http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HempTo think the history of this amazing plant was almost forgotten.
Thanks to ONE mans work it was not forgotten.
A look at the wiki page might make some people say WTF?
Food Fiber Fuel and Medicine! Jacks rallying cry.
Food:
Hemp seeds contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human life.<15> The seeds can be eaten raw, ground into a meal, sprouted, made into hemp milk (akin to soy milk), prepared as tea, and used in baking. The fresh leaves can also be eaten in salads. Products range from cereals to frozen waffles, hemp tofu to nut butters. A few companies produce value added hemp seed items that include the seed oils, whole hemp grain (which is sterilized by law), hulled hemp seed (the whole seed without the mineral rich outer shell), hemp flour, hemp cake (a by-product of pressing the seed for oil) and hemp protein powder. Hemp is also used in some organic cereals, for non-dairy milk<16> somewhat similar to soy and nut milks, and for non-dairy hemp "ice cream."<17>
Fiber
The fiber is one of the most valuable parts of the hemp plant. It is commonly called bast, which refers to the fibers that grow on the outside of the woody interior of the plant's stalk, and under the outer most part (the bark). Bast fibers give the plants strength. Hemp fibers can be between approximately 0.91 m (3 ft) and 4.6 m (15 ft) long, running the length of the plant. Depending on the processing used to remove the fiber from the stem, the hemp may naturally be creamy white, brown, gray, black or green.
Fuel
Biofuels such as biodiesel and alcohol fuel can be made from the oils in hemp seeds and stalks, and the fermentation of the plant as a whole, respectively. Biodiesel produced from hemp is sometimes known as hempoline<39>.
Henry Ford grew industrial hemp on his estate after 1937,<40> possibly to prove the cheapness of methanol production at Iron Mountain. He made plastic cars (the so-called Hemp Car) with wheat straw, hemp and sisal. (Popular Mechanics, Dec. 1941, "Pinch Hitters for Defense.") Filtered hemp oil can be used directly to power diesels. In 1892, Rudolph Diesel invented the diesel engine, which he intended to fuel "by a variety of fuels, especially vegetable and seed oils."<41><42><43>
Medicine
Main article: Medicinal cannabis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicinal_cannabisHemp oil has anti-inflammatory properties.<23>
Building material
Concrete block made with hemp in France
In Europe and China, hemp fibers have been used in prototype quantities to strengthen concrete, and in other composite materials for many construction and manufacturing applications.<26> See Hempcrete.
Paper
The first identified coarse paper, made from hemp, dates to the early Western Han Dynasty, two hundred years before the nominal invention of papermaking by Cai Lun, who improved and standardized paper production using a range of inexpensive materials, including hemp ends, approximately 2000 years ago.<28>
Currently there is a niche market for hemp paper. World hemp paper pulp production was believed to be around 120,000 tons per year in 1991 which was about 0.05% of the world's annual pulp production volume.<2> The cost of hemp pulp is approximately six times that of wood pulp,<2> mostly due to the small size and outdated equipment of the few hemp processing plants in the Western world and hemp is harvested once a year (during August) and needs to be stored to feed the mill the whole year through. This storage requires a lot of (mostly manual) handling of the bulky stalk bundles, which accounts for a high raw material cost. Hemp pulp is bleached with hydrogen peroxide, which can also be used for wood pulp.
So much more at the wiki.
Thanks again Jack
Food Fiber Fuel and Medicine! We will never forget you