Hemp? The most valuable plant is illegal in America

angelsaramark said:
Finally some logic on this forum! Carryon good Sir/Madam!
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Sarcasm? Logically if hemp oil does what he claims, there is proof of it. And because he is making the claim that it does something he should provide that evidence (I know, proof and evidence aren't the same).

The null hypothesis isn't something that you have to offer evidence of every time someone makes a claim.
 
Not only have I never smoked pot, but I lived in the Netherlands for 2 years, where it is decriminalized. Still didn't try it. Just not interested, although I appreciated that instead of the weird pressure I've gotten in the States to be a rebel and try it, in the Netherlands I was occasionally offered it at a party, but nobody cared at all when I said no thanks. I'm totally in favor of decriminalizing it here, too.

But guess what I bought at the grocery store yesterday? Hemp milk! I spotted it and was just curious. The label claims that it has the right balance of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. I just poured out a glass in honor of this thread. It's not bad - a strong vegetal note. It's sweetened. It actually has body much like milk, probably due to the fat content. Probably a good product for people with a lot of food allergies - it's cow-free, nut-free, soy-free, etc.

On the other hand, my spouse thinks it tastes terrible, although he agrees about it being milk-like.
 
Cigarette's, alcohol, junk food, kill how many people each year? And pot is illegal. Go figure.
 
bwinwright said:
:)I apologize for my ill manners. I just don't have much patience for folks who refuse to face the ugly truth about the super rich folks who control things. The Tavistock Institute and Operation Mockingbird gang have done such a fantastic job of programming people to believe such nonsense.
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Oh? Who here has been "programmed" by these pernicious plots, and how do you know that? How were we reached?

Again, forgive me. I honestly wish we were ruled by a more loving group of trillionaires.
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I don't forgive you for being too lazy to look up the definition of "trillion."

The world could be such a wonderful place. However, the truth appears to be, IN MY OPINION, that the Jesuit General, along with his Rothschild-led trillionaire banker friends are at the very top of the Global Pyramid of Power, calling the shots.
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Who is the Jesuit General?

I honestly love you.
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Do you mind if I call you Olivia Nuttin John?
 
kookbreaker said:
I still have strong doubts about using Hemp for making paper. The paper made with it in the past was unimpressive, and for all the attention it gets the modern hemp paper isn't worth a damn either. If hemp is made into paper it would be the scrap 'packing paper' stuff. I also worry about production of this new line as it effectively resets years of paper-making technology, which includes pollution controls.
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I was given a few hundred sheets of white laser printer paper made from 80% hemp fibers, and its just as white and takes just as good an impression as the regular laser paper here.

So, I just don't see a problem with it at all.
 
BenBurch said:
I was given a few hundred sheets of white laser printer paper made from 80% hemp fibers, and its just as white and takes just as good an impression as the regular laser paper here.

So, I just don't see a problem with it at all.
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What was the other 20%? Virgin wood pulp I would suspect.

That's the thing about some grades of paper: if you include 10-20% of a good fiber the rest can be crap fibers like recycled pulp.

Hemp paper can certainly be as white as regular paper, but both of them need bleaching to be that way. Hemp's playing catch-up in making that a more environmentally sound industry, however.

I can only say that the worlds major paper industries haven't been too terribly impressed with hemp, and you are going to get away from wood pulp there are better options than hemp. Why no love for Kenaf from the hippies, for example?
 
kookbreaker said:
... are going to get away from wood pulp there are better options than hemp. Why no love for Kenaf from the hippies, for example?
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My big hope for that is the media we are on now. No paper required.

And yeah, there are MANY fairly unknown fiber and oil plants that need to be evaluated.

Hemp has a history, and the techniques for using it are well known, though now 70 years out of date.

I can't source this as it was from a talk I heard at Fermilab about 25 years ago, but hemp paper can be bleached with hydrogen peroxide, and that is a fairly clean process and one that can be remediated cheaply before the effluents enter the wastewater stream.

I understand that there are some mechanical issues that need to be solved that were solved for wood pulp after considerable development, and I think that its just too early to know if the production of hemp paper can be automated to the extent that wood pulp paper can be.

But again, I can see no non-imaginary interest of the state in keeping this banned.
 
kookbreaker said:
I can only say that the worlds major paper industries haven't been too terribly impressed with hemp, and you are going to get away from wood pulp there are better options than hemp. Why no love for Kenaf from the hippies, for example?
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I think that hemp should be legalized, and we should let the market decide. (Isn't this like banning mushroom farms, because some farmers might use their facilities to grow magic mushrooms?)

It's funny kookbreaker should bring up kenaf, because the only people I've seen promoting it are "hippy" environmentalists. Part of the reason it's less popular than hemp is because it has less history in the US than hemp does.

I'm not saying that there aren't a lot of people cashing in on hemp's "cool" cannabis connection. That's how you get the kids to buy your sandals, hats, wallets, etc.
But I seriously doubt that the behind-the-scenes activists who are working to get hemp legalized are just using it as a stalking horse for cannabis. Come on, there are easier ways!
 
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Axiom_Blade said:
But I seriously doubt that the behind-the-scenes activists who are working to get hemp legalized are just using it as a stalking horse for cannabis. Come on, there are easier ways!
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Maybe its just the circles I travel in up here in the great white north but most people I know who are outspoken about marijuana decriminalization/legalization are totally up front about the fact they want the laws changed for recreational smoking. They of course also think hemp should be legal to grow and that medicinal smoking should be allowed - but its not as if they hide behind those issues and are secretive about their desire for legal recreational smoking.

Maybe its different down south where the penalties are harsher and the culture is more opposed to weed - and I can see strategically how organizations like NORML would push for hemp and medicinal useage in that kind of an environment. Likely there will be some who support those measures but still oppose recreational smoking of the female cannabis plant.

Still, I remember distinctly a discussion on a panel on cable news, and the Republican Senator called medicinal marijuana a "trojan horse" for eventual full-scale legalization - and to my ears that struck me as a scare-tactic, because when it comes to health rights I think the issues should be considered from the basis of what makes the most appropriate treatment. Here in Canada (and in some states) medicinal use is allowed and people still go to jail for possession - and that isn't likely to change for some decades.

If some individuals place their emphasis on hemp and medicinal marijuana in an attempt to gain popular support for a softening of the image of weed - doesn't that speak more to the cultural milieu they have to deal with rather than any kind of duplicity on their part?
 
Tidbit from an Andrew Sullivan reader that touches on another reason for continued prohibition mentioned only briefly in this thread, the employment/funding levels of law enforcement:

A police officer friend of mine once pointed out something essential about the role marijuana plays in the War on Drugs: from a law enforcement perspective, it's easy. Marijuana use is incredibly widespread, particularly among certain predictable populations, like college kids. Because it's not a hard drug, marijuana users, most of whom are a lot like Phelps (smart, hard working, young - not "addicts") are far less likely than other drug users to carry a weapon or get violent with an officer. While marijuana growers tend to be less "average" than your average pot smoker (more likely to have a weapon around, for instance, to protect their crop), they are still less organized and violent than traffickers of heroin, crack, etc.

Cops are under constant pressure to keep their numbers up. That's how they prove their efficacy to their bosses, and its how their bosses get money from their bosses (again, this is my friend's theory, but obviously I could have picked that tidbit up from The Wire). Busting college kids for holding weed and taking down grow houses is a terrific way to keep these numbers up. Drug arrests always look better than traffic stops on your report. And drug seizures are viewed particularly favorably. But going after junkies and heroin dealers is a lot more dangerous than trying to take down the marijuana trade.

So from the perspective of law enforcement, illegal marijuana provides a perfectly balanced way for them to prosecute the War on Drugs. Weed is harmless enough to be widely used (since, unlike say heroin, it won't kill you), which provides cops with plenty of potential arrests. But again, because its so widely used, especially among the young, no amount of crack downs is going to get rid of weed in our society. So it's a well that never goes dry. And it's a win-win on the PR end: every marijuana bust can be used as both evidence of a problem, and evidence that law enforcement is confronting that problem. Perfect.

Of course, having said that, I have to confess my own bias against the ganga: a [former] boyfriend once ditched me on my birthday to smoke up on a friend's couch. So the commercials are right; weed really does destroy your personal relationships.

Or maybe that guy was just an *******. Hard to say.​
 
Most of my clothing is made from hemp and quite frankly I prefer the hemp fabric to cotton and the normal range of fabrics.
Its more comfortable and softer after a few washes.
Keeps you warm when it's cold and cool when its warm.
It's very durable and can be used for fine fabric like lace.

Aluta Continua!!:D
 
Wow, three pages and nobody has thought to point out that hemp isn't actually illegal in America?

At least, not according to this 2008 article published in the peer-reviewed journal Economic Botany, and written by Ann Ash of the U.S. Department of Commerce:

Abstract:
United States annual production oi this formerly very important bast fiber has fallen from about 75,000 tons a century ago to about 2,000 tons today. Imports, too, have dropped. Other fibers, particularly abacá, have replaced it more and more.
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There you go: about 2,000 tons of hemp are produced annually in the U.S., and even more is imported. And it's even tracked by the Department of Commerce!
 
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If all fossil fuels and their derivatives, as well as trees for paper and construction, were banned in order to save the planet, reverse the Greenhouse Effect and stop deforestation;



then there is only one known annually renewable natural resource that is capable of providing the overall majority of the world's paper and textiles; meet all of the world's transportation, industrial and home energy needs, while simultaneously reducing pollution, rebuilding the soil and cleaning the atmosphere all at the same time...



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theprestige said:
Wow, three pages and nobody has thought to point out that hemp isn't actually illegal in America?

At least, not according to this 2008 article published in the peer-reviewed journal Economic Botany, and written by Ann Ash of the U.S. Department of Commerce:


There you go: about 2,000 tons of hemp are produced annually in the U.S., and even more is imported. And it's even tracked by the Department of Commerce!
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I think most of that US growth is done under the auspices of the gov'ment agricultural work, mostly for research, etc.

Hemp cloth, oil and other products are not illegal to have, but you cannot import hemp seed as I understand it.
 
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