About the Farm, Hemp, and CBD Oil
Our mission is to educate the community about the benefits of hemp and CBD oil
About the Farm, Hemp, and CBD Oil
Our mission is to educate the community about the benefits of hemp and CBD oil
About the Farm, Hemp, and CBD Oil
Our mission is to educate the community about the benefits of hemp and CBD oil
About the Farm, Hemp, and CBD Oil
Our mission is to educate the community about the benefits of hemp and CBD oil
About the Farm, Hemp, and CBD Oil
Our mission is to educate the community about the benefits of hemp and CBD oil
The History of Hemp and Extract Oils
12,000 years of development, controversy, and revival across the United States.
Hemp Through Time
First cultivated 12,000 years ago, hemp has been present at the beginning of many of humanity’s crucial developments. The Chinese first used hemp to produce paper and as fibers to strengthen pottery. They later introduced Europeans to hemp that began using its fibers to produce clothing and ropes and sails for ships.
As civilizations began to migrate west, so did the knowledge of hemp usage, Columbus’ own ships contained hemp rope and sails. It has been said Spaniards first introduced hemp to the Western Hemisphere in Chile in 1545.
By 1607 hemp was being cultivated in Richmond, VA and grew “wildly” along the banks of the Potomac. Puritans grew and cultivated hemp in New England for many uses in 1645. Needless to say, hemp was a highly accessible and profitable crop, many of our founding fathers and presidents grew hemp on their farms; George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Andrew Jackson to name a few.
Beating the Misconceptions
The term “Marijuana” was a slang term for Cannabis used by Mexican immigrants seeking refuge in the U.S. in the early 1900s. Many people did not realize Hemp and Marijuana were one in the same and began to associate all Cannabis varieties with negative misconceptions propagated by the U.S. in an attempt to attach a racist and negative stigma to it.
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The Marihunana Tax Act was overwhelmingly passed in 1937 and required a tax and strictly regulating anyone dealing commercially in cannabis varieties with the intention of making both hemp and it’s cousin illegal in the U.S. This effectively separated the scientific name from the legal name of the plant, and physicians could no longer use it for medicinal purposes, despite physician and scientist testimony. he legislature was backed by some of the world’s wealthiest men; William Randolph Hearst and Andrew Mellon, clearly demonstrating the deep unscientific and racist foundation of Cannabis prohibition.
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The Controlled Substance Act of 1970 classified all forms of cannabis, including hemp, as a Schedule 1 drug, making it illegal to grow within the U.S. Cannabis prohibition has caused much confusion and misidentification among Americans between hemp and marijuana and about the plants many industrial and health uses.
Hemp Resurgence
Prior to the 1930s, Kentucky was the U.S. leader in hemp production. During WWII much of the hemp was used in the production of uniforms, canvass, ropes, and food products for oversea soldiers. After the war, hemp production vanished and eventually began illegal, now all of our raw hemp is imported from other countries. It is estimated $620 million of hemp products were sold in the U.S. in 2015.
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In 2013 Colorado cultivated the first hemp harvest in the U.S. in almost 100 years and in 2014 the U.S. Farm Bill was passed and began allowing states that passed internal industrial hemp legislation to grow industrial hemp for purposes of research. In 2015, The Industrial Hemp Farming Act (H.R. 525 and S. 134) was introduced to Congress. If passed, it would remove the Schedule I restrictions on the cultivation of industrial hemp.
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Kentucky has been a major proponent in efforts to return hemp to the mainstream, research projects began in the state with 33 acres in 2014. The Kentucky Department of Agriculture has recently approved 209 applications, allowing farmers to produce up to 12,800 acres of hemp for research in 2017, nearly triple the 4,500 acres approved in 2016. With the increase in Hemp farm approvals, Kentucky will ultimately see an increase in jobs, jobs that have been lost to declining coal mining and tobacco operations, along with the increase in potential businesses that produce hemp products.