviest” pot smokers who have each been inhaling huge amounts of highly potent cannabis smoke daily for over 10 years. They conclude that there are absolutely no brain differences between the study subjects and non-cannabis smokers.

WHERE WE ARE NOW
Since 1990, new studies have been done by research groups at the University of California, the University of Michigan, Brown University and others. These studies conclusively show that the active properties of cannabis have the direct and beneficial effect of safely and significantly reducing chronic pain and that unlike prescription painkillers and opiates, cannabis is not addictive nor does it carry the risk of developing “tolerance” which requires continually increasing the dose of manufactured drugs.

Hmmm, so it does not kill, can alleviate pain, and is easy, and cheap to grow.

No wonder its illegal.