I chuckled when I first heard it. I laughed out loud when I first saw it! I thought for a long time before I really understood the implications. Like so many that overlooked Jack Herer and his message in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, I was slow on the uptake to realize the significance of Hemp for Victory in the cannabis advocacy movement. Like so many cannabis advocates, the movement first struck me as an excuse to get high, which I never thought was really needed anyway. Oh how wrong I was! Hemp for Victory is the rally cry that all cannabis enthusiasts should be shouting from rooftops!
The Backstory
Hemp for Victory was a 15 minute video that was made by the United States Department of Agriculture during World War II, urging american farmers to grow hemp to help the war efforts. Let that sink in for a moment… Less than ten years after the United States government passed the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, that very same government said that hemp farming was necessary for the efforts to dismantle the Axis powers. The government was coming out and admitting that hemp had an important and valuable place in our society, and this had happened in the early 1940’s!
Jack Herer recognized the significance of this. Even when other cannabis reform advocates were in denial, Jack Herer recognized how important this was! While cannabis activism was focused on cannabis as a medicine or cannabis as a healthy alternative to alcohol and tobacco, the importance of hemp as an industry was being overlooked. Jack however saw what a game changer this video was, and when Jack had his credibility called into question over the video, Jack and his friends went to the Library of Congress to prove that the government had in fact made this video calling american farmers to action! Hemp for Victory!
The Short Film
The film made by the government was short, just under 15 minutes, but of incredible significance. The film briefly discussed the rich history that humans had with hemp dating back thousands of years. It talked about the importance of hemp to the navy, and suggested that 350,000 acres of hemp would need to be grown for seed and fiber to supply the navies war efforts. It discussed the many ways that the soldiers relied on hemp, such as, parachute webbing, shoes, fire hoses and marine rigging. The film also went into detail, the methods that farmers could employ in growing and harvesting hemp. Most importantly, the short film was a cry to farmers letting them know how important hemp was, for industry, for fiber, for the soldiers, for victory!
This was a drastically different tone than the one that the same government had taken just a few years prior when it passed the Marijuana Tax Act. Also of note, when Jack Herer found the video and began showing it to people and bringing attention to it, the government denied ever making the video, suggesting that Jack had fabricated it. This spurned Jack and his close friends and allies, Maria Farrow and Carl Packard, to go on the hunt at the Library of Congress’ Motion Picture and Filmstrips Records. Initially the group had struck out, and had decided to call it quits without finding the evidence that they had gone in search of. Not feeling content with giving up however, the group decided to give it one last effort and began searching older records. Buried deep in the Library of Congress, the group found what they had come for, proof that the USDA had indeed made the film Hemp For Victory!
Why Hemp for Victory Matters
Hemp for Victory supported Jack Herer’s belief that the overall utility of the cannabis plant was a vital piece of why cannabis reform needed to happen. While other cannabis activist groups such as NORML were focused on cannabis advocacy for use as medicine, Jack Herer was standing for cannabis reform for industry, green energy, soil conservation, renewable fabrics, carbon sequestering, global hunger, in short, Hemp for Victory! Jack Herer was the first cannabis advocate to realize that while medicinal cannabis was vitally important for a small group of cannabis users, industrial cannabis was important for everyone that supported industry, everyone that supported a greener environment, everyone that supported an end to hunger, and most importantly, it provided a means to obtain these things for all people whether they used cannabis or not!
Jack used this argument to gain support for cannabis from people who otherwise would have no use for cannabis. Unfortunately, it is all too true that people will never care as much about other people’s cause as they will their own cause. By seeing the overall utility of cannabis, Jack was able to make cannabis reform an important issue for many people that were never interested in joining the “cannabis as a medicine” cause. Medicinal cannabis is an absolutely great reason to advocate for the legalization of cannabis! For a subset of the population. Hemp as an important player in a vast number of important industries including: agriculture, food, energy, fabrics, building materials etc. provides a number of great arguments to advocate for the legalization of cannabis for everyone! Jack saw this, and was able to use the government’s own wartime propaganda video to show countless others as well.
While the video itself only discussed the handful of uses for hemp that were important for the war efforts, the video provided something else that was just as important. An authoritative view that cannabis was in fact good. This alone helped in the devillainization of cannabis. Now the government was coming out and talking about good and beneficial uses for cannabis. If these uses were true, then so might the other uses that they had been hearing about. This gave Jack and other cannabis advocates an “in” that they previously didn’t have, amongst certain groups.
Compared to all of industry, medicinal cannabis was just a small portion of the argument for cannabis legalization. Joining the Hemp for Medicine! campaign, now were Hemp for Fabric!, Hemp for Food!, Hemp for Soil Repair!, Hemp for Green Energy!, Hemp for Renewable Resources! And other various new cannabis reform arguments. This created a storm of support for cannabis from a whole new group of people besides the classic marijuana activist. This stand of solidarity helped to amplify the voice of those that had been working so hard, for so long, in order to be heard. I have seen hemp written as an acronym for Help End Marijuana Prohibition, in this regard then, let us absolutely say, HEMP FOR VICTORY!!!