Pubdate: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 Source: Napa Valley Register (CA) Contact: 2002 Pulitzer Community Newspapers, Inc. Website: http://www.napanews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/736 Author: Sarah Perfetto, lives in Napa. Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hemp.htm (Hemp) INDUSTRIAL HEMP CAN SAVE THE WORLD Do you ever stop and think about what will happen when we've squeezed every last drop of fossil fuel out of our earth and destroyed every bit of land searching for more? It won't be a happy day; cars will die and lights will dim; 85 percent of our energy comes from fossil fuels. Do you ever wonder what happens to all the plastic packaging we throw away? It sits in a landfill polluting the soil beneath it because it's non-biodegradable. How will you feel when all the old growth forests have been slaughtered for our consumption? These forests will not renew themselves for hundreds and thousands of years. If I were to tell you industrial hemp could solve these problems and many more, would you believe me? Me, a 16-year-old Temescal High School student, what do I know about all this? Well, maybe a little more than you. So please hear me out. * Bio-diesel fuel can be made from hemp seed oil, corn oil and animal fats. So why not use corn or animal fat? Hemp seed oil can produce 10 times the methanol than corn and to use animal fat may upset vegetarians and animal rights activists. It is the only alternative fuel in the U.S. to complete the Environmental Protection Agency's Tier II Health Effects Testing under section 211 (b) of the Clean Air Act ( http:Hwww.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/fuels/oxypanel/kortum.pdf ). It is compatible to fuel any unmodified diesel engine car. Production and use produces about 80 percent less carbon dioxide emissions and almost 100 percent less sulfur dioxide. Farming only 6 percent of the U.S. acreage with biomass crops such as hemp would provide for all of America's extensive energy needs. Which brings me to this point: why are we wasting all this money on imported fossil fuels when we can make all we need right here and use them to help boost our economy? It would provide many new jobs and could be sold or traded to other countries helping to clear our national debt. * Replacing Trees: Hemp fiber is the strongest of the quickly renewable resources we have. When pressed and heated it creates a practical, strong, inexpensive, rot resistant building material. With its thermal and sound insulating qualities it could replace wood paneling, particleboard, and drywall. Trees cut for paper take anywhere from 50 to 500 years to grow while hemp can be cultivated in 100 days and can yield four times more paper over a 20 year period of time. It is longer lasting and can be recycled up to seven times whereas wood's paper only four. Now with all the paper schools alone use, wouldn't it be more environmentally sound to promote a quickly renewable resource? * Biodegradable Plastic: Believe it or not it has been done before. In 1941 Henry Ford built a biodegradable plastic car from hemp oil and wheat straw. It works like this: Hemp stems are 80 percent hurds which are 77 percent cellulose which is the primary chemical feedstock used to make plastic. One acre of hemp can produce as much cellulose as 4.1 acres of trees. * The Legal Issue: Marijuana and industrial hemp are both derivatives of the cannabis plant, which is the only plant genus to contain a unique class of molecular compounds called cannabinoids. There are many but the two most prevalent being delta 9 Tetrahydrocannibinol or THC, the psychoactive ingredient, and cannibidol or CBD, the anti-psychoactive ingredient. Marijuana has a large amount of THC in it and not enough CBD to cancel out the effect, therefore it is illegal -- plain and simple. Yet industrial hemp contains less than 1 percent THC in it and a large amount of CBD, which in turn cancels out any miniscule effect the THC might cause. So hemp is not marijuana; in fact it could be called "anti-marijuana." Please take this information and share it with somebody. There are so many people misinformed about this subject and so many other alternatives to the energy we're using and the products we're consuming. There is always room for furthering. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk