I read once that Henry Ford had a car designed to be run and built primarily from hemp. From the paint, to the body to the biomass fuel that run it. Then the whole "Reefer Madness" (which refers to hemp's cousin, marijuana btw) insanity took hold. Some believe that there was a push by a certain well known company now in the news for the possible toxic effects of one of its non-stick coatings to get hemp outlawed in the 1930s because they had developed chemical alternatives for a lot of the things hemp was used for...cornered the market on it as it was. But that might sound like a conspiracy theory to some and I won't go into it. Of course that company is still thriving and hemp production in this country is still illegal and our own government still gets hemp and marijuana confused...

But like I said, probably just conspiracy theory...