Happy Hemp-day
Lately there has been a movement in the United States Farming communities to legalize the growth and sale of industrial hemp. This cannot be confused with the Marijuana legalization efforts, as hemp and Mary Jane are distinctly different cousins. But Hemp is a very valuable material, and could be even more valuable if legalized for massive commercial and industrial production. For some reason, the government has vilified hemp so much, thanks to the MORONIC DEA, that it is illegal to grow despite the fact that it's legal to import and sell industrial hemp. So basically the government is saying that their illogical and ignorant prohibition on hemp should only be used to hurt our economy and help out those in Eastern Europe, Canada and elsewhere. Why else would we allow it to be imported and sold while it's illegal to produce within our borders?
When I went to Canna-Trade in Switzerland in 2004 I learned about all kinds of uses for hemp that have been relatively unknown. Did you know that there's actually a hemp plastic? Imagine if we could produce our own plastic on a farm in North Dakota instead of using oil. Hemp can also be used to make cloth, like the sails of the Santa Maria (you know, that ship that "discovered" America), Mayflower (the one with all those religious zealots) and now they can produce fine clothing with similar quality to that of cotton. How about construction? 70% of the Cannabis plant's total weight is made up of the 'hurd' or woody inner core. This part of the plant is THC free and can be used in housing construction. The silica leached from soil by the plant combined with unslaked lime (calcium oxide) forms a chemical bond similar to cement which is both fire and waterproof. Sounds like a pretty good plant, eh?
That's not it either, there are also nutritional values with the oil being one of the richest sources of Omega fatty acids. Hemp also contains 31% complete and highly-digestible protein, 1/3 as edestin protein and 2/3 as albumin protein. This protein profile is second only to raw uncooked soybeans (35% vs. 31%), and the amino acid profile is superior to soybean, human milk, and cow's milk, and similar to egg whites. Hemp can be used to make paper, being far more effecient than trees in that matter. This list of the uses of hemp goes on too...Woody Harrelson has driven around the country in a van fueled only by bio-fuel made from hemp oil, it has medicinal uses, and is even good for animal feed.
So what is the holdup? The DEA claims that the main reasons why they are opposing the attempts of California and North Dakota farmers to grow hemp is that it's too hard to distinguish between the THC (the psychoactive chemical in Marijuana) laden and non-THC laden strains and that people steal it because "it looks like dope". Seriously, is this their main reason? Isn't it sad that people that dumb are allowed to carry weapons and tap our phones? If that's the only reason to keep industrial hemp illegal, why are Poppies grown for display at county fairs and farms? They are a lot easier to confuse with a much more addictive drugs that are derived from poppies. The television show MythBusters demonstrated that one could test positive for narcotics after consuming 4 poppy seed bagels, so why are we allowed to buy a poppy bagel from Einstein's?
Obviously if we're looking for logic, the US government is not the place to look. But this is a nation based on capitalism, and nothing about the hemp ban seems in line with our capitalistic ways. Accoring to NORML, hemp is in the top 10 of cash crops in basically every state ( http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4525&wtm_view=crop10 ), but since it's illegal, the billions made from hemp are wasted in the black market and abroad. If we just taxed the farmers who wished to grow hemp we could have our own production of this valuable plant. You could even keep marijuana illegal if you wanted to continue this futile prohibition, but keeping hemp illegal is devastating to our economy. Imagine if California could tax the estimated $4,000,000,000 a year earned with marijuana/hemp by just 10% (I'd suggest we'd tax it closer to 50%), that would add $400,000,000 to California's economy alone. Think that could be used to help drug education and treatment? To me, it's just stupidity that is keeping us from joining the EU, Canada and even Mexico in the 21st century.
When I went to Canna-Trade in Switzerland in 2004 I learned about all kinds of uses for hemp that have been relatively unknown. Did you know that there's actually a hemp plastic? Imagine if we could produce our own plastic on a farm in North Dakota instead of using oil. Hemp can also be used to make cloth, like the sails of the Santa Maria (you know, that ship that "discovered" America), Mayflower (the one with all those religious zealots) and now they can produce fine clothing with similar quality to that of cotton. How about construction? 70% of the Cannabis plant's total weight is made up of the 'hurd' or woody inner core. This part of the plant is THC free and can be used in housing construction. The silica leached from soil by the plant combined with unslaked lime (calcium oxide) forms a chemical bond similar to cement which is both fire and waterproof. Sounds like a pretty good plant, eh?
That's not it either, there are also nutritional values with the oil being one of the richest sources of Omega fatty acids. Hemp also contains 31% complete and highly-digestible protein, 1/3 as edestin protein and 2/3 as albumin protein. This protein profile is second only to raw uncooked soybeans (35% vs. 31%), and the amino acid profile is superior to soybean, human milk, and cow's milk, and similar to egg whites. Hemp can be used to make paper, being far more effecient than trees in that matter. This list of the uses of hemp goes on too...Woody Harrelson has driven around the country in a van fueled only by bio-fuel made from hemp oil, it has medicinal uses, and is even good for animal feed.
So what is the holdup? The DEA claims that the main reasons why they are opposing the attempts of California and North Dakota farmers to grow hemp is that it's too hard to distinguish between the THC (the psychoactive chemical in Marijuana) laden and non-THC laden strains and that people steal it because "it looks like dope". Seriously, is this their main reason? Isn't it sad that people that dumb are allowed to carry weapons and tap our phones? If that's the only reason to keep industrial hemp illegal, why are Poppies grown for display at county fairs and farms? They are a lot easier to confuse with a much more addictive drugs that are derived from poppies. The television show MythBusters demonstrated that one could test positive for narcotics after consuming 4 poppy seed bagels, so why are we allowed to buy a poppy bagel from Einstein's?
Obviously if we're looking for logic, the US government is not the place to look. But this is a nation based on capitalism, and nothing about the hemp ban seems in line with our capitalistic ways. Accoring to NORML, hemp is in the top 10 of cash crops in basically every state ( http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4525&wtm_view=crop10 ), but since it's illegal, the billions made from hemp are wasted in the black market and abroad. If we just taxed the farmers who wished to grow hemp we could have our own production of this valuable plant. You could even keep marijuana illegal if you wanted to continue this futile prohibition, but keeping hemp illegal is devastating to our economy. Imagine if California could tax the estimated $4,000,000,000 a year earned with marijuana/hemp by just 10% (I'd suggest we'd tax it closer to 50%), that would add $400,000,000 to California's economy alone. Think that could be used to help drug education and treatment? To me, it's just stupidity that is keeping us from joining the EU, Canada and even Mexico in the 21st century.
posted by Dan Pasternack at 5:12 PM
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