Hemp Hope Dump

Past, protein, and future.

Monday, November 18, 2024
Time to read: About 6 minutes. Contains 1,269 words. 

Good morning!

Today’s newsletter is a lil news, a bit of trend reporting, and a bit of a history lesson, all focused on hemp. But not the intoxicating kind.

In other words, today, I want to talk about why hemp gives me hope right now.

To be clear: by “hemp,” I’m talking about consumable cannabis plants containing less than .3% THC and generally low THC plants that are grown for textiles and other manufacturing purposes. There is no biological difference between hemp and cannabis—it’s all cannabis. Just different strains with different cannabinoid contents.

Yep, despite the (IMO, silly) animosity that’s emerged between certain parts of the licensed cannabis and Farm Bill hemp industries, we’re all talking about and passionate about the same plant. Instead of stoking a rivalry based on shifting and conflicting legislation, I want to provide food for thought and inspiration to think bigger. Think longer term. Think generationally.  

Let’s get it.

Lawrence Finney, 1991, via Chrome & Lightning.

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Edible Hemp — Non-Intoxicating Value

In our current proteinmaxxing era, hemp protein powder is a star. 

Isn’t it crazy how on top of the medicinal, spiritual, and material applications of this plant, the cannabis seed contains all nine essential amino acids? Hemp seeds also contain omega-3 and omega-6 unsaturated fatty acids, and even when ground up into powder, it’s less processed than whey, which is a byproduct of the cheesemaking process. 

The global hemp protein powder market size was estimated at $163.6 million in 2023, and in light of high-protein diet trends, it’ll only increase. (Unless you’re in the military).

This counts for livestock, too. 

Following a recommendation by the FDA, livestock feed control officials voted to allow commercial farmers to use hemp seed meal as food for egg-laying hens earlier this year. Evidence showed that cannabinoid content was negligible, nutrition was high, and there was an improvement in egg quality. Can we also acknowledge the silliness of the FDA having more to say about chickens consuming hemp than humans?

Wearable Hemp — Fashion & Innovation Update

Hemp-based activewear signals major potential.

Hemp-based leggings are actually what inspired this newsletter. Not because they’re some ridiculous example of how far the marketing buzz around hemp has gone. It’s exciting because they don’t create microplastics.

You’ve heard about these little bits of plastic floating in the air and water across the furthest reaches of the planet. How the fish we eat already have bellies full of it; how they’re disrupting our nervous, endocrine, and reproductive systems. When we wear polyester-based (a.k.a. petroleum-based) materials like spandex and nylon, we release microscopic plastic particles into the air. Many more when they are washed. These leggings by a brand called Namarie are made with 78% proprietary hemp yarn & 22% biobased elastane. No plastics. 

With a category like activewear that requires a very specific fit and feel, proving this problem can be solved with hemp helps me sleep at night. We do have choices. Not many—the brand’s still small—but it’s proof that hemp-based fabrics can replace spandex if the market demands it.

More brands, styles, reasons to believe—and confusion.

For so long, “hemp clothing” was synonymous with stiff tees and rough jackets. We’re living in a very different era today, fam. Jungmaven’s line of tees and sheets continues to expand with many apparel styles and varying percentages of hemp and cotton. I check every seasonal drop by Australian brand Afends for super flattering hemp-based denim and dresses. Patagonia has a whole hemp line now, and brands like Mister Green, Tentree, and Toad & Co. offer long-lasting hemp-based classics.

Hemp makes sense as a textile for more reasons than just being plant-based: it’s got better SPF protection than polyester or linen, too. Hemp requires 20% of the water it takes to grow the same amount of cotton, and it can be grown in more places than cotton. It requires less fertilizer, herbicides, and insecticides. Its fibers are stronger; its shape is kept better over time.

When you look at all these logical reasons for the plant to be a bigger part of our modern world, it’s hard not to wonder why. We know about Prohibition and reefer madness and all of that, but why aren’t we making more with it? 

The answer long predates Nixon’s War on Drugs. 

Industrial Hemp — A Century Behind

You know about the textile applications of this plant. You’ve probably heard of hempcrete as a promising building material, and you’ve maybe even seen hemp-based plastics in some packaging. What you may not know—I didn’t—is how many more practical applications used to exist for hemp.

Medieval colonizers hoisted their ship’s sails with hemp rope. George Washington grew his own crop to make rope and fabric. In some Iroquois tribes, each family would be responsible for growing the hemp they needed for textiles. Up until the 1900s, hemp seed oil was the most common lighting oil for lamps. Henry Ford built an exterior auto body made of soybean and hemp plastic in the 1940s. 

Sometime during the pandemic, I heard a comment from activist and hemp cultivator Winona LaDuke at a virtual Cannabis Sustainability Symposium that has stuck with me: 

“100 years ago, we had a choice between a carbohydrate [hemp] and a hydrocarbon [fossil fuels] economy. We made the wrong choice,” said LaDuke.

When you look closer, you see it was less of a choice and more of an instance of market manipulation by those with the most to lose. 

In the US, most hemp cultivation ground to a halt with the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. It essentially made it too heavily taxed to be worth growing or buying. The Act was drafted by Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, a man we heavily associate with cannabis prohibition. But the real machine behind this Act was three very wealthy businessmen: Andrew Mellon, Randolph Hearst, and the Du Pont family.

Newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst knew hemp threatened the value of his sprawling timber holdings as a more sustainable and affordable resource for paper products. Mellon, then the Secretary of the Treasury and the wealthiest man in the country, had invested heavily in the Du Pont family's new synthetic fiber, nylon, and wasn’t about to see his money bottom out.

Now, imagine what could’ve been if that hadn’t passed. If hemp materials overtook polyester in the 1940’s. If petroleum-based plastics had never beat out more affordable hemp-based competitors. Our world would be a significantly less polluted place. There’d be fewer landfills. Cleaner water.

In a paper called “Making Hemp a 21st Century Commodity in Oregon and Beyond,” published by the Global Hemp Innovation Center at Oregon State University, Dr. Jeffrey Steiner, Ph. D. actually outlines this alternate timeline. All that cannabis can be used to make and what it would take to make the crop as common as wheat or cotton.

From “Making Hemp A 21st Century Commodity in Oregon and Beyond” by Jeffrey Steiner, Ph. D. Global Hemp Innovation Center at Oregon State University.

Much of that gap is knowledge. Knowledge about how best to incorporate which parts or strains of the plant into established agricultural production systems. Knowledge we’d have if not for Prohibition. 

I look at all those uses, and while it frustrates me how far we are from that point, I am energized by the fact that plenty of these applications have been tried and proven true before. The potential is exhilarating. It’s hard to feel hopeless when seeing all that’s possible.

Perhaps, in light of the known reserves of oil on the planet amounting to enough to last us only 50 years at our current rate of consumption, this plant is about to finally get the scientific attention it deserves. ✤