SO, one time in about November of 1993 I was flying D.C. -> L.A. and there was this guy next to me on the plane who had a giant walking stick made of hemp. I asked about it and was given a sort of primer on hemp...I had heard of hemp b/c my dad wrote a book about NORML and its founder, and that whole movement, but I did not know there was a hemp movement in and of itself!
Well, he was jailed for having the walking stick...apparently the government takes hemp and hemp products (non-cannabis hemp products) very seriously indeed. I always wondered about hemp after that...it must really threaten some other industry to have this big fight against it!