What is the Difference Between Hemp and Marijuana?

Not all marijuana is Cannabis Sativa. The really strong stuff, which when I was much younger we sometimes called "skunk weed" because of its unique smell, is Cannabis Indica. It is an almost identical plant that typically has much higher THC concentrations. I believe it originates from the Himalayan region and that there it is often the source of various hashish products like "Buddah Balls". The very strong Thai Sticks that were very common during the Vietnam War when I was a kid are also Indica. I have heard that a lot of the really super strong hydroponic sinsemilla coming out of Western Canada is the Indica strain of marijuana.

This has expanded my knowledge on this topic a bit more. Thank you!

I don't need drugs - I have genetics.

To think we are applying a 1937 mentality to this issue is a very sad commentary on our "Leaders".

I'm ready to fight this issue with you!

Al Arnold
WWW.AlArnold.US

I didn't know that information! I knew that it was linked but not specifically how. That was really interesting. I love hemp products and I guess I really didn't know how useful it is!

I knew the difference already, but I'm tired of trying to explain it to people that insist that hemp is just a way to smuggle weed. I suppose you could smoke it, but why would they make it easily available?
There's a percentage of cocaine in dollars too. But you can't get high off it.

"Before the 20th century, the marijuana plant provided almost all the world's paper, all the world's clothing and textiles, and almost all the world's rope.According to none other than the U.S. Department of Agriculture you can make four times as much paper from one acre of hemp plants as you can from an acre of trees at one-quarter the cost of making paper from wood pulp and only one-fifth the pollution.Guess what Levi jeans were originally made out of? And guess what American flags used to be made out of? And guess what the early drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were written on? And if that's too un-Christian for you, guess what they made Guttenberg and King James Bibles out of? Guess what you can use to power a car? You can get at least four times as much cellulose to make gasohol or methanol from hemp stems as you can from a corn stalk. Which along with solar energy would be a great way to avoid dying for oil in Saudi Arabia. In the 1760s in the American colonies you could even be jailed for not growing pot! Because that was part of the key to becoming economically independent from Britain. Hemp was legal tender in the Americas, a substitute for money, from 1630 clear up to the early 1800s. And hemp seeds are a great source of protein, better than soybeans, and it's cheaper than soybeans, too. Or so says the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Marijuana is legal for medical use in 34 states used to treat glaucoma and pain caused by cancer, and you can digest more protein from a hemp seed than a soybean seed. It's even shown some signs at being able to combat herpes. And, guess what kind of a parachute Mr. Drug War Junta-Man himself George Bush used when he bailed out of that bomber in World War II? Hemp was illegal by then, but farmers were briefly ordered to grow it again in this country for the war effort and all, and the U.S. Army had their own stash all along in the colonies in the Philippines. Doesn't it strike you as a little dumb that we burn oil and choke ourselves and chop down all our trees and ruin innocent people's lives by branding them criminals and throwing them in jails, or sending them off to drug camps, or taking all their property and selling it before they're brought to trial? In the process, making crack and heroin cheaper and easier to get than pot? In 1936 Popular Mechanics magazine hailed the invention of a new machine to process hemp, predicting that marijuana/hemp would once again become the world's largest cash crop. This did not at all sit well with people like Hearst Paper Manufacturing or Kimberly-Clark or other cutthroat multinationals who happen to have large timber holdings. It didn't sit to well with tobacco barons for obvious reasons, and it sure as hell didn't sit too well with old buddies DuPont. Hemp processing uses only one-fifth the chemicals need to process wood pulp, and DuPont had just patented a new wood pulp sulfide process, and DuPont's patented plastic fibers had just passed up hemp as the No. 2 fiber, next to cotton, and they wanted to keep it that way!And the last thing the big drug companies wanted was to lose their share of the ever lucrative disease industry market, to more affordable medicine made from marijuana or other natural ingredients because, check this out, you can't own and make money off a patent for medicine in this country, unless the medicine has chemicals in it. If it's all natural ingredients, you can't patent it. Maybe that's why we don't have access to a cure for cancer or AIDS, or why the health food store I go to keeps getting harassed by federal authorities for selling herbal medicines.Meanwhile, guess who owns Congress? So marijuana was outlawed in 1937 and they fanned the racism fires playing the racism card just like they do when they want to crack down on rock-and-roll or rap or hip hop or something like that. They said that smoking marijuana might cause you to fall under the influence of listening to jazz! I believe that it was even said on the floor of Congress that marijuana had to be banned because smoking it might make a black man look at a white woman twice. And let's not forget that U.S. Treasury Department funded documentary film, called, "Reefer Madness!" So marijuana was outlawed as devil weed in 1937. Only 53 years ago it was legal. Need I say more, on why our beloved fearless leaders go out of their way to censor our access to information so damn much? Can you imagine the mass outrage if this kind of stuff ever really got out? And people knew that this big drug problem that they keep reading about and hearing about is being caused by the government themselves? And people knew how easily each one of us individually could turn our ecological and human crisis around without resorting to Nazi bullshit like oil wars and drug wars by just saying no! to George Bush.And if people knew that the very companies that provide us with such crucial conveniences as Kleenex, paper towels and junk mail, have systematically and brutally rearranged every single one of our lives so that we are literally wiping our ass with out own future?" Jello Biafra

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Marijauna has only been illegal in this country for under a century, and it was made illegal because of mexican immigrants. The US government saw that mexicans would smoke marijuana so they associated it with a "bad" image and made it illegal. Making marijuana illegal, to the lawmakers, was a way to drive the immigrants out of our country. Obviously it hasn't worked and will never work, because American has always been a land of the free and we let anyone in our country. Intollerance and discrimination are always prevelant in this nation, and thats wrong. Taking away marijuana is one of those ways that American has discriminated, even if it has economic and enviromental benefits. There is always more money in the comepetitors market.

Oddly enough it is illegal to grow Hemp. But,in California you may be able to obtain a growing liscense for medical marijuana. Most of the Hemp clothes, cards, and other items come from Canada.

I don't understand why we just don't get smart and grow it in the U.S. I love buying tree-free birthday cards. Growing hemp in the U.S. is illegal right? I thought it was.

Common sense is as rare as genius. ~Emerson

It is helpful to get this little known important information out to as many people as possible!