The government actually encouraged farmers to grow hemp during the second world war. My grandparents, being good patriotic Americans, turned over one of their tobacco fields to hemp production in that era. Later on they let the field go back to pasture for their small herd of dairy cows. Students from Eastern Kentucky University used to jump the fence around the pasture in hopes of finding the stray hemp plant still growing here and there. It irritated my grandfather no end because the kids would upset the dairy cows and their milk production went down. I suppose the milk from those cows got everyone in Richmond, Kentucky high.
