Hemp, which was Kentucky's biggest cash crop for a century before tobacco, is poised for a comeback thanks to bipartisan legislation introduced Thursday in Congress. It's about time.

Regular hemp cultivation in this country was banned in 1937. That's when federal law enforcement officials, who feared the repeal of Prohibition would leave them nothing to do, launched the first war on drugs.

With a lot of "reefer madness" hype, the government banned marijuana. Also swept up in that ban was industrial hemp, a botanical cousin in the cannabis family that looks similar to pot but can't make you high no matter how much you smoke.

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