Pro- Hemp

Legalization of Hemp

World affairs like global warming seem to be growing exponentially. All over the world people are concerned with the well being of our environment. What is America doing about this problem or better yet, what could we do? Pollution is eating away at our ozone and we are burning up all of our fossil fuels. We need to find alternatives to things like petroleum before we reach the point of a real oil crisis. There is a wonder crop that could revolutionize these kinds of issues with over 20,000 commercial uses but the US Government has decided to keep the cultivation hemp outlawed since the 40's. Hemp should be legalized because it is an extremely useful cash crop with the potential to save our forests, revolutionize the petroleum industry by conserving fossil fuels, greatly improve food supplies, and overall work towards a more efficient and environmental sound way of life.

Hemp is quite possibly the oldest agricultural crop, dating back to 8,000 BC. It was first used to make all kinds of fabrics; canvas, sails, and clothing; you name it and it can most likely be made with hemp. Before the tax on hemp/marijuana in 1937, a machine called the decorticator was invented by George Schlichten to strip the fibers, from hemp, used for cloth and textiles at a mass production level (Herer 13). An article from the February edition of Popular Mechanics magazine in 1938, featured the decorticator as the machine expected to be the "new billion-dollar crop, (p. 238 ff.)" This scared the people who ran competing crops, like cotton, who knew the power of the crop and could have lost billions and gone bankrupt if this machine was allowed on the market. It was the people who were at the top of these industries that helped push for the tax on hemp that made it impossible for high production of the crop and put all small hemp farmers in the states out of business. Cotton is not a better source of fabrics and textiles; 50% of the world's pesticides are sprayed on cotton fields (North). Hemp on the other hand, is naturally diseased and pest resistant and would not need these unnecessary chemicals that contaminate our earth.

Hemp would indeed put many companies like those in the lumber and paper industry out of business, but at the same time it would create many new jobs and be a much more efficient and environmentally friendly cash crop. One acre of hemp harvested over a 20 year period could produce the same amount of paper as 4.1 acres of forest in that same 20 year period, because hemp can be grown and harvested annually unlike trees which take years to grow back (Herer 24). One of the newer uses of hemp is found in its seeds which contain very useful oil. Hempseed oil can be made into biomass just like corn and other vegetable oils. Through biochemical composting and pyrolysis, this biomass can be made into methanol and further into high-octane lead free gasoline (Herer 9). It would take about 6% of the land in America to produce enough hempseed oil to make enough fuel to run all of America on environmentally friendly biomass products instead of coal, oil, and natural gases.

Hempseed oil is also very useful as food oil. It is highly nutritious and contains the highest amount of essential fatty acids of any other plant. These oils strengthen the human immune system and clear the arteries of cholesterol and plaque (Herer 10). No other plants can compare to the nutritional value of hempseeds. The ratio of protein to essential oils is ideal for human nutrition. Soybeans contain more protein, but 65% of hempseed protein is in the form more readily edible. Hempseed oil is the richest known source of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids (Herer 52). It's quite high in some essential amino acids, including gamma linoleic acid a very rare nutrient