Reefer madness and the future of hemp

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hemp used to be a staple of life in America. King James I demanded that colonists produce it. Hemp rope and fabric were ubiquitous throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The USDA even produced a WWII newsreel called “Hemp for Victory.” But other materials came to replace hemp – wood pulp for paper, and cotton and synthetics for fabric. Why? For that matter, what is hemp? Is it different from weed? And does it actually have 25,000 uses as its proponents claim? Featuring Hector “Freedom” Gerardo, David Suchoff, John Fike, and Danny Desjarlais. Note: This episode originally aired in April, 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Let's go this way.
0:05.0	Oh boy.
0:08.0	Hey Nate.
0:09.0	Hey Felix.
0:10.0	So the other day I met up with a guy in rural Connecticut.
0:13.0	And he had this vicious pack of cute dogs.
0:17.0	Their names were Panyo, Commodata, and Hulk.
0:20.0	Great names. So they're about 13arada, and Hulk. Great names.
0:21.6	So they're about 13 and 12?
0:23.6	Yeah.
0:24.6	Oh, no.
0:25.6	I can't pay for that. There's no insurance.
0:28.6	Let's go.
0:29.6	Hulk, I imagine, was not actually very big.
0:31.6	No, no. He was the smallest one of them all.
0:34.6	But anyways, the guy I'm here to meet, his name is Ector Herardo.
0:39.7	But he goes by Freedom.
0:41.0	Freedom?
0:41.6	Yes.
0:42.4	Okay.
0:42.8	And Freedom brings me to a table with a bunch of items on it laid out kind of like a table
0:47.9	at a flea market.
	...

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