1971: Hemp Dragged Into CSA
Hemp outlawed further in 1971
By 1971, hemp was already crippled by the Marihuana Tax Act (1937) and re-criminalized after WWII. But Nixon’s war on drugs gave the final nail: hemp was swept into the new 1970 Controlled Substances Act.
On paper, CSA was designed to regulate dangerous industrial chemicals. In practice, it lumped a plant — hemp — into the same regulatory box as toxic petrochemicals.
That move locked hemp research, cultivation, and commercialization into decades of red tape. Scientists couldn’t even run field trials without navigating the same restrictions used for asbestos or PCBs.
The Bigger Picture
Why does this matter? Because 1971 was the pivot year:
CSA: Hemp treated like poison.
Nixon’s “War on Drugs”: Targeted cannabis broadly, erasing any industrial distinction.
Petrochemical boom: DuPont, Dow, and Exxon launched whole new families of plastics with no equivalent restrictions.
It was a regulatory pincer: natural competitors tied down, petrochemical substitutes let loose. Guess what? Petro was about to make a quick exit to China so all other commodities were locked up safely.
Receipts They Don’t Teach in School
Marihuana Tax Act (1937): First outlawing, conflated hemp with marijuana (DEA Museum).
Controlled Substances Act (1970): Hemp classified as Schedule I drug alongside heroin — “no accepted medical use” (Congressional Research Service).
Why Bury This Truth?
Because by treating hemp like a toxin, the U.S. erased even the possibility of scaling industrial hemp.
Universities couldn’t study it.
Farmers couldn’t plant it.
Companies couldn’t innovate with it.
Meanwhile, petrochemical plastics went global, protected by the very same regulatory wall.
Hemp bioplastics outlawed in favor of petro based toxic plastic.
Consumer Takeaway
When the U.S. government added hemp to CSA, it wasn’t protecting you. It was protecting petro profits.
A crop became a “toxin.” An industry became contraband. And a monopoly became law.
Read the full story in the book.
Evolution Mine: The Industrial Evolution—the blueprint for breaking the petrochemical playbook and building a regenerative economy.
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