We can keep paper mills open despite loss of harvestable trees, if we can
crawl out from under drug-war hysteria and consider hemp. It is the oldest
cultivated crop, and probably the most useful. At the turn of the century,
75 to 90 percent of paper was made from hemp. In the 1930s, a three-page
article in "Popular Mechanics" hailed "The New Billion-Dollar Crop." Then
came the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.

Could it be that timber-owning newspaper magnates such as Hearst had
something to do with it? Nah, skip consipiracy theories. Get to the facts:

Fact: Hemp grows four times the pulp per acre compared to trees over a
20-year period, and has the advantage of generating a crop each year. And
it grows well in all U.S. climates.

Commercial hemp contains such low THC levels that smoking it is like
smoking banana peels -- if you're high, it's from hyperventilation. There
is no reason to continue to have this valuable and desperately needed crop
prohibited by drug laws drawn up in ignorance 60 years ago, and maintained
in a losing "drug war" the American government is waging against its own
citizens.

Keep the paper mills open. Legalize commercial hemp.

Ralph Seeley
Tacoma