by Matt McGrath

About the author: Matt McGrath is an engineering graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

One of the best known plants on Earth is cannabis. It has been a part of civilizations for thousands of years, in one form or another. It has been most widely used in history under another name, hemp. The hemp plant yields very strong fibers that can be used to make fabric and paper and yields seeds that are very high in protein. For hundreds of years, the plant was harvested in many parts of the world to supply these basic needs. It was one of the first crops planted in the new world and was harvested by many of the founding fathers. In some strains of the plant—cannabis sativa and more commonly, cannabis indica—the flowering buds were...