The History of Hemp
Hemp has been used since the early years of time, leading the world in textiles, fabric, and medicine for centuries. The oldest known relic of human history according to The Columbia History of The World, is hemp dating back to 8000 B.C. The first Marijuana law was a law forcing farmers to grow hemp, and the first draft of the declaration of independence was written on hemp paper. The founding fathers grew hemp, and popular science even prepared an issue called, Hemp: A billion dollar cash crop. Which showed hemp and its 25,000 different uses as Americas most promising industry. This however all changed when the owner of several newspapers and lumber mills saw hemp as a threat to lining its pockets. Through an extensive propaganda campaign and movies such as 'Reefer Madness', he was able to scare the public enough into making Marijuana illegal, effectively making hemp illegal as well.
As for modern uses, hemp fuel and cars have existed since the early 1900's. Henry Ford produced a car made from hemp plastic, that ran on hemp fuel. The reason why Ford was never able to make this a national success, was because of the prohibition of alcohol, making one of the ingredients for the hemp fuel illegal.