Happy National Hemp Month

And You Used to Think It Was Just Rope

By Tripp Liles

Let’s raise a glass—preferably filled with a 20mg Delta-9 THC seltzer—to National Hemp Month, that magical time of year when we pretend hemp is still about textiles and George Washington’s breeches.

Once upon a time, hemp had a pretty vanilla reputation. It was the crunchy granola cousin of marijuana—good for making rope, sails, and maybe a homespun shirt if you were feeling particularly Amish. It was the cannabis plant you brought home to mom. You could eat it, build with it, or tie a knot with it—but get high on it? Perish the thought. That was for its bad-boy twin, marijuana, lurking in the shadows with its jazz music and racial undertones.

But then came the 2018 Farm Bill—aka the Great Cannabis Rebrand—and suddenly, hemp had a glow-up. The government, in its infinite legislative precision, declared that any cannabis plant containing less than 0.3% Delta-9 THC by dry weight was hemp. Everything else? Marijuana. Voilà! A totally arbitrary line in the sand gave birth to a billion-dollar industry. Hemp was no longer just a plant—it was a legal loophole with a marketing budget.

Suddenly, hemp was selling gummies that would leave your grandma talking to the mailman about Atlantis. You could now buy “hemp-derived” THC in states where weed is still technically more illegal than jaywalking in a school zone. The shelves filled with a multitude of cannabinoids that sound more like Elon Musk's kid names than something you'd find in a plant.

And here’s the kicker: it’s all the same plant. Hemp. Marijuana. Indica. Sativa. Ruderalis if you’re nasty. All of them are Cannabis sativa L. The only difference is how high they’ll get you and whether the feds feel like bothering you today.

This war of words—hemp vs. marijuana—is a bureaucratic fever dream. “Marijuana” wasn’t even the term botanists used; it was a slang word borrowed and weaponized in the 1930s during prohibitionist campaigns to make the plant sound foreign, scary, and un-American. Meanwhile, “hemp” got to stay behind in the barn, clean and legal, even though they both share the same damn DNA.

So here we are in 2025, celebrating National Hemp Month in a world where hemp is getting people legally lifted while marijuana remains a Schedule I drug in many states. Hemp is being used for plastic alternatives, sustainable housing, and energy—but more notably, it's showing up in peach rings that slap harder than your first dab.

And still, there are lawmakers—some of whom probably do wear hemp suits—trying to shut it all down. They act shocked, shocked, that people figured out how to legally extract the psychoactive compounds from hemp and put them in everything from brownies to seltzers to suppositories.

But guess what? The American public isn’t confused. They don’t care what it’s called—they care that it works, that it’s safe, and that they have the freedom to choose it over booze, pills, or whatever Big Pharma is pushing this week.

So let’s toast to hemp—the punk rock rebel of agriculture. The plant that went from colonial workhorse to 21st-century disruptor. A plant that’s confusing lawmakers, uniting stoners and soccer moms, and reminding us that words only matter when you let them. It’s all cannabis. It always has been.

Now pass the “hemp-derived” joint and let’s celebrate like it’s 1776.