HEMP - THE PLANT THAT CAN SAVE MOTHER EARTH


Locate the blind spot in the culture, the place where the culture isn't looking, because it dare not, because if it were to look there, its previous values would dissolve.
--Terence McKenna

The following is a transcript of a remarkable commentary on hemp, the world's premiere renewable natural resource, by journalist and commentator Hugh Downs speaking for ABC News radio out of New York in November, 1990. Mr. Downs did his homework exceedingly well for this report--he succeeded in including a great deal of useful information in the short timespan of only nine minutes, forty seconds. Seeking to leverage off the clarity of his research, nine footnotes have been added to the text to provide people with a cross-section of the reference material substantiating the facts Mr. Downs articulates. It is hoped people will be motivated and inspired by the information below, to understand how, since the mid-thirties, this society has been reduced to an infantile status in which the awareness has been lost of how exceedingly useful a natural resource the vegetable hemp is, and, how simply changing the way we have been taught to think about this plant, will enable us to clear away the stagnant, constipated, tired and inappropriate thinking that has inhibited some of the very best qualities of human innovation, creativity, and resourcefulness for more than half a century. As the documentation below explains, the uses of cannabis hemp are as varied and multi-faceted as any of us could ever possibly imagine or hope for. This plant can indeed provide us solutions to MANY of the critical imbalances we as an industrial culture have created in the brief span of the past few hundred years. From the production of all forms of paper products, to plastics as tough as steel, to fuel that can replace all oil, gas, coal and nuclear power consumption, to a rich source of vegetable oil and protein, to all manner and form of fabrics and textiles, to medicinal products for the management of pain, chronic neurologic diseases, convulsive disorders, migraine headache, anorexia, mental illness, and bacterial infections, to 100% non-toxic paints and varnishes, to lubricants, to building materials that can replace dry wall and plywood, to carpets, rope, laces, sails, . . . the list rolls on and on and on. And the only thing that prevents us from once again employing this raw material for tens of thousands of useful and non-polluting products to replace the dirty, limited and expensive non-renewables derived from toxic petro-chemicals, is the way we have learned to think about hemp: "You can't use it--it's illegal." "Even if we could save the planet's life systems by changing that?" "That's right." This is the kind of frozen, devolutionary thinking we must expand our conscious awareness out beyond to once again encompass the capacity for hopes and dreams of the kind of world we want to, and can, provide our great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren with. Trust your own infinite intelligence and creativity. There is NO LIMIT to what we as sentient beings can do to change the world for the betterment of all. All we need to appreciate is that any and all change starts with how we consider or think about the world. We can stop cutting down ALL trees used for making paper and fuel; stop extracting and consuming petroleum we continue to spill into the oceans, as well as be partially consumed and end up forever in the atmosphere destroying the protective screen from the sun that has existed for millions of years; we can stop burning coal and begin to end the recently created phenomenon of acid rain; we can stop unearthing uranium and transmuting it into the most deadly man-made substance known to human beings. None of these limited, dirty and expensive forms of energy sources need be relied on anymore. The choice and decision is all of ours to make and implement. Teach yourselves and all you know or meet about this lifeline to our collective future. Send copies of this post to elected/appointed officials asking them why cannabis hemp/marijuana prohibition laws are allowed to stand when this premier natural resource can truly save the planet, ourselves and all future generations of all life on Mother Earth. The "leaders" will eventually have to follow and change course from the current going `alternative' of "lemming death."

. . . the most important thing is not to be dualistic. Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few. -- Shunryu Suzuki, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," Weatherhill, 1985, p. 21.


Transcript of Hugh Downs commentary on hemp
for ABC News, NY, 11/90:

Voters in the state of Alaska recently made marijuana illegal again for the first time in 15 years. If Alaska turns out to be like the other 49 states, the law will do little to curb use or production. Even the drug czar himself, William Bennett, has abandoned the drug war now that his "test case" of Washington, D.C., continues to see rising crime figures connected with the drug industry. Despite the legal trend against marijuana, many Americans continue to buck the trend. Some pro-marijuana organizations in fact tell us that marijuana, also known as hemp, could, as a raw material, save the U.S. economy. That's some statment. Not by smoking it--that's a minor issue. Would you believe that marijuana could replace most oil and energy needs? That marijuana could revolutionize the textile industry and stop foreign imports? Those are the claims. Some people think marijuana, or hemp, may be the epidome of yankee ingenuity. Mr. Jack Herer, for example, is the national director and founder of an organization called HEMP (that's an acronym for "Help End Marijuana Prohibition") located in Van Nuys, California. Mr. Herer is the author of a remarkable little book called, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes," wherein, not surprisingly, Mr. Herer urges the repeal of marijuana prohibition. Mr. Herer is not alone. Throughout the war on drugs, several organizations have consistently urged the legalization of marijuana. "High Times" magazine for example, The National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws or NORML for short, and an organization called BACH--the Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp. But the reason the pro-marijuana lobby want marijuana legal has little to do with getting high, and a great deal to do with fighting oil giants like Saddam Hussein, Exxon and Iran. The pro-marijuana groups claim that hemp is such a versatile raw material, that its products not only compete with petroleum, but with coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, pharmaceutical, timber and textile companies.[1] It is estimated that methane and methanol production alone from hemp grown as biomass could replace 90% of the world's energy needs.[2] If they are right, this is not good news for oil interests and could account for the continuation of marijuana prohibition. The claim is that the threat hemp posed to natural resource companies back in the thirties accounts for its original ban. At one time marijuana seemed to have a promising future as a cornerstone of industry. When Rudolph Diesel produced his famous engine in 1896, he assumed that the diesel engine would be powered by a variety of fuels, especially vegetable and seed oils. Rudolph Diesel, like most engineers then, believed vegetable fuels were superior to petroleum. Hemp is the most efficient vegetable. In the 1930s the Ford Motor Company also saw a future in biomass fuels. Ford operated a successful biomass conversion plant, that included hemp, at their Iron Mountain facility in Michigan. Ford engineers extracted methanol, charcoal fuel, tar, pitch, ethyl-acetate and creosote. All fundamental ingredients for modern industry and now supplied by oil-related industries.[2] The difference is that the vegetable source is renewable, cheap and clean, and the petroleum or coal sources are limited, expensive and dirty. By volume, 30% of the hemp seed contains oil suitable for high-grade diesel fuel as well as aircraft engine and precision machine oil. Henry Ford's experiments with methanol promised cheap, readily renewable fuel. And if you think methanol means compromise, you should know that many modern race cars run on methanol. About the time Ford was making biomass methanol, a mechanical device[3] to strip the outer fibers of the hemp plant appeared on the market. These machines could turn hemp into paper and fabrics[4] quickly and cheaply. Hemp paper is superior to wood paper. The first two drafts of the U.S. constitution were written on hemp paper. The final draft is on animal skin. Hemp paper contains no dioxin, or other toxic residue, and a single acre of hemp can produce the same amount of paper as four acres of trees.[5] The trees take 20 years to harvest and hemp takes a single season. In warm climates hemp can be harvested two even three times a year. It also grows in bad soil and restores the nutrients. Hemp fiber-stripping machines were bad news to the Hearst paper manufacturing division, and a host of other natural resource firms. Coincidentally, the DuPont Chemical Company had, in 1937, been granted a patent on a sulfuric acid process to make paper from wood pulp. At the time DuPont predicted their sulfuric acid process would account for 80% of their business for the next 50 years. Hemp, once the mainstay of American agriculture, became a threat to a handful of corporate giants. To stifle the commercial threat that hemp posed to timber interests, William Randolph Hearst began referring to hemp in his newspapers, by its Spanish name, "marijuana." This did two things: it associated the plant with Mexicans and played on racist fears, and it misled the public into thinking that marijuana and hemp were different plants. Nobody was afraid of hemp--it had been cultivated and processed into usable goods, and consumed as medicine, and burned in oil lamps, for hundreds of years. But after a campaign to discredit hemp in the Hearst newspapers, Americans became afraid of something called marijuana. By 1937, the Marijuana Tax Act was passed which marked the beginning of the end of the hemp industry. In 1938, "Popular Mechanics" ran an article about marijuana called, "New Billion Dollar Crop."[6] It was the first time the words "billion dollar" were used to describe a U.S. agricultural product. "Popular Mechanics" said, . . . a machine has been invented which solves a problem more than 6,000 years old. . . . The machine . . . is designed for removing the fiber- bearing cortex from the rest of the stalk, making hemp fiber available for use without a prohibitive amount of human labor. Hemp is the standard fiber of the world. It has great tensile strength and durability. It is used to produce more than 5,000 textile products ranging from rope, to fine laces, and the woody "hurds" remaining after the fiber has been removed, contain more than seventy-seven per cent cellulose, and can be used to produce more than 25,000 products ranging from dynamite to cellophane. Well since the "Popular Mechanics" article appeared over half a century ago, many more applications have come to light. Back in 1935, more than 58,000 tons of marijuana seed were used just to make paint and varnish (all non-toxic, by the way). When marijuana was banned, these safe paints and varnishes were replaced by paints made with toxic petro-chemicals. In the 1930s no one knew about poisoned rivers or deadly land-fills or children dying from chemicals in house paint. People did know something about hemp back then, because the plant and its products were so common. All ships lines were made from hemp and much of the sail canvas. (In fact the word "canvas" is the Dutch pronunciation of the Greek word for hemp, "cannabis.") All ropes, fozzers (sp?) and lines aboard ship, all rigging, nets, flags and pennants were also made from marijuana stalks. And so were all charts, logs and bibles. Today many of these items are made, in whole or in part, with synthetic petro-chemicals and wood. All oil lamps used to burn hemp- seed oil until the whale oil edged it out of first place in the mid- nineteenth century. And then, when all the whales were dead, lamplights were fueled by petroleum, and coal, and recently radioactive energy.[7] This may be hard to believe in the middle of a war on drugs, but the first law concerning marijuana in the colonies at Jamestown in 1619, ordered farmers to grow Indian hemp. Massachussetts passed a compulsory grow law in 1631. Connecticut followed in 1632. The Chesapeake colonies ordered their farmers, by law, to grow marijuana in the mid-eighteenth century. Names like Hempstead or Hemphill dot the American landscape and reflect areas of intense marijuana cultivation. During World War II, domestic hemp production became crucial when the Japanese cut off Asian supplies to the U.S. American farmers (and even their sons), who grew marijuana, were exempt from military duty during World War II. A 1942 U.S. Department of Agriculture film called "Hemp For Victory" extolled the agricultural might of marijuana and called for hundreds of thousands of acres to be planted.[8] Despite a rather vigorous drug crackdown, 4-H clubs were asked by the government to grow marijuana for seed supply. Ironically, war plunged the government into a sober reality about marijuana and that is that it's very valuable. In today's anti-drug climate, people don't want to hear about the commercial potential of marijuana. The reason is that the flowering top of a female hemp plant contains a drug. But from 1842 through the 1890s a powerful concentrated extract of marijuana was the second most prescribed drug in the United States. In all that time the medical literature didn't list any of the ill effects claimed by today's drug warriors.[9] Today, there are anywhere from 25 to 30 million Americans who smoke marijuana regularly. As an industry, marijuana clears well more than $4 billion a year. [This must have been a misreading of his notes--for 1990, the minimum figure would have been at least $40 billion for the entire nation. (phone interview with Jack Herer)] Obviously, as an illegal business, none of that money goes to taxes. But the modern marijuana trade only sells one product, a drug. Hemp could be worth considerably more than $4 [$40] billion a year, if it were legally supplying the 50,000 safe products the proponents claim it can. If hemp could supply the energy needs of the United States, its value would be inestimable. Now that the drug czar is in final retreat, America has an opportunity to, once and for all, say farewell to the Exxon Valdez, Saddam Hussein and a prohibitively expensive brinkmanship in the desert sands of Saudi Arabia. This is Hugh Downs, ABC News, New York.

Humanity has been held to a limited and distorted view of itself, from its interpretation of the most intimate emotions to its grandest visions of human possibilities, by virtue of its subordination of women. Until recently, "mankind's" understandings have been the only understandings generally available to us. As other perceptions arise--precisely those perceptions that men, because of their dominant position could not perceive--the total vision of human possibilities enlarges and is transformed.

-- Jean Baker Miller, "Toward a New Psychology of Women" (1976)


Footnotes:

[1] If you are unfamiliar with the facts about hemp, the world's premier renewable natural resource, a great place to start is Jack Herer's information-compressed, "Hemp and the Marijuana Conspiracy: The Emperor Wears No Clothes," (c) 1985, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1992, available in many bookstores, or from H.E.M.P., 5632 Van Nuys Blvd., Suite 210, Van Nuys, CA 91401. From the Introduction: The purpose of this book is to revive the authoritative historical, social and economic perspective needed to ensure comprehensive legal reforms, abolish cannabis hemp/marijuana prohibition laws, and save the Earth's life systems. Another book going to press at this time is "Hemp: Lifeline To The Future, Unexpected Answers To Our Environment And Economic Crises," written by Chris Conrad, the founder and international director of BACH, the Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp, Box 71093, LA, CA 90071-0093, 213/288-4152. [2] "About 6% of contiguous United States land area put into cultivation for biomass could supply all current demands for oil and gas." Very few people know what "biomass conversion" or "pyrolysis" mean--not only in terms of their dictionary definitions, but in terms of what they mean as alternative sources of energy, to the limited, expensive and dirty petro-chemical, nuclear, or coal sources. The only reason the U.S.--and every other nation on earth--can't once again become energy independent and smog free is because people are not educated concerning the facts about solutions to the environment/energy "crises" continuously lamented and tepidly addressed "leaders," claiming they are the best informed to decide what to do. The knowledge exists right now for our lifeline to the future and the health and well-being of the Seventh Generation yet unborn. Everyone of us must learn about this existent lifeline and teach everyone else we know what the facts are for THE way out of the current "crisis". HEMP FOR FUEL Excerpted from "Energy Farming in America," by Lynn Osburn BIOMASS CONVERSION to fuel has proven economically feasible, first in laboratory tests and by continuous operation of pilot plants in field tests since 1973. When the energy crop is growing it takes in C02 from the air, so when it is burned the C02 is released, creating a balanced system. Biomass is the term used to describe all biologically produced matter. World production of biomass is estimated at 146 billion metric tons a year, mostly wild plant growth. Some farm crops and trees can produce up to 20 metric tons per acre of biomass a year. Types of algae and grasses may produce 50 metric tons per year. This biomass has a heating value of 5000-8000 BTU/lb, with virtually no ash or sulfur produced during combustion. About 6% of contiguous United States land area put into cultivation for biomass could supply all current demands for oil and gas. The foundation upon which this will be achieved is the emerging concept of "energy farming," wherein farmers grow and harvest crops for biomass conversion to fuels. PYROLYSIS IS THE TECHNIQUE of applying high heat to organic matter (ligno-cellulosic materials) in the absence of air or in reduced air. The process can produce charcoal, condensable organic liquids (pyrolytic fuel oil), non-condensable gasses, acetic acid, acetone, and methanol. The process can be adjusted to favor charcoal, pyrolytic oil, gas, or methanol production with a 95.5% fuel-to-feed efficiency. Pyrolysis has been used since the dawn of civilization. Ancient Egyptians practiced wood distillation by collecting the tars and pyroligneous acid for use in their embalming industry. Methanol-powered automobiles and reduced emissions from coal-fired power plants can be accomplished by biomass conversion to fuel utilizing pyrolysis technology, and at the same time save the American family farm while turning the American heartland into a prosperous source of clean energy production. Pyrolysis has the advantage of using the same technology now used to process crude fossil fuel oil and coal. Coal and oil conversion is more efficient in terms of fuel-to-feed ratio, but biomass conversion by pyrolysis has many environmental and economic advantages over coal and oil. Pyrolysis facilities will run three shifts a day. Some 68% of the energy of the raw biomass will be contained in the charcoal and fuel oils made at the facility. This charcoal has nearly the same heating value in BTU as coal, with virtually no sulfur. Pyrolytic fuel oil has similar properties to no. 2 and no. 6 fuel oil. The charcoal can be transported economically by rail to all urban area power plants generating electricity. The fuel oil can be transported economically by trucking creating more jobs for Americans. When these plants use charcoal instead of coal, the problems of acid rain will begin to disappear. When this energy system is on line producing a steady supply of fuel for electrical power plants, it will be more feasible to build the complex gasifying systems to produce methanol from the cubed biomass, or make synthetic gasoline from the methanol by the addition of the Mobil Co. process equipment to the gasifier. FARMERS MUST BE ALLOWED TO GROW an energy crop capable of producing 10 tons per acre in 90-120 days. This crop must be woody in nature and high in lignocellulose. It must be able to grow in all climactic zones in America. And it should not compete with food crops for the most productive land, but be grown in rotation with food crops or on marginal land where food crop production isn't profitable. When farmers can make a profit growing energy, it will not take long to get 6% of continental American land mass into cultivation of biomass fuel--enough to replace our economy's dependence on fossil fuels. We will no longer be increasing the C02 burden in the atmosphere. The threat of global greenhouse warming and adverse climactic change will diminish. To keep costs down, pyrolysis reactors need to be located within a 50 mile radius of the energy farms. This necessity will bring life back to our small towns by providing jobs locally. HEMP IS THE NUMBER ONE biomass producer on planet earth: 10 tons per acre in approximately four months. It is a woody plant containing 77% cellulose. Wood produces 60% cellulose. This energy crop can be harvested with equipment readily available. It can be "cubed" by modifying hay cubing equipment. This method condenses the bulk, reducing trucking costs from the field to the pyrolysis reactor. And the biomass cubes are ready for conversion with no further treatment. Hemp is drought resistant, making it an ideal crop in the dry western regions of the country. Hemp is the only biomass resource capable of making America energy independent. And our government outlawed it in 1938. Remember, in 10 years, by the year 2000, America will have exhausted 80% of her petroleum reserves. Will we then go to war with the Arabs for the privilege of driving our cars; will we stripmine our land for coal, and poison our air so we can drive our autos an extra 100 years; will we raze our forests for our energy needs? During World War II, our supply of hemp was cut off by the Japanese. The federal government responded to the emergency by suspending marijuana prohibition. Patriotic American farmers were encouraged to apply for a license to cultivate hemp and responded enthusiastically. Hundreds of thousands of acres of hemp were grown. The argument against hemp production does not hold up to scrutiny: hemp grown for biomass makes very poor grade marijuana. The 20 to 40 million Americans who smoke marijuana would loath to smoke hemp grown for biomass, so a farmer's hemp biomass crop is worthless as marijuana. It is time the government once again respond to our economic emergency as they did in WWII to permit our farmers to grow American hemp so this mighty nation can once again become energy independent and smog free. For more information on the many uses of hemp, contact BACH, the Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp, Box 71093, LA, CA 90071-0093, 213/288-4152. --excerpt from Herer, "Emperor Wears No Clothes," 1991 edition, p. 136 For an updated version of "Energy Farming In America," "Books In Print" lists "Ecohemp: Economy and Ecolgy with Hemp," Access Unlimited, Frazier Park, CA, 805/632-2644. [3] The device invented was named the decorticator and in the mid 1930s it was poised to do for hemp what the cotton gin had done for cotton: create a fast and economically feasible way of "removing the fiber- bearing cortex from the rest of the stalk, making hemp fiber available for use without a prohibitive amount of human labor." ("Popular Mechanics," February, 1938)

[4] from "The Emperor Wears No Clothes," p. 23:

MAN-MADE FIBER . . . THE TOXIC ALTERNATIVE TO NATURAL FIBERS. The late 1920s and 1930s saw continuing consolidation of power into the hands of a few large steel, oil and chemical (munitions) companies. The U.S. federal government placed much of the textile production for the domestic economy in the hands of their chief munitions maker, DuPont. The processing of nitrating cellulose into explosives is very similar to the process for nitrating cellulose into synthetic fibers and plastics. Rayon, the first synthetic fiber, is simply stabilized guncotton, or nitrated cloth, the basic explosive of the 19th century. "Synthetic plastics find application in fabricating a wide variety of articles, many of which in the past were made from natural products," beamed Lammot DuPont ("Popular Mechanics," June 1939, pg. 805). "Consider our natural resources," the president of DuPont continued, "The chemist has aided in conserving natural resources by developing synthetic products to supplement or wholly replace natural products." DuPont's scientists were the world's leading researchers into the processes of nitrating cellulose and were in fact the largest processor of cellulose in the nation in this era. The February, 1938 "Popular Mechanics" article stated "Thousands of tons of hemp hurds are used every year by one large powder company for the manufacture of dynamite and TNT." History shows that DuPont had largely cornered the market in explosives by buying up and consolidating the smaller blasting companies in the late 1800s. By 1902 they controlled about two-thirds of industry output. They were the largest powder company, supplying 40% of the munitions for the allies in WWI. As cellulose and fiber researchers, DuPont's chemists knew hemp's true value better than anyone else. The value of hemp goes far beyond line fibers; although recognized for linen, canvas, netting and cordage, these long fibers are only 20% of the hempstalks' weight. 80% of the hemp is in the 77% cellulose hurd, and this was the most abundant, cleanest resource of cellulose (fiber) for paper, plastics and even rayon. The empirical evidence in this book shows that the federal government--through the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act--allowed this munitions maker to supply synthetic fibers for the domestic economy without competition. The proof of a successful conspiracy among these corporate and governing interests is simply this: In 1991 DuPont was still the largest producer of man-made fibers, while no citizen has legally harvested a single acre of textile grade hemp in over 50 years. An almost unlimited tonnage of natural fiber and cellulose would have become available to the American farmer in 1937, the year DuPont patented nylon and the polluting wood-pulp paper sulfide process. All of hemp's potential value was lost. Simple plastics of the early 1900s were made of nitrated cellulose, directly related to DuPont's munitions-making processes. Celluloid, acetate and rayon were the simple plastics of that era, and hemp was well known to cellulose researchers as the premier resource for this new industry to use. Worldwide, the raw material of simple plastics, rayon and paper could be best supplied by hemp hurds. Nylon fibers were developed between 1926-1936 by the noted Harvard chemist Wallace Carothers, working from German patents. These polyamides are long fibers based on observed natural products. Carothers, supplied with an open-ended research grant from DuPont, made a comprehensive study of natural cellulose fibers. He duplicated natural fibers in his labs and polyamides--long fibers of a specific chemical process--were developed. Coal tar and petroleum based chemicals were employed, and different devices, spinnerets and processes were patented. This new type of textile, nylon, was to be controlled from the raw material stage, as coal, to the completed product; a patented chemical product. The chemical company centralized the production and profits of the new "miracle" fiber.