For thousands of years, the hemp plant has been part of daily life in diverse cultures around the world.
In 5th century BC, Greek historian Herodotus described the Scythian people who lived on the Eurasian edge of the western world, and where hemp also grew.
So instead of calamus or spice cane, as labelled in the German standard translation of the Bible, it actually meant cannabis.
We consider ourselves Beguine revivalists, and we reach back to pre-Christian practices,” says Sister Kate, who founded the sisterhood in 2014.
The nuns explain that hemp, a strain of marijuana, has very low levels of Tetrahydrocannabinol , the psychoactive compound in the plant.
Members turn the hemp into cannabis-based balms and ointments, which they say have the power to improve health and well-being.
More than two dozen US states have legalized some form of marijuana for medical or recreational use, but the drug remains illegal at the federal level.
President Donald Trump’s administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a longtime critic of marijuana legalization, have worried some in the country’s nascent legalized marijuana industry.
“The thing Trump has done for us is put a fire under our butts to get launched in another country,” says Sister Kate.
In 1909, during the renovation of a Swedish church, five roughly 3,000-year-old tapestries from the Viking era were rediscovered, some of which had been made from hemp.
The first two drafts of the American Declaration of Independence were also recorded on hemp paper.
With the expansion of motorized shipping, easier-to-process raw materials such as cotton could be imported in bulk and at cheaper costs, and the hemp industry shrank over the long term.
Hemp’s demise happened with the active support of Harry Anslinger, who as head of the top US Drug Enforcement Administration promoted the demonization of cannabis for over 30 years.
Rediscovering and developing such non-petroleum-based technologies may not be the sole cure-all, but hemp could at least be a building block to a more sustainable economy.
Unlike 200 years ago, hemp plants in the country are completely out of the public eye, paving the way for myths generated from the camps of supporters and opponents alike.
French soldiers, who took home hashish made from the resin of female cannabis plants from Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign in 1798, played a key role in spreading it.
The only evidence: in 1890, her personal physician John Russel Reynolds noted in a medical journal the “great value” of cannabis in treating an array of conditions.
That’s not quite true: the document, vacuum-sealed and behind thick panes of glass at the National Archives in Washington, DC, was written on parchment paper.
“Reefer Madness,” originally financed by a church group under the title “Tell Your Childen,” was a 1936 US propaganda movie that depicted young people as immediately addicted, violent and crazy after consuming cannabis.
Back then, Harry Anslinger, the racist head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, had been fighting for prohibition since the 1930s.