Hemp is turning a new leaf in Taranaki, with a house made of the marijuana-like plant featuring on tonight's Grand Designs NZ.

Hemp isn’t just for hackin’ the sack at Phish shows or making rope. This amazing plant, a non-psychoactive variety of cannabis grown specifically for industrial purposes, has a vast number of applications for a greener planet.

Alaska became the third state to legalize recreational marijuana in 2015, but it’s not exactly ahead of the curve on hemp, which comes from the same plant.

Alaska became the third state to legalize recreational marijuana in 2015, but it’s not exactly ahead of the curve on hemp, which comes from the same plant.

Hempcrete — a mixture of hemp stalk, water and lime — could pave the way toward a sustainable future.

As marijuana laws continue to loosen across the country -- and the world -- it looks like hemp could be brought back in a big way.

One acre of hemp can reportedly yield up to 5,300 pounds of straw, which can be turned into 1,300 pounds of wood fiber.

While plenty of cannabis goes up in smoke in coffee shops around the Netherlands, Dutch researchers have found a new use for it - as an environmentally friendly building material to rival cement or steel.

Though commercial marijuana became legal in Alaska in February 2015, hemp is not yet legal.

Though commercial marijuana became legal in Alaska in February 2015, hemp is not yet legal.

The plant is almost magical, advocates say, with a range of applications from paper to medicine. So why is it illegal to grow?

As interest in industrial hemp has grown, so too has interest in hemp-centric production.

A cutting-edge refinery is processing specially bred hemp and researching innovative new biomaterials that could help build future eco-friendly homes.

Hemp is a low impact, fast-growing and clean plant to produce, and extremely versatile.

Use of hemp as a construction material is part of the revival of the crop in America, thanks to entrepreneurs who are thinking big — and small, including a Colorado firm that hosts workshops on hempcrete and builds tiny hemp houses.