The Emperor Wears No Clothes
by Jack Herer
Economic Stability, Profit & Free Trade
We believe that in a competitive market, with all facts known, people will rush to buy long-lasting, biodegradable “Pot Tops” or “Mary Jeans,” etc., made from a plant without pesticides or herbicides. Some of the companies who have led the way with these products are Ecolution, Hempstead, Marie Mills, Ohio Hempery, Two Star Dog, Headcase, and in Germany, HanfHaus, et al.
It’s time we put capitalism to the test and let the unrestricted market of supply and demand as well as “Green” ecologically consciousness decide the future of the planet. A cotton shirt in 1776 cost $100 to $200, while a hemp shirt cost 50 cents to $1. By the 1830s, cooler, lighter cotton shirts were on par in price with the warmer, heavier, hempen shirts, providing a competitive choice.
People were able to choose their garments based upon the particular qualities they wanted in a fabric. Today we have no such choice.
The role of hemp and other natural fibers should be determined by the market of supply and demand and personal tastes and values, not by the undue influence of prohibition laws, federal subsidies and huge tariffs that keep the natural fabrics from replacing synthetic fibers.
Sixty years of government suppression of information has resulted in virtually no public knowledge of the incredible potential of the hemp fiber or its uses.
By using 100% hemp or mixing hemp with cotton, you will be able to pass on your shirts, pants and other clothing to your grandchildren. Intelligent spending could essentially replace the use of petrochemical synthetic fibers such as nylon and polyester with tougher, cheaper, cool, absorbent, breathing, biodegradable, natural fibers. China, Italy and Eastern European countries such as Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Russia currently make millions of dollars worth of sturdy hemp and hemp/cotton textiles – and could be making billions of dollars worth – annually. These countries build upon their traditional farming and weaving skills, while the U.S. tries to force the extinction of this plant to prop up destructive synthetic technologies. Even cannabis/cotton blend textiles were still not cleared for direct sale in the U.S. until 1991. The Chinese, for instance, were forced by tacit agreement to send us inferior ramie/cottons.
(National Import/Export Textile Company of Shangai, Personal communication with author, April and May, 1983.)
As the 1990 edition of The Emperor went to press, garments containing at least 55 percent cannabis hemp arrived from China and Hungary. In 1992, as we went to press, many different grades of 100 percent hemp fabric had arrived directly from China and Hungary. Now, in 1998, hemp fabric is in booming demand all over the world, arriving from Romania, Poland, Italy, Germany, et al. Hemp has been recognized as the hottest fabric of the 1990s by Rolling Stone, Time, Newsweek, Paper, Detour, Details, Mademoiselle, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Der Spiegel, ad infinitum. All have run, over and over again, major stories on industrial and nutritional hemp. Additionally, hemp grown for biomass could fuel a trillion-dollar per year energy industry, while improving air quality and distributing the wealth to rural areas and their surrounding communities, and away from centralized power monopolies. More than any other plant on Earth, hemp holds the promise of a sustainable ecology and economy.