Our national energy needs are an undeniable national security priority. Let’s look at what Uncle Sam can do when pushed into action:

    In early 1942, Japan cut off our supplies of vital hemp and coarse fibers. Marijuana, which had been outlawed in the United States as the “Assassin of Youth” just four years earlier was suddenly safe enough for our government to ask the kids in the Kentucky 4-H Clubs to grow the nation’s 1943 seed supply. The youths were urged to grow at least half an acre but preferably two acres of hemp each.

    In 1942-43 farmers were required to attend showings of the USDA film Hemp for Victory, sign that they had seen the film, and read a hemp cultivation booklet. Hemp harvesting machinery was made available at low or no cost. Five dollar tax stamps were available and 350,000 acres of cultivated hemp was the goal by 1943. (See transcript.)

    Patriotic American farmers, from 1942 through 1945, who agreed to grow hemp were waived from serving in the military, along with their sons; that’s how vitally important hemp was to America during World War II.

    Meanwhile, from the 1930s through 1945, patriotic German farmers were given a comic book-like instruction manual by the Nazi government, urging them to grow hemp for the war (See a complete reproduction of this 1943 Nazi government “hanf” [hemp] comic-book manual in the appendix of the paper version of this book).

the authorized on-line version of Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes”

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