Hey drug warriors - what's your position on this? You can't get high off of industrial hemp - it is the equivalent of smoking a telephone pole. Should this product remain banned too?
Why, of course...to 'Keep On Truckin.'
I have a friend, an engineer, that actually did the math--we would have to cover the US with hemp from sea to shining sea (including non-arable land) to meet our energy needs.
Everytime I see this type of thing mentioned I remember an old Laugh-In "News of the Future" about President Ronald Reagan (considered funny, since he was only governor of California at the time. even funnier to me, since I saw this episode in '87 when he was president) deciding to do a trial run of marijuana as a fuel alternative. At last report it is unsure if it really made a difference in pollution, but no one really seemed to care.
It can also be used to make rope. You know... for that rope shortage... we have.
Pathetic!
just an attempt by the pro-legalization crowd to latch on to the energy crisis to get their drugs legalized.
The best crop for an alternative fuel has already been identified - switchgrass. Pres. Bush was ridiculed for including it in his SOTU address, but he is right. It traps the maximum amount of CO2 below ground, provides far more energy than corn above ground, and is environmentally friendly and costs less to grow. The only reason we don't use it now is corn subsidies have provided an over-capacity for corn (and an over-incentive to grow it).
And as far as I know, smoking it doesn't turn you into a lazy moron.
The Greenies have started their campaigns and are out to convince everyone we can grow (looking for agriculture subsidies, hello) our way out of energy demands in spite of global demands.
Said another way, imagine the plethora of new ways to tax you and re-distribute that wealth in the form of bigger gubmint and higher spending.
Hemp Executives
Maybe instead of deisigning tasteless tomatos that ship well, we can use our scientific rescorces to design a variety of hemp that produces a much larger yield of fuel per plant. Hemp can be used to make paper as well, is this not correct?
Whatever we do we must end our dependence on foreign oil, our 60 year pact with the devil and the resulting realpolitk that has gone with it. Further, it constitutes an easily disrupted supply line an equally easy corruption of our principles and ideals. Either we just kick arab ass and take their gas or we become self sustaining and bow to no one. Thereafter, if we want to make a point with China, Iran, N Korea, et al., we can always park several tarmacs in the straights of Hormuz.
....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
What was the question again?
New DNA 'Fingerprinting' Technique Separates Hemp From Marijuana
Using new DNA "fingerprinting" techniques, two University of Minnesota researchers have become the first to unequivocally separate hemp plants from marijuana plants with genetic markers. Hemp, a crop grown for durable fiber and nutritious seed, and marijuana, the most abundant illegal drug of abuse in the United States, both belong to the species Cannabis sativa. They differ in levels of the psychoactive drug tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) but are otherwise difficult to tell apart. The technique holds promise for distinguishing different cultivars (domesticated plant lines) in U.S. criminal cases. It may also prove useful in countries where the cultivation of hemp is permitted but marijuana is illegal, as in Canada and Europe. The work appears in the March issue (volume 51, No. 2) of the Journal of Forensic Science.
You folks continue to ignore the pr/gallon economics will all these statements.
If and when we get comfortable with 4-5 dollars per gallon gas without raising taxes, and the real true cost of the product, not the speculative value, grows to this high level, then and only then will agricultural products be able to compete.
We are not there yet, and have a long way to go. Even now, with the cheapest Ag alternative being ethanol, it has to be subsidized to be produced.
So forget it!