Recently I celebrated National Hemp Week with an unenthused pop instead of the grand bang it truly deserved. I posted some hempy related material on my Facebook page, I put up some protest signs that cleverly said hemp was a plant that could grow the gas everybody is paying too much for, and I wished everyone Happy Hemp Week with festive window paint.
However, I failed to really do my part. I should have used Hemp week to write to my neighbors about hemp. Missed opportunities really get under my skin so even though this is not the impressive hoorah it deserves (I’ll do better next year) I am writing to wish you all Happy “After” Hemp Week. I know I am late but I don’t want to ignore this chance I have to bring it up (Like I need a reason?).
Missed opportunities seem to be a recurring theme when hemp is involved. Everyone knows that the constitution was written on hemp paper. Sadly most people don’t know hemp was not only the largest source of paper, but the main source for all fiber throughout history. It was not until the 1900’s that we started raping our planet of its forests, and sucking the oil reserves dry. (Look where that got us). The last hundred and some odd years we have missed out on the most versatile renewable resource available to us.
Most who drive should know Henry Ford made his very first car out of hemp and used fuel derived from hemp to top off the tank. I am not quite clear how we missed out on that but try to imagine a world where the cars had used a carbon neutral fuel. That’s right; hemp can make a carbon NEUTRAL fuel.
Hemp fields are one of the world’s largest carbon sinks. Between 1.7 – 1.9 tons of CO2 is absorbed from the atmosphere for each ton of hemp cellulose produced (typically 10 tons of hemp straw per hectare is grown). So says four separate websites, but be sure to fact check please!
The gas made from hemp oil burns cleaner than the gas made from the oil that broke our oceans. And it burns cheaper; Wisconsin could save the family farm, declare John Deere Green cool again, and make our very own gas that does not require an all-expense paid trip across the globe.
Hemp~crete is a Carbon NEGATIVE concrete, which means that not only can you make an amazing product that has incredible benefits over the chemical laden concrete commonly used to pave over paradise, but we can also breathe easier.
An amazing product you say? What can hemp~crete do that concrete can’t you ask? Well just Google for yourself to find a plethora of time tested uses (since 10,000 B.C. and earlier). But if you do care to read my examples I will gladly tell you that Hemp~crete is said to be up to 7 times stronger than concrete and only gets stronger with age, it is about half the weight of concrete, cracking is a non-issue because it is three times more flexible than concrete, it is self-insulating, it is fireproof, it is water proof, it is weather, rodent, and termite resistant, plus it can make pipes too! (Oh hush I am referring to industrial pipes but I suppose…)
Hemp can make textiles as durable as ships sails and as delicate as silk. It is 3 times stronger than cotton, it’s also wrinkle free. Hemp absorbs moisture so well the effectiveness of dyes are enhanced and they resist fading. It is also pest resistant. Hemp blocks 95% of ultraviolent radiation from the sun. It’s cool in the summer yet provides insulation to be warm in the winter. And the best part about hemp fabrics; it does not have the deadly chemicals used to grow cotton.
Plastic; hemp can make plastic too. But not the kind of plastic that ends up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch poisoning the marine life, changing fishies on a molecular level. Not the kind of plastic that plastic that leeches Bisphenol A (BPA) causing nasty side effects including but not limited to… (Better take a deep breath here, this gets pretty windy,) breast cancer, prostate disease and cancer, diabetes, obesity, hyperactivity, impaired, altered, and compromised immune system and immune functions, miscarriage, impaired female reproductive development, sperm defects, lowered sperm count, chromosome abnormalities, chromosome sorting errors, Down’s syndrome, Turner Syndrome, Klinefelter Syndrome, genitalia deformity, early onset of puberty, impaired learning and memory, increased aggression, reversal of normal sex differences in the brain structure, elimination of sex differences in behavior, changes in response to painful or fear-provoking stimuli, I could go on but I’ll stop here and let you contemplate how many plastic dishes, drink ware, bottles, Tupperware, zip lock baggies and plastic wrap you have next to the food you eat. Yuck right? Anyway, what I was getting at is Hemp makes the kind of plastic that biodegrades and does not poison you. How cool is that?
So, the better source of plastic notwithstanding, hemp also provides the most nutritional botanical food source on the planet. It is full of omega 3 fatty acids, contains 25 percent protein content, hemp seeds contain vitamins including E among others, phytosterols and minerals. Besides all of that, hemp seeds are an excellent source of fiber, magnesium, iron, zinc, and potassium, plus they are very, very tasty!
Why then is Wisconsin not embracing this super plant and declaring it the new state flower? Wisconsin did after all once lead the nation in hemp production. Estimates puts a renewed hemp industry in Wisconsin netting tens of thousands of jobs and adding tens of millions of dollars into our tax coughers. Wisconsin is not benefiting from the wonder of hemp simply because Hemp is also known as Cannabis, Cannabis is also known as Marijuana. Of course Hemp in the industrial form has none of the euphoric properties of a well-tended female cannabis plant. Yet with all of our modern technologies and advancements we enjoy today, our government is so uneducated it cannot tell the difference.
Yikes. Kind of shakes the faith a bit huh? It may make one wonder if they really know what they are doing, or if they even know what the H.E. Double Hockey sticks they are talking about at all when the topic of cannabis arises.
With that thought I end this letter with one of my more favorite commonsense quotes:
Hemp is not illegal because of marijuana; marijuana is illegal because of hemp. In the same sense , marijuana is not illegal because it is dangerous; marijuana is dangerous because it is illegal! ~Glenwood Smith
Until next year, Peace, Love and Hemp to you all.
Tammy Wood
