This article by Erin Hiatt was originally published on Weedmaps, and appears here with permission. If you've ever eaten hemp seeds, worn a hemp bracelet, or used body care products with hemp as an ingredient, you might find it hard to believe that cannabis's non-intoxicating cousin was't legal in the U.S. until 2018, when lawmakers finally made hemp legal as part of the 2018 Farm Bill after more than 80 years of prohibition. Prior to hemp's legalization, and because of arcane FDA rules about the harmless crop, US farmers were not allowed to grow it on US soil. Prior to 2018, some parts of the hemp plant, primarily textile made from hemp fiber and seeds from the aerial parts of the plant, could be imported to the US as long as the product contained less than 0.3% THC. This shortsightedness turned out to be a big financial loss for US markets since prohibition on hemp didn't discourage consumers from seeking it out.