Much of Canada's forestry production goes towards making pulp  and paper. According to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Canada supplies 34% of the world's wood pulp and 49% of its newsprint paper. If these paper products could be produced in some other way, Canadian forests could be preserved. Recently, a possible alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by agriculturalists and environmentalists: a plant called hemp. Hemp has been grown by many countries. It produces fiber which can be made into paper, fuel, oils, textiles, food, and rope. For centuries, it was essential to the economies of many countries because it was used to make the ropes and cables used on sailing ships; colonial expansion and the establishment of a world-wide trading network would not have been possible without hemp. Nowadays, ships' cables are usually made from wire, but scientists are now suggesting that the growing of hemp should be revived  for the production. According to its supporters, four times as much paper can be produced from land using hemp rather than trees, and many environmentalists believe that the large-scale growing of hemp could reduce the pressure on Canada's forests. However, there is a problem: hemp is illegal in many countries of the world. This plant, so useful for fiber, rope, oil, fuel and textiles, is a species related to the plant from which marijuana  is produced. In fact, marijuana cannot be produced from the hemp plant, since it contains almost no THC(the active ingredient in the drug). In recent years, a movement for legalization has been gathering strength. It is concerned only with the hemp plant used to produce fiber; this group wants to make it legal to grow the plant and sell the fiber for production. Why was the plant hemp essential to worldwide trade in the past?
Ships' ropes were made from it. Hemp was a very profitable export. Hemp was used as fuel for ships. Hemp was used as food for sailors.