Cecil,
What is the difference between hemp and marijuana? I got griped out because I called someone ignorant in the “Barefoot Running” thread. I was calling a man ignorant because he didn’t know the difference. Maybe you should also inform your moderators the definition of “ignorant”, too.
Thanks!
Dumbroad
Hemp and marijuana are varieties of the same plant (think sweet corn and feed corn). Hemp usually refers to very low THC cannabis that is grown for fiber, seed, or biomass. Also known as “industrial hemp” (in an effort to further separate the image from marijuana) hemp is illegal to grow in the United States without a federal permit. (impossible to obtain in reality). Other countries, including Germany, England, Canada, Hungary, Poland…) allow farmers to grow hemp, although they maintain the prohibition on marijuana.
For more information: http://www.naihc.org/hemp_information/content/hemp.mj.html
I’m not Cecil, but, hemp is fiber made from the Cannabis plant. Cannabis is a genus of flowering herbs related to hops and hackberries. Cannabis plants contain an intoxicating, mildly hallucinogenic chemical called THC, and the plant’s been used for a long time for its psychoactive properties. Because of its psychoactive properties, it became known in parts of Mexico as “maraguanquo”, which is, I believe, a Nahuatl word meaning “intoxicating/inebriant plant” The practice of using the plant to get intoxicated came to this country from Mexico, and it got the name “marijuana/marihuana”, from that, probably partly in an attempt to make it seem foreign.
Generally, “hemp” is used to refer to the low THC variety of the plant cultivated for rope and fabric, and “marijuana” to the high THC variety of the plant cultivated for intoxication.
The male plants grow taller, and produce more fiber, and would be called hemp when grown for that purpose. THC and related compounds are generated in greater quantity in the female plants. I’ve heard it is protection for the seeds, but the science of weed has advanced a lot recently. There’s probably someone out there with a degree in growing weed who has the real detailed info.
But as the other say, same basic plant, different purposes.
This is a very helpful article which can be found at :
http://www.helium.com/items/833112-the-difference-between-hemp-and-marijuana
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[contents of article removed]*
Although Herodotus does describe scythians taking sweat lodge baths using hemp seeds to generate the smoke…
And it seems that it was also used in China and India both medically and as a fiber. Medical use is actually getting high, just with a reason other than recreation…
Sorry - we just go tthe name marijuana from Mexicans, they didn’t invent the use of it recreationally [well they did, but so did everybody else…]
Festival in India celebrating bhang- per the SigOth, even the kids tend to take a taste by sneaking, though it is something mostly North Indian.
Of course, this is NOT a hemp usage. Hemp is what was grown to save G. Bush Sr’s (ETA: er, LIFE BY) Parachute by Patriotic American Farmer’s in the War Bond Years…
Dumbroad, if you really do care about what Cecil thinks about this subject, you may want to take a minute and look up the column that he wrote on this very subject a few years back, available on the Straight Dope archive.
Fair Warning----Cecil dosen’t sugar-coat the topic, and is very pragmatic about both sides of the issue. (in other words, he dosen’t buy into the whole “Hemp is gonna save the planet!” pipe-dream that some may expouse, but he also is quick to point out the many practical uses that industrial hemp has, and the hypocrisy of the U.S. Federal Government’s stand on the matter.)
Thanks! I’ll be sure to look it up. 
[moderating]
dumbroad, if you post a link to an article, there’s no need to copy & paste the entire article into your post. Especially since the website you copied it from specifically says the article is copyrighted by Helium, Inc. I have removed the text from your post above.
Do not do this again.
[/moderating]
By the way, the Cecil column MPB was talking about is here.
So, if I didn’t include the link, then I could have kept the whole post? That doesn’t really make sense. If I wouldn’t have included the link, nobody would have known where it came from. I was quoting something, so I’m really not infringing on any copyright laws by giving exactly where the post came from. So, next time I guess I’ll just put in whatever I find and not include where it came from. Lesson learned.
Attribution doesn’t absolve one from claims of copyright infringement. (The recent Cooks Source fiasco, to wit.)There are rules as to what is “fair use” and what is not, and copying large swaths of text from another website probably does not fall under “fair use,” although I would leave such matters for a lawyer to determine.
Quite the opposite; I think Wombat was telling you in a polite way that you should in fact include a link and forgo a large quote.
The generally accepted form is to copy the first (or most significant) paragraph to set the “mood and tone”, so to speak, and to include the link so that the reader can click through to the site and get the entire text.
No, you have it exactly backward. It’s fine to tell someone, “go to this public site where the author has placed the copyrighted work.” It’s not fine to copy it. Copyright is protection against unauthorized copying.
I see exactly what he’s saying. The whole reasoning behind this is so hard headed people (like myself) would actually read the text. And, of course, I’m going to come back with some sort of smart @$$ remark after someone telling me in a not-so-nice tone “Do not do this again.” Pfft.
Pardon my tone. Busy day.
When you registered, however, you specifically agreed to a set of rules. One of those is:
I didn’t mean to say they did. I meant that they were the ones who brought recreational use of it to the US. I know that cannabis has been used recreationally and medicinally for thousands of years.
Thank you, Gary. I’m obviously new to this site, and didn’t fully read the rules before posting. I just wanted to make my statement bold, so I posted the whole thing. Next time, I’ll just compose something of my own and take more time crafting my statements. Hope to have better discussions with you in the future!