cannabisnews.com: Overheated Hype About Hemp!





Overheated Hype About Hemp!
Posted by FoM on May 15, 1999 at 11:56:06 PT
Source: Washington Post
Jeanette McDougal of Drug Watch/Minnesota badly misled your readers about an important issue of public policy: whether America's farmers should be permitted to grow industrial hemp, as farmers are permitted to do in England, Canada, France and Germany [Free for All, May 8]. 
McDougal says no, claiming that industrial hemp is marijuana, and that in any event industrial hemp is not an "economic" crop. She could not be more mistaken.In the first place, industrial hemp is not marijuana. Industrial hemp is legally grown throughout Europe and Canada precisely because it has too low a concentration of cannabis's psychoactive ingredient (THC) -- often three-tenths of one percent or less -- to make it possible to use it as a drug. Moreover, growing industrial hemp is an effective way to undermine marijuana cultivation. This is because industrial hemp degrades, through cross-pollination, the potency of marijuana that is anywhere near it. McDougal's contention that no market exists for industrial hemp is false. This country has a multimillion-dollar hemp market -- for hemp may be legally imported into the United States, even though, illogically, it cannot be grown here. Thus, American farmers are forbidden to supply not only our own domestic market for industrial hemp but also the larger international market. The harm to our farmers is particularly severe, since the price for industrial hemp is good, and will stay good, because of the large and growing list of products that can be made from it. The plant's long fibers and oil are ideal for paper, carpets, building products, fabrics, lotions and many other uses. Recognizing this, legislatures in North Dakota, Virginia, Minnesota and Montana recently have legalized the cultivation of industrial hemp, and other states are moving in the same direction.Click the above link to read the whole article!
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