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A New Deal for the South
Author: velveeta jones    Date: 03/29/2009 13:31:59

It has 10's of 1000's of uses as a product, its easy to grow, it can create jobs, it doesn't harm the soil like tobacco does, and you can't get high from it. So why is it illegal?

I speak of course, of Hemp. The question that should have been asked of President Obama last week in his open question appearance instead of "Hey duuuuude, what about ganja man, weed, you know..... pot'.

With 25,000 known applications from paper, clothing and food products -- which, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal back in January, is the fastest growing new food category in North America -- to construction and automotive materials, hemp could be just the crop to jump-start America's green economy. Especially here in the south with its vacant tobacco farms and fields.

But growing it still remains illegal due to the (very low) THC found in the plant. The U.S. just refuses to distinguish between the two plants, as do most people who still confuse it with the other Cannibas, Marijuana. Despite the FDA's ban on letting us grow it, we can import it - lots of it - where it is legal to grow, in Canada. We also import it from China (where it may or may not also contain Lead. Well, no.... that's just speculation and paranoia on my part. Sorry).

Hemp can not only help our struggling economy but it is a "green" product as well. According to Wiki (which I must admit is not always reliable):

Industrial hemp has many uses, including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food, and fuel. It is one of the fastest growing biomasses known, and one of the earliest domesticated plants known. It also runs parallel with the "Green Future" objectives that are becoming increasingly popular. Hemp requires little to no pesticides, no herbicides, controls erosion of the topsoil, and produces oxygen. Furthermore, hemp can be used to replace many potentially harmful products, such as tree paper (the processing of which uses chlorine bleach, which results in the waste product polychlorinated dibensodioxins, popularly known as dioxins, which are carcinogenic, and contribute to deforestation), cosmetics, and plastics, most of which are petroleum-based and do not decompose easily. The strongest chemical needed to whiten the already light hemp paper is non-toxic hydrogen peroxide.


According to an Australian website (oh yeah, its also grown in Australia, along with France and several other of our European friends) the plant was used thousand years before the time of Christ until 1883 AD, and it was our planet's largest agricultural crop and most important industry.

Here is a short list of things that can be made using Industrial Hemp. Imagine the factories that could open up to produce these things: Paper (Hemp only takes 4 months to grow, unlike the tree's we currently use), clothing, Protein powders, Protein bars, Kitty litter, building materials, anything where fiberglass is currently used, feminine products, Linens, lamp oil, shoes, cars.....

Wait a minute. Cars? Seems so....... I found this on a Hemp companies website:

Henry Ford dreamed that someday automobiles would be grown from the soil. The Ford motor company, after years of research produced an automobile with a plastic body. Its tough body used a mixture of 70% cellulose fibres from Hemp. The plastic withstood blows 10 times as great as steel could without denting! Its weight was also 2/3 that of a regular car, producing better economy. Henry Ford was forced to use petroleum due to Hemp prohibition. His plans to fuel his fleet of automotive vehicles with plant-power also failed due to Alcohol prohibition.


Weird.

So, Mr. President, its time to talk about Industrial Hemp, "the other Cannibas plant". Duuuuude.
 

17 comments (Latest Comment: 03/30/2009 02:23:24 by trojanrabbit)
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Comment by AuntAzalea on 03/29/2009 13:47:11
Great blog- I never heard about the hemp automobile idea- love that.

Comment by Raine on 03/29/2009 14:59:29
A hemp mobile!



Did you also know that Henry Ford and Thomas Edison AND Harvey Firestone created a rubber out of GoldenRod?
The chemical laboratory is one of the most absorbing features of the Edison Estate. Here, workers helped Edison in his research on goldenrod as a source of natural rubber. Throughout the laboratory, where Edison conducted his last major experiments, all of his things are just as they were in his lifetime, including his "cat-nap" cot. Because of his deafness, Edison's sleep was undisturbed and relaxed him so much that 15 minute sleep to him was as good as is several hours to anyone else.



When the price of rubber soared in the late 1920’s, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone combined their efforts, talents and finances in search of a natural source for rubber. Together they established the Edison Botanic Research Company. Extensive research proved Goldenrod, a common weed growing to an average height of 3-4 feet, produced 5% yield of latex. Through hybridization, Edison produced Goldenrod in excess of 12 feet, yielding 12% latex.




Why don't we use them?

The rubber produced through Edison's process was resilient and long lasting. The tires on the Model T given to him by his friend Henry Ford were made from goldenrod. Examples of the rubber can still be found in his laboratory, elastic and rot free after more than 50 years. However, even though Edison turned his research over to the U.S. government a year before his death, goldenrod rubber never went beyond the experimental stage.


Comment by trojanrabbit on 03/29/2009 15:01:07
Good morning all



Lucky is rolling around on the carpet trying to cover himself with the catnip we just put down. Cleo is upstairs in the guest room waiting in vain for the sun to come through the window.



This news is a few days old, but yay - Chinese quality control strikes again!

Comment by BobR on 03/29/2009 15:07:22
There is absolutely no reason to outlaw hemp production - it should definitely be allowed.



I suspect the reason that it's still outlawed is that it is visually difficult to distinguish from the fun kind, so they're afraid people will hide them amongst the hemp plants.

Comment by livingonli on 03/29/2009 16:03:12
Hemp car? Awesome, dude.

Comment by velveeta jones on 03/29/2009 17:38:22
Quote by BobR:

There is absolutely no reason to outlaw hemp production - it should definitely be allowed.



I suspect the reason that it's still outlawed is that it is visually difficult to distinguish from the fun kind, so they're afraid people will hide them amongst the hemp plants.




Yes, thats certainly a valid point. However, if a farmer is making enough money to grow Hemp legally, only a fool would try to hide a pot field in the middle. Or, perhaps just grow enough for his/her own personal use. Well, therein lays a problem.







Comment by Raine on 03/29/2009 17:47:04
Quote by velveeta jones:

Quote by BobR:

There is absolutely no reason to outlaw hemp production - it should definitely be allowed.



I suspect the reason that it's still outlawed is that it is visually difficult to distinguish from the fun kind, so they're afraid people will hide them amongst the hemp plants.




Yes, thats certainly a valid point. However, if a farmer is making enough money to grow Hemp legally, only a fool would try to hide a pot field in the middle. Or, perhaps just grow enough for his/her own personal use. Well, therein lays a problem.





True, but it would solve a lot of problems by allowing people to grow enough for personal use, should they choose.



I would have no problem with regulation of this type.



Comment by TriSec on 03/29/2009 19:04:38
Afternoon, folks!



Ah, there's some family history here. In the late 19th and early 20th Century, the family Matayabas on the Isle of Mindanao, grew vast fields of industrial hemp.



The biggest customer was Uncle Sam; the US Navy used it to make rope.



My grandpa saw the writing on the wall in the 1920s, however...and fled to the West Coast before the Japanese got their hands on the island. Alas, the family did lose everything, and grandpa cursed the Japanese with his last breath in 1979 (or so papa TriSec tells me.)



anyway...





Comment by livingonli on 03/29/2009 19:11:48
Time to head off to the salt mine. :kickcan:

Comment by m-hadley on 03/29/2009 20:20:14
Great Post, VJ,

It is a cause that is near and dear to my heart. In case you all haven't heard my rant about the White Plume's attempt every year to grow a small field of industrial hemp on the Pine Ridge reservation (one of the poorest areas in this country), and each and every year right before harvest the DEA comes in with M-16s and mows it all down and burns it There is a great DVD about this atrocity called Standing Silent Nation - I highly (no pun intended) recommend it . I also recommend the following web site VoteHemp.com for more info on how you can support legislation to turn around this assbackwards way of thinking about industrial hemp Thanks for reminding us Velveeta. I knew that they could use hemp to build car interiors - smokin'!!! :D

Cheers,

mfaye & :peace:

:gobama:

Comment by trojanrabbit on 03/29/2009 20:30:48
WTF



We just had a near lightning miss. All of a sudden, no hint of anything around. Now it's almost constant thunder.

Comment by TriSec on 03/29/2009 22:10:04
Quote by trojanrabbit:

WTF



We just had a near lightning miss. All of a sudden, no hint of anything around. Now it's almost constant thunder.






Huh? Around here? You're local to me, right? (02452)







Comment by Will in Chicago on 03/29/2009 22:34:47
A very interesting blog, VJ!



I would argue that we have to base our laws on logic and facts. There is no sound reason to prohibit growing hemp -- and it would be a good cash product for a lot of areas of the country.

Comment by trojanrabbit on 03/29/2009 22:45:49
Quote by TriSec:

Quote by trojanrabbit:

WTF



We just had a near lightning miss. All of a sudden, no hint of anything around. Now it's almost constant thunder.






Huh? Around here? You're local to me, right? (02452)







Yeah (02054). It was raining heavily but had no idea of anything going around, had an AM radio on and it was noiseless. Saw a big flash in the front window and the whole place shook, the cats scrambled upstairs. For the next 10 minutes there were rumbles of thunder all around.



My handy-dandy 5 day forecaster (supposed to get constant weather data via radio) does say "some thunder".



Usually the cats know something's up before we do. Cleo came back later and is sleeping next to my wife. Lucky has yet to show himself again.

Comment by livingonli on 03/29/2009 23:15:50
How true is the story that the newspaper industry was one of the big pushers in making hemp illegal because they controlled most of the wood processing plants where wood products were used to make paper so that hemp would not be a rival to them in that business? I believe my memory comes from hearing it on a Jello Biafra spoken word album.

Comment by Mondobubba on 03/29/2009 23:55:19
Pride & Prejudice and Zombies. Now that might make me read Jane Austen.

Comment by trojanrabbit on 03/30/2009 02:23:24
That's the true story of the Titanic, folks. She went right to the bottom. She took with her all the Jewish people, all the first mates. She took with him the Captain. She took with him the land lubbers. She took with him the Masked Marvel comic books, the tennis racquet and four hundred n' ninety-seven n' a half feet o' rope. - Legend of the U.S.S. Titanic -Jaime Brockett