The Washington Post reports that Bernie Sanders has stated that he will remove Marijuana from the Federal List of most dangerous drugs, and there is something profoundly revolutionary about this:
As I have seen here in Colorado, legalizing Marijuana also legalizes Hemp and Hemp related businesses.
So this change in Federal Policy would not just end the War on Drugs or help sick people, which would also happen, but would also provide a way for Marijuana's non-intoxicating cousin Hemp to be a legal product for its various uses, from Paper, to clothes, food, and most importantly - Biofuel.
A 2009 study from the University of Connecticut's Biofuel Consortium found that hemp seed oil made a "viable and even attractive" feedstock for producing biodiesel. Hemp biodiesel proved to be high efficiency (97 percent of the hemp oil was converted to biodiesel) and could even be used at lower temperatures than other biodiesels.
Is it a BFD? Read on...
Thanks to Texas Twister for this information
Hemp cultivation and production do not harm the environment. The USDA Bulletin #404 concluded that hemp produces 4 times as much pulp with at least 4 to 7 times less pollution. (Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938).
Consider a few more facts about hemp:
• Hemp does not require herbicides or pesticides.
• Hemp can be grown in a wide range of latitudes and altitudes.
• Hemp replenishes soil with nutrients and nitrogen, making it an excellent rotational crop.
• Hemp controls erosion of the topsoil.
• Hemp converts CO2 to oxygen better than trees.
• Hemp produces more oil than any other crop, which can be used for food, fuel, lubricants, soaps, etc.
• Hemp nut is a very healthy food, being the highest protein crop (after soybean) and high in omega oils.
• Hemp can be used for making plastics, including car parts.
• Hemp makes paper more efficiently and ecologically than wood, requiring no chemical glues.
• Hemp can be used to make fiberboard.
• Hemp can be used to make paint.
• Hemp can produce bio-fuel and ethanol (better than corn).
• Hemp can be grown more than once per year.
• Hemp fibers can make very strong rope and textiles.
In the 1930's the Government used propaganda
to make weed 'scary' and outlawed it, including the benign Hemp plant, even though (
our Constitution was written on Hemp).
Of all the Corporate interests that would benefit from outlawing Hemp the most obvious benefactor
might have been Big Oil
Consider this evidence:
14) Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the car itself was constructed from hemp! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel. (Popular Mechanics, 1941.)
15) In 1938, hemp was called 'Billion Dollar Crop.' It was the first time a cash crop had a business potential to exceed a billion dollars. (Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938.)
16) Mechanical Engineering Magazine (Feb. 1938) published an article entitled 'The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop that Can be Grown.' It stated that if hemp was cultivated using 20th century technology, it would be the single largest agricultural crop in the U.S. and the rest of the world.
Not only did Henry Ford use Hemp Gasoline, but he made Hemp Plastic,
which is
biodegradable and carbon friendly.
Unlike the Petroleum version containing BPA, which harms sea life:
Whatever the Government's motivation was for outlawing Marijuana, it was this Federal action that was integral to reducing the Billion dollar hemp industry to Zero, and Fossil Fuel Oil stepped in and became the polluting Trillion dollar industry that we have today.
One of my fellow musicians wrote a song which celebrates this issue
"Cannabis Car"
https://www.youtube.com/...
And new companies are bringing this hemp car concept to reality.
And not just the car made from hemp, but what is more dangerous to Big Oil's bottom line, powered by hemp biofuels.
From the Guardian UK:
As far as research and implementation of hemp for biofuel, the US is way ahead of Europe and there are a range of websites dedicated to the use of hemp as a fuel for cars.
In the UK, companies such as Hemp Global Solutions have been set up very much with climate change and the reduction of carbon emissions in mind, but there is little, if any, research in this country that has looked into the viability of the hemp plant as a fuel for cars.
So why was there not a single mention of this miracle crop, that, in addition to being able to be used as fuel, can also be used as paper, cloth, converted into plastic and is a rich food source containing high levels of protein?
While we environmentally concerned citizens await the mass distribution of affordable electric cars, in the meantime if we were able to cheaply grow and produce Hemp biofuel, then in a few years we could eliminate the need for Fossil Fuel based Diesel and Plastic.
And unlike fossil fuels, Hemp has many other uses than just a source of fuel, and it eats Carbon Dioxide, rather than produce it.
Bernie Sanders is on to something big, and whether he knows it or not its not just about ending the War on Drugs,
it's about revolutionizing our Fuel Energy supply which would in the very least, end any argument for building the Keystone Pipeline or starting more wars in the Middle East, and one can hope, save the planet.