PORTAGE TO CLAIM BACK THE JOBS LOST A YEAR AGO WHEN ENERGIZER COMPANY BOLTED. NEW OPPORTUNITIES CONNECT GLOBAL PROJECTS IN ENERGY STORAGE, BASED ON UW MILWAUKEE RESEARCH.
HEMP = MARIJUANA ERA IS SOON OVER.
CONNECTIONS TO GLOBAL INVESTMENT TO BE ANNOUNCED.
THE last time hemp was an industry in Wisconsin was in the late 1940s. The US War Department, during WWII, launched a Hemp for Victory campaign after the Japanese cut off Philippine supplies of hemp fiber, which was a strategic material for ropes and all manner of canvas. The word "canvas" is in fact derived from "cannabis" which we all assume to mean "get stoned", while historically it means "to go sailing." But now hemp can assume yet another meaning for Wisconsin, "to get charged up", as the batteries produced by the Wisconsin Battery Company will find their way into the transportation infrastructure of Nigeria, where a local engineer has developed a 'tuk-tuk', a 3 wheeled taxi, to operate on solar power only, replacing the gas engine. The batteries made in Portage will certainly stimulate the conversation about hemp toward its true legacy as a strategic natural resource, shut down in the US for political reasons.
Even going back to the 1910s in Wisconsin, hemp was firmly established as a utilitarian product for its fiber, which resists mold and has amazing flexibility in many forms, especially today with advanced engineering and the demand for alternatives to plastic and synthetics.
Speaking of synthetics, it has long been speculated that DuPont was key in putting hemp in the closet, as they invented in 1935 a new product called nylon. At the time, plastics were quite primitive compared to today, so nylon represented a new synthetic fiber that DuPont could manufacture and corner the market on ropes, fabrics, etc. Except that hemp was not manufactured, no one owned the intellectual property which DuPont could buy. So it appears highly likely that DuPont and their connections to the US government, which were quite strong, determined to outlaw the competition, by means of the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act. This was the era of 'Reefer Madness' which reflected some of the racist elements of politics, because young white people were discovering this marijuana being imported, legally, from Mexico and consumed mainly by jazz musicians in the 20s and 30s.
Then in 1972, Richard Nixon put the nail in the coffin of his political enemies, the blacks and the hippies by creating the War on Drugs, contradicting his own Shafer Commission report that urged reducing criminalizing marijuana. Their advice was not what Nixon wanted to hear. According to Nixon advisor John Ehrlichman, "We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
So, 2024. As rural communities struggle to regain economic vitality and cultural relevance, the modern hemp industry is driven by these painful issues as a positive political cause with huge economic implications for Wisconsin as well as the world. What's been needed, to get beyond the 'narcotics' stigma, is a Wisconsin Battery.
Yet batteries and electronics are only one of the more innovative market sectors. Also about to emerge is hemp construction materials as being proven by the Lower Sioux tribe in Minnesota. This is about the housing crisis. Then there is hemp paper, addressing Wisconsin's need for paper and packaging. And for the carpet and flooring industry in Georgia. The fashion and textile industry is desperate for new bio-products, with the cannabis (canvas) plant as a star alternative to cotton. And nylon.
It all comes back to the humble town of Portage and how other small towns across the state can become stakeholders in any of these entrepreneurial categories. There is billions available in investment, so it's a good time for companies, communities and investors to finally get on the hemp train. It's a ground floor opportunity, and nothing like the CBD craze we were part of in 2019/2020.
Wisconsin Battery (WinBat) has even more to share with Wisconsin investors. They are offering tax incentives and there is even in place a complementary currency model to keep dollars local. We have checked this out, complementary currency is real and is working in places like the Berkshire mountains. They call it Berkshares and Wisconsin could be soon adopting similar models, with numerous advantages for the middle class people of Portage.
More to come.....