I am interested in all things hemp, so it made sense to do some research on the booming industries all surrounding God’s most giving plant, marijuana/cannabis. I decided to look up a company called Global Hemp who has been providing hemp products since 1996. Wouldn’t you know, I called the phone order number (866 409.4367) and the founder, and president answered. It turns out that the company has realign their methods with their original purpose several times. Eric, the president talked about his early beginnings with just a bunch of friends, crafts people and some loose connections with hemp clothing producers. He spoke of how hemp oil was a major product that he emphasized early on, but interest in all the other products that can be made with hemp kept on being a popular customer request. So they expended their online business.
He seems to have surrounded himself with people who are in the industry because they love it. It is sort of a counter culture industry, and in fact, many states outlaw what he does. He does not sell any products that could be considered drugs, yet still some states have outlawed his activity. He spoke of Kentucky and how they consider his t-shirts to be drugs. But in 2009 Ron Paul put out a proposition that industries using the hemp plant that actually isn’t even the same plant you smoke to get high, could operate farms and engage in so-called side industries, without being attacked by the DEA or State police. All things considered he has not gotten a lot of attention by any Federal or State law enforcement in the past 20 years he has been doing business. He said to me that mostly nobody cares, yet on the books, there are still laws in some states that prohibit his business.
Another issue that came up after he had been selling hemp clothing, he noticed that the quality of the merchandise was very low. He said that buttons were not sewn on properly, the fabric wasn’t always authentic. So he actually completely shut down his clothing branch, which was a major part of the company by then, and just survived on selling all the other products. This sent a message to the clothing manufacturers that they better up their quality or he would never buy another piece of clothing from them. This was a bold move that cost him a lot of money, but he just wasn’t comfortable selling clothes that fell apart. Eventually, he started up the clothing section again, with new manufacturers and his company is probably the number one hemp clothing company in the United States.
What is going to allow Global Hemp to continually stay in alignment with their goals, the distribution of quality hemp products, is their insistence on quality, their belief in the product and the plant as a benevolent provider for the entire earth and changing laws in the United States and around the world, education on hemp/cannabis plant, the destruction of old ignorant fears, the propaganda of “reefer madness” yellow journalism that covers cannabis issues and the opening up of DuPont to become, instead of a competitor against hemp, to a competitor in hemp use and production. We may actually see DuPont move into cannabis industry, but the bad news is that they would probably use Monsanto seeds. The industry continues to grow and mature. There is so much money to be made now that your grandparents, after church on Sunday, may drive back to their hemp farm to watch the biggest money making project they have ever tried, allowing them to retire in style.
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