Give hemp a chance

>>The environmentally friendly and controversial cannabis derivative is staging a major comeback

by CHRIS BARRY

Poor, poor, misunderstood hemp. A non-narcotic strain of the cannabis sativa plant and the earliest known woven fabric in history, people have been fashioning groovy duds out of its fibres since at least 8000 B.C. The ancient Chinese, Egyptians, Romans, Persians, Greeks, you name it, all these kooky societies recognized a versatile and plentiful resource when they saw one and seemingly used hemp for just about everything.

Because hemp contains some of the longest and strongest fibres in the plant kingdom, for centuries our ancestors cultivated and used it to make, among other things, clothing, rope, sails, tents and paper. And when the ancients weren’t wearing it or using it to build stuff, they were lighting their hovels with its oil. Or busy developing it into paint and varnish. Or eating its seeds, and not for the very noble purpose of getting high, but rather as a first-rate source of protein.

In fact, hemp was the bomb right up until 1937, when a handful of righteous lawmaking folk down in the U.S. of A decided that any plant capable of making Mexican migrant farm workers and their Negro soul brothers too happy was something that definitely needed to be banned. So, along with the inevitable prohibition of marijuana, came the prohibition of industrial hemp.

Legend has it that the outlawing of hemp—which, unlike the strains of marijuana we all know and love, contains next to no THC—was a grand conspiracy by the evil petro-chemical industry and their partners in crime, the wood-pulp industry. They apparently felt threatened by the relative cheapness in which hemp’s high-cellulose pulp could be produced in comparison to their own paper products. Great men like William Randolph Hearst stood to lose billions of dollars had hemp been developed to its full post-industrial potential. So this triumvirate of villains allegedly went on a high-falutin’ media campaign to confuse industrial hemp with its soul sister marijuana and made damn sure its cultivation and sale remained illegal.

Not long after, their pals in the State Department took it upon themselves to go on a crusade making sure other hemp-producing countries, like Canada, fully understood the evils of this diabolical resource and instituted laws prohibiting its cultivation in their jurisdictions as well. In the tradition of well-thought-out drug policies based on hysteria and the fiscal interests of a privileged few, it looked for a long time like our poor little friend hemp was doomed.
But in recent years hemp has been staging a mighty comeback. With the exception of God’s country just to the south of us, slowly but surely most jurisdictions have lifted the ban on its cultivation, recognizing that the THC content in industrial hemp is so low that it’s virtually impossible to get high on. Further, as people have become increasingly aware of the environmental and practical benefits of hemp, demand for hemp clothing, food and beauty products have been on a definite upswing.

Absorbs bad vibes

Sonja Kleinman is the head honcho at Green Babilon. In addition to their retail store on Prince Arthur Street E., Green Babilon currently designs and manufactures some 59 items of hemp clothing, all produced locally, and reports that every year in their four-year history, demand for their products has doubled.
“What happens is that after people buy one item they inevitably come back for more because they really like the feel of the fabric,” claims Kleinman. “Hemp is extremely comfortable. It’s just got really amazing properties in itself. Certainly one of the beauties of hemp is that it’s a natural fibre. But even more important is that it absorbs carcinogenic ultra-violet rays and electromagnetic radiation. These elements are all around us, from televisions, computers, cell phones, microwave towers.
“So hemp clothing really is protective clothing. Hemp also doesn’t make static like synthetic fibres. And face it, it’s just not very good for your general health to constantly have synthetic fibres on your skin.”

Proponents of hemp are also quick to point out that while it takes about a quarter pound of pesticides and chemical fertilizers to produce one cotton T-shirt, the demand hemp makes on the soil is virtually nil, and as a recognized nitrogen fixer, has historically been used to crowd out weeds. In other words, it’s about as environmentally friendly a textile as you are going to find.

Although most of Green Babilon’s clothing designs are geared towards younger people— skate wear, jeans, cargo pants and the like—Kleinman says she has no shortage of older business-type customers regularly stopping by to stock up on her more conservative hemp-wear items, like dress shirts and pants. “A lot of our stuff looks just as good on a 50 year old as it does on a teenager. We use a lot of really nice earthy colours, which goes a long way.”

Odour-eating action

“But where hemp is really starting to take off,” continues Kleinman, “is in sportswear. Hemp does wonders for body odour, you know. To give you an indication of how the demand for hemp is growing and becoming more acceptable, we’re actually working on a contract right now to produce school uniforms. When you’re talking about a classroom full of smelly 14-year-old boys, there’s no denying that hemp can be a real asset.”

Nevertheless, Kleinman says there is still some confusion about hemp’s properties and claims she has to regularly remind people that you can’t actually smoke the clothes she sells. “There’s been a concerted effort by the DEA in the States to tell people that hemp is the same as marijuana, but we’re fighting against that. We’ve come a long way with education in Canada over the past five years or so.”

Unfortunately, due to the high demand and a worldwide lack of facilities currently available to process raw hemp into a quality textile fibre, for the moment hemp costs approximately twice as much as its cotton equivalent. But Green Babilon and the several other stores in town selling hemp products—like Hemp-Quebec in Verdun, or Je L’Ai on Duluth—claim they can still offer competitive pricing. At Green Babilon hemp jeans start at $69 and prices for T-shirts begin at $29.95, which, in the grand scheme of things, is hardly exorbitant.

But as education and the demand for hemp increases, it’s only a matter of time before the infrastructure will be in place to deliver the finished textile at a cheaper price. “There’s just a shortage of it to go around right now,” says Kleinman. “There are massive contracts we could go after, but there’s just not enough fabric in the world. Even Levis, when they wanted to do a hemp jean, had to abandon the plan because they couldn’t find the quantities of hemp they needed to go through with it. But, it’s only a matter of time before these things get worked out. There’s a very bright future for hemp.” l