One acre of hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as 4.1 acres of trees!!!

[Playinghardball]

Hemp is the miracle plant of our time, breathing in 4x the carbon dioxide (CO2) of trees during it's quick 12-14 week growing cycle. Trees take 20 years to mature vs 4 months for Industrial Hemp! Our forests are being cut down 3x faster than they can grow! One acre of hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as 4.1 acres of trees!!! (Dewey & Merrill. Bulletin #404. U.S. Dept. of Age. 1916)

[el_bryanto]

1. Hemp - the wonder plant that does wonders

It does seem like a useful plant - what are it's drawbacks, other than toking?

Bryant

[NoOneMan]

2. Probably the same as any monocrop fed with industrial fertilizers as big business would do

Undoubtedly, its a good drop in replacement opposed to cutting down forests. But do not think its will be instantly better than for us to stop being such fucking wasteful consumption heavy idiots in the first place.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Toking is a drawback?

[el_bryanto]

9. Perceived drawback, anyway. nt

[Go Vols]

11. no shit

[EOTE]

7. Hemp and weed (the kind that you smoke) are two different things.

Hemp typically has far less than 1% THC and other active cannabinoids while even ditch weed tends to have a few percent.

The conflation of hemp and weed started with Hearst's attempts to get rid of hemp as an alternative to his cotton and tree based textile plants.

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. I understood it wasn't just Hearst but Dupont as well because they were/are a major maker...

of various chemicals and substances used in making paper. Chemicals that Hemp does not require.

I may be completely wrong about this.

[EOTE]

13. That is correct.

Hearst and Dupont weren't the only ones with dogs in that fight, but they were the two big ones.

[jmowreader]

10. Processing difficulty comes to mind

Hemp isn't like cotton or wood, which can be processed quickly and efficiently with large machinery. Hemp requires retting, which takes weeks to complete because you've got to get the pectins out of the fiber.

[KamaAina]

17. Cotton wasn't that easy to process, either

until Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. (Aside: A feminist friend once claimed that his landlady had actually invented it, but they wouldn't grant a woman a patent back then.) Maybe there's an easier way to get the pectins out, some sort of chemical process maybe.

[jmowreader]

18. They're probably working on it

It would be nice if hemp could profitably be processed in the US.

[Le Taz Hot]

14. No, hemp contains less than 2% THC.

It would be like pouring 2 oz. of cheap American beer in a 12-ounce glass and filling the rest with water. Hemp even looks different than smoking cannabis.

[kestrel91316]

15. One doesn't toke hemp. It's worse than Mexican ditch weed, if that's even possible.

No THC to speak of.

Though it might have other cannabinoids, making it still medically useful.

[daleanime]

3. K&R....

[PoliticalPothead]

4. Daily reminder that the only reason marijuana is illegal

Is because the lumber industry wanted to protect it's profits.

[EOTE]

8. That's not the ONLY reason.

There's also racism, Hearst's newspaper empire and plain ol' idiocy.

[msongs]

5. industrial hemp has little THC and does not give a buzz. It has powerful enemies in both parties and

of course various industries like cotton, forestry, any product to which it is a threat.

[theHandpuppet]

16. Where can hemp be grown?

I was thinking that legalizing hemp could provide a new cash crop in Appalachia, where they desperately need a new industry.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. China, for instance (world's largest producer)

http://www.naturalfibres2009.org/en/fibres/hemp.html

However, the fact that they still produce relatively little is an indication that hemp is not, after all, some wonder-crop. From 1998:

In 1997, world hemp fiber production was about 55,500 metric tons, with China, South Korea and the Russian Federation producing more than 70% of total world supply. None of these countries has ever made industrial hemp cultivation illegal. China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and the European Union are some of the countries which subsidize hemp production. Although more publicity has been given to revitalized hemp production in the European Union and Canada, these countries remain negligible producers.

Notably, world hemp production has been on the decline, falling from over 300,000 metric tons in the early 1960's to one-fifth that level today. Although there has been a resurgence in interest in industrial hemp (due to the growing world demand for natural fibers and the adoption of more advanced hemp cultivation and processing techniques) production remains stable over the last five years.

www.uky.edu/Classes/GEN/101/Hemp/HEMP98.PDF

(That compares to about 25 million tons of cotton annually worldwide, or 400 million tons or paper and paperwood.