A cotton shirt in 1776 cost $100 to $200, while a hemp shirt cost 50 cents to $1. By the 1830s, cooler, lighter cotton shirts were on par in price with the warmer, heavier, hempen shirts feminized cannabis seeds, providing a competitive choice of. People were able to choose their garments based upon the particular qualities they wanted in a fabric. Today we have no such choice. The role of hemp and other natural fibers should be determined by the market of supply and demand and personal tastes and values, not by the undue influence of prohibition laws, federal subsidies and huge tariffs that keep the natural fabrics from replacing synthetic fibers.