The Hemp Revolution

OK, kids! Here's a little bio-ag riddle for you. It's one of humanity's oldest cultivated crops. Gentlemen farmers George Washington and Tom Jefferson both sang its praises. The Guttenberg Bible and the U.S. Declaration of Independence were penned on paper made from it. Its seeds provide a highly nutritious, low fat, versatile food staple, and its oils offer a remarkably clean burning fuel. Its flowers and leaves have been used as a folk medicine, a religious sacrament, and an intracranial recreational sport for centuries. If you guessed Our Friend Cannabis Sativa--wow, man! Groovy! The Hemp Revolution is Aussie filmmaker Anthony Clarke's visually shaggy, winningly earnest, and pretty darned fascinating 75-minute hosanna to hemp, its manifold uses and benefits, and its colorful economic and social history. The program makes the case that the falling international fortunes of the miraculous weed beginning in the 1930's were largely the doing of the big U.S. timber and petrochemical boys, spooked by the prospect of hemp muzzling in on their well-established markets. The ensuing virulent reefer paranoia, criminalization of marijuana, and expunging of hemp's historic role from the history books were all part of this conspiracy. Despite the video's tendency toward hyperbole and post-Hippie visual shenanigans, The Hemp Revolution is a wonderfully entertaining and informative little jaunt which would be at home in most public and academic libraries. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (G. Handman)