Hemp on the ropes: Efforts to liberalize hemp growing could offer jobs and revenues

from the Detroit Metro Times:



Hemp on the ropes
Efforts to liberalize hemp growing could offer jobs and revenues

By Larry Gabriel
Published: February 9, 2011


Back in the 1970s, a friend of mine was headed to Missouri on a motorbike. Due to the low horsepower and speed of his vehicle, he stuck to the back roads. As he cruised through rural Indiana he looked over and gosh-a-mighty there was a field of marijuana as far as the eye could see. Feeling like he'd hit the jackpot on a one-armed bandit he grabbed as much as he could carry and headed on down the road.

When he finally got around to smoking it, imagine his surprise when it didn't get him high. It was probably a wild hemp field left over from World War II, when it was widely grown as part of the war effort. Back then, the U.S. government produced and distributed Hemp for Victory, a film encouraging farmers to grow hemp because industrial fiber was in short supply.

Hemp is the non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana. It has about a 0.3 percent level of THC, the part of marijuana that gets you high, while marijuana's level is more like 5 percent to 10 percent. There are some 25,000 products made from hemp or with hemp ingredients or parts, from textiles to soap to cooking oil to cars. Yet almost all of them come from outside of the United States, because the hemp plant is lumped in with marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug along with the likes of heroin and cocaine. Even during World War II, farmers who grew it needed a special permit.

"The United States has sweeping anti-marijuana laws that don't recognize that hemp is not the same as marijuana," says LaMar Lemmons Jr., a former state representative who introduced three bills supporting hemp in Lansing last year. "The Chinese make a massive amount of hemp products, everything from foodstuffs to bricks. There's a biodegradable plastic that's made from hemp, there's a brick that's stronger than concrete. It's all part of the new green economy." .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/columns/hemp-on-the-ropes-1.1101921

passed a bill a couple of years ago that would legalize hemp in California. Ahnie vetoed it. I wish they'd re-introduce it and see what Brown does with it. He was against Prop. 19. It's hard to get my hands on hemp cording. I used it for the first time last year to macrame a beautiful trellis for one of my square foot gardens. It is SO easy to work with, it holds the knots and, after having 2 crops using the trellis, there is absolutely NO fraying. I need to get my hands on more if anyone knows a source.

..... at Amsterdam's Hemp Hotel, just about everything is made from hemp - bedspreads, furniture, etc etc. Pass on the hemp cocktails at the hotel bar, though.

I bet they have it.

Too many vested interests, such as the cotton industry and paper industry, are against such legalization of hemp farming.

A shame really, it is a plant that has many uses and can be grown many places other crops can't grow. Better yet, it helps rebuild soil.

it would slow down and in some cases stop the flow of money into their pockets.

our empire is stupid not utilizing the wonderful properties of hemp.

The powers-that-be make a lot of money from hemp being banned, as you noted.

WE'RE the stupid ones for letting them get away with it.

Hemp WILL save this world :-)

It's true ;-)

Course I am preaching to the choir here.