American Hemp

Book excerpt: If there ever was a time to build an American hemp industry, the time is now. In Jesse Ventura’s Marijuana Manifesto, former Minnesota Governor teamed up with Jen Hobbs to explain why it’s time to fully legalize cannabis and end the War on Drugs. Through their research, it became clear that hemp needed its own manifesto. Jen Hobbs takes up this torch in American Hemp. December of 2018 marked a largely unprecedented victory for cannabis. The 2018 Farm Bill passed and with it hemp became legal. What the federal government listed for decades as a schedule 1 narcotic was finally classified as an agricultural crop, giving great promise to the rise of a new American hemp industry. Filled with catchall research, American Hemp examines what this new domestic crop can be used for, what makes it a superior product, and what made it illegal in the first place; the book also delves into the many health and medical benefits of the plant. Hobbs weighs in on how hemp can improve existing industries, from farming to energy to 3D printing, plus how it can make a serious impact on climate change by removing toxins from the soil and by decreasing our dependence on plastics and fossil fuels. American Hemp lays out where we are as a nation on expanding this entirely new (yet ancient) domestic industry while optimistically reasoning that by sowing hemp, we can grow a better future and save the planet in the process.