{"id":7051791,"date":"2026-08-30T12:58:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T12:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/hemplogic-hemp-from-mythos-to-monoculture\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T12:58:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T12:58:25","slug":"hemplogic-hemp-from-mythos-to-monoculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7051791","title":{"rendered":"HempLogic: HEMP: FROM MYTHOS TO MONOCULTURE"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\nNow that hemp has finally arrived at its long-sought status as a legal crop and commodity, to what extent will it deviate from the utopian vision that animated the advocates who fought for it a generation ago?<\/p>\n

\nA tension that has always existed between two currents in the subculture of hemp advocacy is increasingly weighted toward the more mundane \u2014 activists versus entrepreneurs, idealism versus pragmatism, agrarianism versus agribusiness. And finally the original paradigm of a crop with multitudinous uses as \u201cfood, fuel and fiber\u201d versus the hegemony of\u00a0<\/span>CBD<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\nCan a capitalist commodity live up to the promise of hemp\u2019s early promoters and zealots? How real was that promise to begin with? A generation later, how do we parse the exuberant claims of the \u201chempsters\u201d \u2014 including their conspiratorial interpretations of the history of prohibition?<\/p>\n

\nTHE ANIMATING MYTHOS \u2014 AND THE CONSPIRACY THEORY<\/h2>\n

\nAt the time that the nation\u2019s first drug czar Harry Anslinger launched his crusade to prohibit cannabis in the 1930s, the hemp industry was on the cusp of an anticipated boom. Years of slow decline due to the abandonment of sailing ships (dependent on hemp for sails and rigging) stood to be reversed by advances in decorticator technology. This device efficiently separates fiber from hurds, opening possibilities for more efficient application of the crop in production of paper, clothing and fabrics.<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\"TOP<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n

\nHarry Anslinger<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\nThere is little doubt that this was derailed by cannabis prohibition. But was it a conscious design?<\/p>\n

\nYes it was, according to\u00a0<\/span>The Emperor Wears No Clothes<\/em><\/a>, the metaphorical bible of the hemp subculture, written and researched by the movement\u2019s grandfather \u2014 the late, legendary Jack Herer, a Venice Beach smoke shop operator turned auto-didact researcher. First appearing in 1985, the book has gone through several printings, as Herer and his collaborators have added material. This process has continued since Jack\u2019s passing in 2010. Much valuable archival and research material was reprinted in the early editions.<\/div>\n

\nThe Emperor<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>argues that we could be living in a hemp-based ecological utopia today had it not been for prohibition \u2014 and that this alternative reality is still within our reach if prohibition can be overturned. It claims that hemp can \u201creverse the greenhouse effect and save the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHerer portrays a plot to suppress the hemp industry by Anslinger, in league with financier Andrew Mellon, the DuPont chemical company, and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Their collusion is seen as leading to the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, which effectively banned cannabis \u2014 both hemp and marijuana. Herer called it \u201cThe Marijuana Conspiracy,\u201d and his followers often dubbed it the \u201cGreat Hemp Conspiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nMellon was Anslinger\u2019s father-in-law who as Treasury Secretary in 1930 oversaw creation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and appointed Anslinger to lead it. The Du Pont company was just at this time developing synthetic fabrics that could have to compete against hemp. Financial links between Mellon and the Du Ponts are alleged (although Mellon, it should be noted, was no longer Treasury Secretary in 1937 when the Tax Act was passed).<\/p>\n

\nAs is often the case with conspiracy theory, some of the purported connections are sketchy. Mellon is portrayed as the \u201cchief financial backer\u201d of Du Pont. This appears to be a serious overstatement. In his exhaustive 1974 study,\u00a0<\/span>Du Pont Dynasty<\/em><\/a>, author Gerard Colby notes that in 1924 top family scion Alfred I. du Pont received a $2 million tax refund from the\u00a0<\/span>IRS<\/span>, apparently at the intervention of Secretary Mellon. But there are no claims of significant Mellon National Bank investment in the Du Ponts \u2014 on the contrary, the two families were perceived as \u201crivals.\u201d By the time Colby was writing, the Du Ponts were said to hold some 7% interest in the Mellon National Bank \u2014 but not the other way around, and not back in the 1930s.<\/div>\n
\nThe Hearst newspapers were then the leading amplifier for Anslinger\u2019s propaganda campaign against \u201cmarihuana,\u201d portraying it in lurid and unabashedly racist terms as a dangerous drug associated with Mexican immigrants and the criminal underclass. A Hearst financial motive is also hypothesized. Hemp paper supposedly threatened the market for newsprint from the Hearst Corporation\u2019s timber holdings. The Hearst empire included timber holdings in California \u2014 but not enough to meet its own need for newsprint. According to\u00a0<\/span>W.A.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Swanberg\u2019s 1961 biography\u00a0<\/span>Citizen Hearst<\/em><\/a>, the newspaper chain was a net purchaser of newsprint, and in the \u201830s actually fell into debt to Canadian paper producers.<\/div>\n

\nRACISM: METHOD OR MOTIVE?<\/h2>\n
\nHerer also claimed that Hearst\u2019s animosity for marijuana and Mexicans was personal, because 800,000 acres of timberland he owned south of the border had been expropriated by Pancho Villa and his notoriously marijuana-smoking revolutionaries. Their marching song, \u201cLa Cucaracha<\/a>,\u201d referred explicitly to \u201cmarijuana que fumar<\/em>.\u201d<\/div>\n