I think it has been the efforts of the US government to stop people growing it, and the strength of the cotton lobby, plus the agrobusiness lobbies. Hemp unlike cotton requires little insecticide and fertiliser. It is simply too easy to grow to find favour.
According to some accounts, Columbus’s secret technology to reach the Americas was hemp rope, which could last a Transatlantic voyage. Francois Rabelais, writing in the mid-1500s, described it as a truly miraculous substance that could be used to make medicine and cloth.
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