CANNY CANNABIS

FOR once, I have common ground with Aled Jones (Facing extinction,
Readers' Letters, June 19), regarding the destruction of many species
by business greed in feeding our daily lives with junk food and
poisonous packaging, along with the destruction of organic farming.

It is for these reasons that his most-hated plant, cannabis, has been
demonised.

Forty per cent of the world's pesticides are used on cotton. The
cannabis plant can produce more fibre per acre, will grow anywhere,
and requires no pesticides. The cannabis plant produces more paper per
acre than trees, can be made into biodegradable plastic and fuel,
paints and varnishes, medicine, rope, building materials and food.
continued...

Our nation would have been covered in fields of cannabis hemp 150
years ago, thus we have an area of York called Hempland, while
elsewhere in Britain we have Hemel Hempstead, Hampstead Heath, and
Hampshire.

Two previous US presidents grew cannabis, Clinton and Bush both smoked
it, and Levi's jeans were first made from it.

That cannabis should still be illegal, given our so-called concern for
the environment, shows that our institutions are all but destroyed by
the corruption of those that seek money and power.

Our government would rather arrest and imprison sick people for using
cannabis than pass it as a medicine, despite its being one of the
safest therapeutically active substances known.

Steve Clements, The Legalise Cannabis Alliance, Asquith Avenue, York.