GOVERNMENT SHOULD LOOK TOWARD HEMP AS A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE FUEL

Do you feel your wallet shrinking as you drive your car? Many people
are resorting to carpooling, public transportation, and many other
forms of cheaper transportation, but some researchers have found a
way for you to keep driving and save money: hemp. Hemp Global
Solutions researches the use of hemp as a biofuel. They advocate hemp
as a "potential solution to some of the major social and
environmental challenges of the 21st century."

Industrial hemp has a long history in America already. During World
War II, Japan cut off America's supply of hemp. In response, Congress
lifted marijuana prohibition and encouraged farmers to grow hemp. The
response was a boom in hemp crops in America, reaching 375,000 acres
in 1943. In 1941, Henry Ford built a plastic car made from hemp and
wheat straw. Hemp is still used today in most printed currency
because of its resilient strength and water resistance.

Perhaps one of hemp's best characteristics is its environmental
friendliness. It grows faster than other crops like corn or rice and
it comes with the added benefit of improving soil quality where it's
grown. Similarly, it does not need cleared land to grow and is
naturally pest resistant, meaning that pesticides are not necessary
which would help to ultimately reduce CFCs and nutrient leeching.
Furthermore, hemp even kills pests in the soil, further reducing the
need for pesticides. Unlike fossil fuels, which release carbon
dioxide and sulfur into the air, hemp actually converts carbon
dioxide back into biomass at an astounding rate. The crop itself is
extremely diverse and able to grow in conditions that other biofuel
crops cannot. Its drought resistance makes it an ideal crop for
farmers in the Midwest and other areas that are so-called "dust bowls."

Although researchers have been looking at corn as a possible biofuel,
hemp is much more productive and cost-effective. One acre of hemp can
produce ten times as much methanol as an acre of corn, with an
exponentially faster rate of growth. Capable of producing ten tons of
biomass per acre in less than four months, hemp would only take six
percent of the American land mass to grow enough hemp to completely
eliminate our need for fossil fuels. The infrastructure change would
not be a problem either, as traditional farming equipment could be
used to harvest hemp.

Hemps psychoactive properties are largely a myth. Industrial hemp
contains less than one percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Currently,
there are over 25,000 known uses for hemp. It can be used to make
wood and pulp byproducts such as paper, and produces four times as
much cellulose as trees do, making it ideal in reducing
deforestation. Plastic made from hemp is biodegradable while
synthetic plastic is not.

As our country starts to look elsewhere for our energy needs, let's
hope that the government's irrational stigma against THC containing
crops like hemp will not cause them to overlook its inherent
benefits. It could be a boom to our nation's economy and a solution
to our long-term energy problem all while helping the environment
instead of polluting it.