Industrial Hemp for Ethanol, Textiles, More

Here we have a rather long post, but one that I hope you will bookmark as a reliable and meaningful reference when lobbying your local, state, and federal representatives to bring end to this long national nightmare which is Marijuana Prohibition.

First, an excerpt from the American Energy Independence blog. The entire article should be digested to gain a fuller context; however, the following will convey a sense of the argument:

From 1776 to 1937, hemp was a major American crop and textiles made from hemp were common. Yet, The American Textile Museum, The Smithsonian Institute, and most American history books contain no mention of hemp. The government's War on Marijuana Smokers has created an atmosphere of self censorship—speaking of hemp in a positive manner is considered taboo. 

United States Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp, used products made from hemp, and praised the hemp plant in some of their writings.

“…do me a singular favour in advising of the general price one might expect for good Hemp in your Port watered and prepared according to Act of Parliament, with an estimate of the freight, and all other Incident charges pr. Tonn that I may form some Idea of the profits resulting from the growth.” –George Washington to Robert Cary & Company, September 20, 1765. Taken from the Library of Congress archives.

Under the laws written by today's politicians, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be considered a threat to society — they would be arrested and thrown in prison for the felony crime of growing plants.

More that 700,000 Americans are arrested every year on marijuana related charges—this is approximately one person every 45 seconds. Some consider this to be the biggest problem with the War on Drugs. Our laws against cannabis not only criminalize millions of recreational smokers, but also, they make no exception for terminally ill patients who could benefit from smoked marijuana as medicine, and farmers who could grow hemp for industrial purposes.  

Many claim that hemp has the potential to revive the struggling farming economy. All must understand that hemp is not a drug, it is the non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana.

"The fact that the DEA has classified [all varieties of] cannabis as a Schedule One substance, the same category as cocaine and heroin, is completely unjustifiable." -- Students for Sensible Drug Policy at the University of Wisconsin

"Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to the individual than use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use." —Former President Jimmy Carter 

Prisons needlessly overpopulated with drug offenders —by Walter Cronkite

Next, from Global Hemp, an excerpt from a reprint of a 1995 High Times article urging political activism that is still relevant today. Although the article pre-dates the current ethanol food-into-fuel debacle, it's wisdom is prescient in retrospect. Keep in mind that when we choose to make the "sacrifice" of following the existing RETARDED laws, we can call and agitate and insist that our representative listen to us with no fear of retaliation. If I am still smoking, what are the odds that I can feel confidently righteous in attacking the true source of the problem? If you have any leanings toward activism, pleaase give it a thought.

The national biofuels program is a long-term effort that relies on extensive research and development. This effort represents a significant investment by the federal government in achieving its bioenergy objectives. Its purpose is to discover more about the energy capability of plants high in cellulose and seed oil. Hemp is rich in both.

You should ask your congressional representatives why the United States isn’t studying hemp for this purpose. Do not accept excuses that this or that other crop produces more fiber, better oil or more biomass. The USDA is studying dozens of plants, many with overlapping potentials. If they deserve study, why not hemp? Do not accept excuses that the plant lacks modern economic value, for technological developments are providing many old products with new value. Again, why not hemp?

Cannabis provides just as much usable cellulose and seed oil as many other plants being developed as energy crops, but uniquely produces two energy-source materials from a single plant. There are plants that produce more biomass or more seed oil than cannabis, but how many can provide both at once, in one plant?

Hemp for fuel: pipe dream or economic reality? That’s up to you. Do your congressional representatives even know we have a national biofuels program? If not, show them this article and put them on the spot: Why not hemp?

Finally, from a 1990 interview (yes, almost 20 YEARS AGO!) with "Establishment Journalist" Hugh Downs of ABC News (think of a more conservative Anderson Cooper or Joe Scarborough of his day).

Downs: The reason the pro-marijuana lobby want marijuana legal has little to do with getting high, and a great deal to do with fighting oil giants like Saddam Hussein (this was 1990!!!), Exxon, and Iran. The pro-marijuana groups claim that hemp is such a versatile raw material, that its products not only compete with petroleum, but with coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, pharmaceutical, timber and textile companies.

It is estimated that methane and methanol production alone from hemp grown as biomass could replace 90% of the world's energy needs. If they are right, this is not good news for oil interests and could account for the continuation of marijuana prohibition. The claim is that the threat hemp posed to natural resource companies back in the thirties accounts for its original ban.

Hemp fiber-stripping machines were bad news to the Hearst paper manufacturing division, and a host of other natural resource firms. Coincidentally, the DuPont Chemical Company had, in 1937, been granted a patent on a sulfuric acid process to make paper from wood pulp. At the time DuPont predicted their sulfuric acid process would account for 80% of their business for the next 50 years.

Hemp, once the mainstay of American agriculture, became a threat to a handful of corporate giants. To stifle the commercial threat that hemp posed to timber interests, William Randolph Hearst began referring to hemp in his newspapers, by its Spanish name, "marijuana." This did two things: it associated the plant with Mexicans and played on racist fears, and it misled the public into thinking that marijuana and hemp were different plants.

Nobody was afraid of hemp -- it had been cultivated and processed into usable goods, and consumed as medicine, and burned in oil lamps, for hundreds of years. But after a campaign to discredit hemp in the Hearst newspapers, Americans became afraid of something called marijuana.

By 1937, the Marijuana Tax Act was passed which marked the beginning of the end of the hemp industry. In 1938, "Popular Mechanics" ran an article about marijuana called, "New Billion Dollar Crop." It was the first time the words "billion dollar" were used to describe a U.S. agricultural product.

Think about that for a minute. The first time "billion dollar" markets emerged, which are only now commonplace today, 70 years later.