HEMP MAKES CLIMATE DIFFERENCE

Editor, The Gazette:

No matter what is causing climate change, one of the best things
Canadians could do to reduce greenhouse gasses is grow lots of Industrial Hemp.

We have the people, we have the land, we have the know-how - we just
have no political will.

Hemp (the legal, non-drug version of the Cannabis plant) produces
more ethanol fuel per acre than any other crop. It can be used for
car, truck, boat, and airplane fuel, polymer body parts, lubricants,
paint, and about 25,000 other things.

Hemp doesn't need the fertilizers or pesticides used to grow corn,
soy, or wheat grass, or the fuel to spread those chemicals, so that
would reduce pollution further. This would also help Canada's farmers
immensely, most of whom are operating under large debts.

Hemp doesn't need the prime soil of those other crops, and can grow
on even marginal, contaminated, or depleted soil.

Hemp eats more CO2 per acre than any other crop, reducing pollution further.

Hemp is a weed, so it will not be choked off or overgrown by the
other weeds that will thrive in the warmer, higher CO2 atmosphere of
the coming decade, and threaten more traditional crops.

Hemp also produces more biomass per acre than any other crop, meaning
it could - at least partially - replace coal as a hydroelectric fuel.
Unlike dirty, finite, coal, Hemp is endlessly renewable and burns lean.

Then we wouldn't need more dams or nuclear plants!

Hemp produces more nutrition per acre than any other crop, and it is
the most easily assimilated protein known to man.

The ironic part is, outdoor marijuana growers would never sneak their
illegal pot into or anywhere near someone's legal Hemp field (as they
often do now with corn), because the Hemp plants would pollinate the
marijuana, causing it to seed, and making the pot absolutely useless
on the black market!

The main problem is; promoting and using Industrial Hemp for all of
these clean, green, environmentally friendly industries might send
the wrong message to youth about marijuana, and undermine the
government's 70+ year anti-pot propaganda campaign.

So it looks like we are stuck with oil, coal, and prohibitively
expensive corn for another generation at least.

Russell Barth

Federal Medical Marijuana License Holder

Ottawa, Ont.