It's not as miraculous as some people in the US will go on and on about. I mean, it is definitely a useful plant but it's legal in many countries and hasn't become a major crop.

It's not technically legal in any country because of a UN treaty. I think part of the reason it hasn't 'taken off' in countries where laws aren't enforced/it's decriminalized/etc is because you can't transport it over the border, you can't sell to big clients in America (or anywhere else), the laws regarding distribution on such a large scale aren't clear enough even in places where it is "legal" so no one wants to put all their eggs in the marijuana basket at this point.

Hemp is marijuana as they are different names for the same plant, but industrial hemp has extremely low levels of psychoactive compounds.

Edit - apparently I may be wrong and marijuana plants are only the drug producing strains of the cannabis plant, but hemp and cannabis are more interchangeable as cannabis is the genus.

The reason for banning it is more about stuff like flying over a field with detection equipment looking for marijuana, it's not because hemp will get you high.

Looking at the history of it, the reason for banning it seems to be largely down to pressure from the cotton industry. So, the fact that some strains could get you high was the method used to outlaw it, not the reason why it was outlawed.

Ugh, I forgot I was posting in a pot thread.

maybe consider cutting back a little...

According to the BBC article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28770876, the original article author says "The hemp we use is perfectly legal to grow. It has no THC in it at all - so there's no overlap with any recreational activities."

You sir are absolutely correct. I first read about the uses of hemp a long while ago in Uncle Johns Bathroom reader (I shit you not). And that got me curious and looked into it more and its uses are quite vast and the cost to produce is relatively cheap! But again, existing industries have completely suffocated its growth through political influence and so virtually no one knows about its practicality. Real shame...

There's likely some bias here because stories about hemp tend to get better media coverage than other similar discoveries.

At any rate researchers can get it easily enough, so I highly doubt we're in some kind of lack-of-hemp-induced dark age.

Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp