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I'm pro-legalization, but you need a reality check.

First, while hemp is a good natural fiber, synthetic and natural/synthetic composites are much stronger, and in all likelihood cheaper as well. Hemp rope may have some use, but you are basically telling us how the horse transportation rules in the age of modern automobiles. Unless you tightly constrain and qualify that, it is essentially nonsense in the general case.

Second, hemp is an INFERIOR fiber for a great many things you list, such as paper. Any paper engineer can tell you that the best general purpose paper base is soft fir pulp. You can make paper with lots of things, but in the real world soft fir pulp is a superior solution as a matter of science and engineering. Why the hell would anyone want to use hemp for paper today?

Lastly, you are essentially setting up your own little strawman to support the legalization of marijuana. Nothing you've written actually qualifies hemp as useful. If you wanted to make that argument, you'd lose by and large. The reason for legalizing marijuana has nothing to do with who grew it and what it was used for a couple centuries ago.

RE: hemp is an INFERIOR fiber for a great many things you list, such as paper.

some of the history of hemp including the following can be found at http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0199/et0199s11.html

"Hemp paper is naturally acid-free. The oldest printed paper in existence is a 100 percent hemp Chinese text dated to 770 AD. Thomas Jefferson drafted both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution on hemp paper.

Hemp's cellulose level is almost three times that of wood, so it makes superior paper and yields four times as much pulp per acre as trees. The hemp paper process also utilizes less energy and fewer chemicals than tree paper processing and doesn't create the harmful dioxins, chloroform, or any of the other 2,000 chlorinated organic compounds that have been identified as byproducts of the wood paper process.

Hemp is a sustainable, annual crop that is ready for harvest just 120 days after going to seed, compared to trees which take tens or hundreds of years to reach maturity. Further, harvesting hemp doesn't destroy the natural habitats of thousands of distinct animal and plant species.

Historically, hemp was an important source of paper fiber until the early 1900's when chemicals were developed to advance the wood paper pulp industry. Wood pulp paper rode the chemical revolution to its apex before the public health hazards of toxic chemicals were an issue and before the environmental consequences of clear-cutting forests were appreciated."

RE: The reason for legalizing marijuana has nothing to do with who grew it and what it was used for a couple centuries ago.

Relegalization needs no more reasoning than a reading of the constitution and a good look at alcohol prohibitions amendment issues. However, founding fathers point of view is certainly enlightening and those unwilling to learn from the past are bound to repeat its follies. Moreover, with respect to time, HERB has been with mankind since the beginning of time as evidenced abundantly from the Bible to sunken shiploads in the mediterranean, to the Hemp barrer of the Cherokee long before the white man came to this land.