The History Of Hemp

8000 BC - Present
Hemp is the ancient, eco-friendly fiber of the future. For over 5,000 years, hemp has been used for textiles, paper, building materials, fuel, food and personal care products. Hemp can be grown with little or no toxic chemical fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides. Today hemp is grown all over the world. The crop is used to make over 25,000 consumer products. From hemp apparel and accessories to housewares and hempseed oil cosmetics, hemp is an eco-shopper’s dream.
8000BC
Civilization, agriculture and hemp textile industries begin in Europe and Asia.
3727BC
Cannabis called a “superior” herb in the world’s first medical text, Shen Nung’s Pen Ts’ao, in China.
1500BC
Cannabis-using Scythians sweep through Europe and Asia, settle down everywhere, and invent the scythe.
500BC
Gautama Buddah survives by eating hempseed.
450BC
Herodotus records Scythians and Thracians as consuming cannabis and making fine linens of hemp.
300BC
Carthage and Rome struggle for political and commercial power over hemp and spice trade routes in Mediterranean.
100BC
Paper made from hemp and mulberry is invented in China.
100AD
Roman surgeon Dioscorides names the plant cannabis sativa and describes various medicinal uses. Pliny tells of industrial uses and writes a manual on farming hemp.
500AD
First botanical drawing of hemp in Constantinopolitanus
600AD
Germans, Franks, Vikings, etc. all use hemp fibre.

1000AD
The English word ‘hempe’ first listed in a dictionary.
1150AD
Moslems use hemp to start Europe’s first paper mill. Most paper is made from hemp for the next 700 years.
1492AD
Hempen sails, caulking and rigging ignite age of discovery and help Columbus and his ships reach America.
1545
Hemp agriculture crosses the continent overland to Chile.
1564
King Phillip of Spain orders hemp grown throughout his empire, from modern-day Argentina to Oregon.
16th-17th Century
Dutch achieve Golden Age through hemp commerce. Explorers find ‘wilde hempe’ in North America.
1619
Virginia colony makes hemp cultivation mandatory, followed by most other colonies. Europe pays hemp bounties.


1631
Hemp used as money throughout American colonies.

1776
American ‘Declaration of Independence’ drafted on hemp paper.
1791
President Washington sets duties on hemp to encourage domestic industry; Jefferson calls hemp “a necessity”, and urges farmers to grow hemp instead of tobacco.
1801
Certain premiums offered to encourage the cultivation of hemp in Upper and Lower Canada.
1800’s
Australia survives two prolonged famines by eating virtually nothing but hemp seed for protein and hemp leaves for roughage.
1850’s
Petrochemical age begins. Toxic sulfite and chlorine processes make paper from trees, steamships replace sails, tropical fibres introduced.
1930’s
New machines invented to break hemp, process the fibre, and convert pulp or hurds into paper, plastics, etc. - Racist fears of Mexicans, Asians, and African Americans leads to outcry for cannabis to be outlawed.
1935
Compressed agricultural fibreboard invented in Sweden.
1937
Marijuana Tax Act forbids hemp farming in the US. -Dupont files patent for nylon.
1938
Canada prohibits production of hemp under Opium And Narcotics Control Act.
1941
Henry Ford makes car fabricated and fueled by hemp.
1943
Hemp For Victory program urges farmers to grow hemp.
1955
Hemp farming again banned.
1961
The Canadian Narcotics Control Act(CNCA) allowed Cannabis to be grown, at the discretion ofthe Health Minister,
for research purposes only.

1992
Australia licences hemp farming.
1993
England eases restriction on hemp farming. News media declare hemp clothes and cannabis leaf logo hottest new fashion.
1994
Under the CNCA, one license was granted to a Canadian company, Hempline Inc., to grow hemp experimentally in Canada under the strict supervision of the authorities.
1996
The Canadian federal government passed Bill C8 stating that mature hemp stalks are exemptfrom the list of controlled substances.
1998
The Canadian government legalizes the commercial growth of industrial hemp.