Do you know what Popular Mechanics called the "billion dollar crop" in 1938? I had no idea.
NEW BILLION-DOLLAR CROP
Popular Mechanics
February, 1938
Note: There was so little public attention and notice to the need for a ban on marijuana, or the resulting legislation (Marihuana Tax Act of 1937), that the editors apparently did not realize that it had already been outlawed when they published this article.
AMERICAN farmers are promised a new cash crop with an annual value of several hundred million dollars, all because a machine has been invented which solves a problem more than 6,000 years old. It is hemp, a crop that will not compete with other American products.
Instead, it will displace imports of raw material and manufactured products produced by underpaid coolie and peasant labor and it will provide thousands of jobs for American workers throughout the land.
