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Chapter 4 - (2nd Edition) KANSAS -- Industrial Hemp |
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KANSAS:
The following are some hemp patents from State of Kansas residents:
OK, let’s just face facts, Hemp was (historically speaking) never a major player in the states history, BUT as can be seen from the above patents, it was not an unknown player either. Why this is so, can be traced to various historical factors that affected, NOT only Kansas, but also various other States and geography’s throughout the world.
The cotton gin (making cotton cheaper to produce) being one. And let’s face it, unless you’re interested in durability, I’ll rather be wearing a nice (and soft) cotton shirt as oppose to a hemp one. And that fact that a couple of guys in France finally figured out a way of making paper out of wood pulp (which at the time was being thrown away), didn’t help things much either. But maybe the biggest factor which stopped Kansas from becoming a major grower was the Spanish American War, which (for good or for bad) added the Philippines and her vast Abacá (Manila hemp) plantations into the American trade zone. That just about (economically speaking) put an end to Industrial Hemp production in Kansas.
By the time the Reefer Madness campaign came into being, there were few Hemp farmers there to challenge it.
The irony now being that Industrial Hemp would (given present day economic/geographical conditions) probably make for a major cash crop --- If it were legal to do so.
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