Hemp seen as fuel substitute

GLOBAL HEMP ^ | 20 SEPTEMBER 2005 | John Fennucio

[mysterio]

Waste of police resources. They could be arresting criminals instead of people who have a plant.

I think we should make bananas illegal because college kids sometimes smoke the peel to get a buzz.

[Mojave]

Under the national hegemony dreamed of by leftists there would be no state laws.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

OK, the article was about fuel - if you use the plant for fuel, you really can’t use it for rope. But of course, switchgrass does have a long fibrous stalk so you can make usable fibers from it. And there’s always cotton as well.

Switchgrass is a weed native to North America. It requires less water than hemp, and grows from the permafrost line in Canada down to the equator. It’ll grow anywhere, self-seeds the ground, and takes about 2 years to establish (after which you get regular harvests). Note that ALL grasses - including the cannabis family - need a year or two to get fully established before you start to harvest, so you can maximize return.

Seriously, hemp has a stigma attached to it. So why push for hemp when we have switchgrass which is as good, and does not have the stigma nor can even be used to refine to get THC? Hemp as a crop makes zero sense, other than the “cool” factor that some subcultures like.

Fighting for hemp in the face of comparable plants strikes me more as an argument for legalization of pot via acceptance of hemp (which can be grown in very strong varieties), rather than an honest search for a superior crop.

[P.O.E.]

Make it poison ivy, and I’m a millionaire.

[LibertyRocks]

You make a very sound argument as far as using the switchgrass for fuel vs. other crops. I went and read a little about switchgrass after I posted to you, and it would make a LOT of sense to pursue this. As I said, I really don’t care what crop they pursue as long as they layoff the corn! :-)

[PugetSoundSoldier]

You are correct; I assumed the author was part-baked and screwed up between methanol and ethanol. But methanol has about 85% of the energy of ethanol. So if this is in fact methanol from hemp, the it’s less efficient than switchgrass.

[Thermalseeker]

It makes me think they hope that they can sneak their variety in fields and mix it with the industrial type.

Cross pollination would take care of that notion in one or two growing cycles.

Having worked all over the Midwest building cellar systems, I can tell you first hand that there is still hemp growing all over the place. It's leftover from when farmers used to grow it as a primary crop before William Randolph Hurst had his way. Locals call it "ditch weed". Although I have no specific experience with "ditch weed", I'm told that you could smoke a garbage bag full of it and all you would get is a nasty headache....

[Dr. Sivana]

Cross pollination would take care of that notion in one or two growing cycles.

I figured that was likely, but there still must be a reason why the Woody Harrelson types make such a big deal out of this. I'm not saying they are thinking rationally or clearly (after all, they are potheads), and like Archie Bunker, they might come to the right conclusion for the wrong reason or motivation. I was in theory okay with "medical marijuana", but the perversion that has become in California with people getting it prescribed for bunions, etc., makes me figure that the potheads would somehow try to use that to get what they want: publicly and legally stoned.

[Thermalseeker]

I figured that was likely, but there still must be a reason why the Woody Harrelson types make such a big deal out of this.

Yeah, I see your point. It sorta like McCain running around calling himself a Conservative. Him doing so gives real Conservatives a bad name in the eyes of the uninformed.....

[SunkenCiv]

“...and the oil companies bought up all the rights to the pot-burning car which gets 100 miles to the dime bag!!! And the inventor of the bong-powered space ship was found dead, and all his blueprints were missing!”

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[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Nobody’s going to go through the trouble of trying to convert hemp into smokable pot when they can get the real thing for cheaper.

[Mojave]

Nobody’s going to go to the expense to buy smokable pot since they can grow it for free.

/sarcasm

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

BTTT

[greenlungs]

Like Bill Hicks said: Hemp grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn't the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit... unnatural? You know what I mean? It's nature. How do you make nature against the law? And yes, we already could do strictly green energy...