A HISTORY LESSON ON HEMP AND CANNABIS IN NORTH AMERICA

     Hemp has been intertwined with American history from the nation’s earliest days, long before the United States existed. Indigenous peoples used hemp fibers for textiles, cordage, and ceremonial items, and by the 1600s, European settlers were cultivating hemp as a staple agricultural crop. In fact, several early American colonies—including Virginia and Massachusetts—required farmers to grow hemp because it was essential for producing rope, sails, clothing, and other durable goods.

     Founding figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson documented hemp cultivation in their farm journals, and hemp quickly became a backbone of the early American economy, supporting maritime trade, frontier expansion, and wartime manufacturing. The first USA currency was printed on hemp paper. The first flag for the United States was made from hemp fabric.

     Through the 1800s, American farmers grew hemp for canvas, paper, and textiles, and Kentucky became a national hub of hemp production. However, the rise of competing crops, shifting industrial materials, racialized political campaigns, and confusion between hemp and marijuana led to gradual decline. 

     By the 1930s, public policy increasingly targeted all cannabis plants, culminating in the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, which heavily restricted cultivation. 

     Hemp saw a brief revival during World War II with the “Hemp for Victory” campaign, when the U.S. government encouraged farmers to produce fiber for military ropes and equipment, but after the war, hemp production was again suppressed. 

     The 1970 Controlled Substances Act dealt the final blow, classifying all cannabis—regardless of THC content—as a Schedule I substance. It wasn’t until the 21st century that scientific understanding and public perception shifted, leading to states reintroducing industrial hemp pilot programs and, ultimately, the federal legalization of hemp with the 2018 Farm Bill.  

     Hemp quickly became a significant American crop again, fueling industries such as nutrition, textiles, bioplastics, building materials, wellness products, and regenerative agriculture, reconnecting modern America with one of its oldest and most versatile agricultural traditions. That all changed with the federal legislation that was signed into law on November 12, 2025. 

     The legislation number is H.R. 5371, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026, which was enacted on November 12, 2025, as part of a larger spending package to reopen the federal government. This bill includes a provision, Section 781, that effectively bans most intoxicating hemp products by: 

• Redefining "hemp" to use a "total THC" calculation (including THCA) and enforcing a very strict limit of no more than 0.3% total THC on a dry weight basis for the plant itself.
• Implementing a strict cap for finished consumer products (edibles, vapes, etc.) of no more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container, a threshold that most existing intoxicating hemp products exceed.
• Banning cannabinoids that are not naturally occurring in the cannabis plant or are synthesized from it, such as delta-8 THC and HHC, effectively closing a "loophole" created by the 2018 Farm Bill. 

The ban is not immediate and will take effect one year after the bill's enactment, around November 12, 2026, unless amended by future legislation. The hemp industry is actively lobbying Congress to revise or repeal Section 781 during this one-year window.   

     Hemp’s role as a medicine in America stretches back centuries, beginning with traditional Indigenous uses of the plant for pain, inflammation, and spiritual wellness. By the 18th and 19th centuries, hemp-derived preparations—particularly tinctures and pressed oils—were widely used by early American physicians. 

     These remedies were found in the U.S. Pharmacopeia and prescribed for conditions such as muscle spasms, neurological disorders, migraines, insomnia, and menstrual discomfort. Throughout the 1800s, American pharmacies commonly stocked hemp extracts, and doctors saw it as a safe alternative to harsher medicines like opiates or chloroform. As scientific understanding grew, physicians recognized varying benefits depending on the plant’s preparation, though they did not yet distinguish between chemical constituents like CBD and THC.

      The turning point came in the early 20th century, when political campaigns against all forms of cannabis overshadowed its medical uses. The 1937 Marihuana Tax Act made prescribing hemp-derived medicines nearly impossible, and in 1942, cannabis was removed from the U.S. Pharmacopeia entirely—despite ongoing support from many physicians. The plant’s medical reputation was further buried under decades of stigma following the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, which labeled all cannabis as Schedule I, a category reserved for substances with “no medical use.” 

     Even so, anecdotal reports persisted, especially among families seeking relief for epilepsy, cancer symptoms, and chronic pain. The modern revival of hemp medicine began in the early 2000s, propelled by patient advocacy and scientific research into cannabinoids, especially CBD, which offered therapeutic potential without intoxicating effects. Landmark stories—such as children experiencing seizure relief when pharmaceuticals had failed—reshaped public understanding and spurred legislative reform. 

     The 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills re-legalized hemp federally and opened the door for widespread CBD research, product development, and clinical exploration. Today, hemp-derived cannabinoids are studied for epilepsy, anxiety, inflammation, neuroprotection, and more, reconnecting America with a once-lost chapter of medical history and restoring hemp’s place as a meaningful therapeutic tool. Thousands of patients across the country have found relief and better quality of life with the medicinal hemp that was legally accessible until H.R. 5371 was approved on November 12, 2025.

      Cannabis has a long and complex medical history in America, woven through centuries of healing practices, cultural shifts, and political upheaval. Long before formal medicine existed in the United States, Indigenous tribes used cannabis preparations for pain relief, inflammation, and ceremonial wellness. By the mid-1800s, cannabis had entered mainstream American medicine after doctors and scientists brought knowledge from Europe and India, where cannabis had been used as an analgesic and antispasmodic for thousands of years. 

     Physicians in the United States began prescribing cannabis tinctures for conditions such as migraines, epilepsy, menstrual cramps, rheumatism, and insomnia. These extracts became staples in American pharmacies, listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia from 1850 through the early 20th century, and were viewed as safer than many common medications of the era, including opium, chloral hydrate, and alcohol-based sedatives.

     The decline of medical cannabis was driven not by science, but by politics and fear-based campaigns. In the 1910s and 1920s, racialized propaganda and sensationalized media coverage associated marijuana with immigrant communities and “moral decline.” This shift in public sentiment overshadowed decades of documented medical value. The 1937 Marihuana Tax Act effectively criminalized cannabis and made prescribing it nearly impossible. 

     Just five years later, in 1942, cannabis was removed from the U.S. Pharmacopeia entirely—despite protests from physicians who relied on it as a valuable treatment for pain, spasms, and depression. 

     The final blow came with the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, which classified cannabis as a Schedule I drug, legally defining it as having “no accepted medical use,” halting research and pushing the plant into the shadows of American medicine for decades.

     The modern medical cannabis movement emerged in the late 20th century, driven by patients facing illnesses for which conventional treatments offered little relief. The AIDS crisis of the 1980s revealed how cannabis eased wasting, nausea, and pain, sparking grassroots compassion programs in places like San Francisco. 

     Advocates, caregivers, and physicians forced cannabis back into the national medical conversation. In 1996, California passed Proposition 215, becoming the first state to legalize medical marijuana and fundamentally transforming the national landscape. 

     Over the next two decades, a wave of states followed, fueled by patient stories of relief from cancer symptoms, chronic pain, PTSD, multiple sclerosis, autism-related challenges, and severe pediatric epilepsies that had resisted pharmaceutical treatment.

     Scientific understanding expanded dramatically in the 1990s with the discovery of the endocannabinoid system, revealing that cannabis interacts with a complex network regulating sleep, mood, immunity, pain, and inflammation. This breakthrough confirmed what generations of patients and physicians had observed: cannabis has wide therapeutic potential. 

     Today, medical cannabis is legal in the majority of U.S. states and territories, supported by growing clinical research, FDA-approved cannabinoid pharmaceuticals like Epidiolex and dronabinol, and a rapidly evolving national conversation about patient rights, public health, and scientific integrity. After nearly a century of political suppression, cannabis has returned to American medicine—its resurgence driven not by ideology, but by patients seeking hope and relief where traditional medicine has failed. The patients will be the ones to suffer, and potentially, the only ones too save the cannabis plant from the politics, fear-based campaigns and big industry  money from the alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical interests.