Chapter Two wrote:Did you know that hemp oil contains not only plentiful quantities of Omega-3, but also Omega-6 and Omega-9? It’s ridiculously close to being the perfect brain food, and all things considered is probably healthier for you than fish. I spent the weekend at my nutritionist friend’s house, and he takes big slugs of it straight from the bottle, as well as pouring it liberally on his (mostly raw) food. It tastes good!

Hemp: marvellous.

http://www.greenspirit.com/key_issues.cfm?msid=50

http://www.greenspirit.com/key_issues.c ... =50&page=2

Whenever I speak to university and high-school audiences the subject of hemp is high on the list. It seems that many young people have been convinced that we should stop cutting trees and use hemp instead. All in the name of saving forests and preserving biodiversity. Hogwash! While hemp makes perfectly good paper and cloth, it is an exotic annual farm crop that requires land to grow, land that could otherwise be growing trees. Most of the statements made about its superiority to trees are myths with no basis in fact.

Here is an excerpt from an advocate of hemp. He is trying to put a good face on it but there is just no getting around the fact that hemp uses more nutrients than most other crops. It requires heavy fertilization or four-year rotations.

"Hemp grows best on rich and fertile, neutral or slightly alkaline, well-drained clay-loam or silt-loam soils in which the subsoil is fairly retentive of moisture. Although hemp makes heavy nutrient demands on the soil, research conducted at Canadian experimental farms during the 1930s showed that hemp takes less from the soil than wheat or corn when taking into account that up to 70 per cent of the nutrients absorbed by the plants are returned to the soil, in particular with the large numbers of falling leaves and through the retting process. Cleaning or mechanical stripping of the leaves and flowers in the field also allows for maximum nutrient recycling. However, prior to the nutrient recycling, hemp extracts more nutrients per hectare than grain crops, removing about two to three times as much nitrogen, three to six times as much phosphorus, and 10 to 22 times as much potassium per hectare, owing to fast biomass production.

Therefore, to achieve an optimum hemp yield, at least twice as much nutrient must be available in an easily assimilable form as will finally be removed from the soil by the leaf-free harvest. Fertilizer rates vary depending on soil type, end use of the plant and crop rotation. A three-year, but preferably a four-year rotation, such as cereals, clover for green manure, corn, hemp and then back to cereals is recommended to help maintain soil fertility."

This is an excerpt from my book, Green Spirit, on the subject of hemp.

Some environmental groups argue that because it is wrong to kill trees to make paper we should make paper from something else. They suggest substituting hemp and kenaf. Hemp is the plant from which marijuana and hashish are derived. It was formerly used for making ropes (Manila hemp) and sacks before being replaced by petroleum-derived substances such as nylon and polypropylene. Kenaf is a member of the hibiscus family. Both hemp and kenaf originate from the far-eastern sub-tropics and contain excellent fibres that can be used to make fine paper products. The advocates of this proposal believe that we should embark on a vast program to replace wood with these crops as our primary source of paper products.

I recently attended a reception for Robert Kennedy Jr. of the Natural Resources Defense Council in a small art gallery in a trendy part of New York City. I found myself standing with a group of environmental activists who were having a lively conversation about the desirability of wood-free paper. A young woman reported that she was hoping to get tobacco farmers to grow kenaf instead of tobacco, with the apparent intention of earning double eco-points by simultaneously saving trees from death and people from lung cancer. "Wouldn’t it be better," I offered, "to plant trees that are native to the area and use them to make paper? In that way the tobacco farms could be put back to something like the original eastern hardwood forest." To this came the quick reply, "People can’t plant a forest, only nature can produce a forest. People can only plant trees." Surprised by this I tried again: "But surely it would be better to plant native trees than some exotic sub-tropical annual farm crop that needs pesticides and fertilizer. Birds and squirrels would like trees more than kenaf." This line of reasoning got nowhere. When I suggested that if all the paper derived from wood had to be replaced with wood-free paper we would end up deforesting vast areas of the continent to get enough land to grow hemp and kenaf, my listeners' eyes rolled back and I could see I was dismissed. It amazes me that some people can’t understand that if you don’t use trees to make paper and other forest products there is less reason to plant and grow trees. The next thing you know there will be a campaign for "tree-free wood."






There is a similar movement to substitute hemp for wood in Australia. Research has been done there as well. Here is an article that appears on the web-site of the National Association of Forest Industries. I recommend this site for a wide range of forest issues and a glimpse into another country's debate over forests.

full point wrote:You cannot, however, roll a joint with wood, smoke it, and have it leaving you feeling refreshed and ready for the day.

sockmonkey wrote:Naw, see - plant more trees outside, and everyone in the city should fill their basements with dirt and irrigation systems and grow lights like the former owner of our building did. He had a half mil worth of, uh, "hemp" growing down there. Imagine how much rope you could get from one block of growers.