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"That "evidence" went up in smoke long ago"

Let the truth be told! I'll tell you what bothers me. It just so happens that right before hemp was outlawed in the 30's, there was an article in Popular Mechanics about a hemp processing machine that was going to revolutionize the paper and textile industry. Hemp was going to be in direct competition with logging and cotton. Once you look at the fact's, it's hard not to see that you can basically make anything out of hemp. It only takes 144 days to harvest, less chemicals to process for paper, stronger and more durable than cotton, and unlike trees you dont have to wait a few years for them to grow back. In such a capitalistic society it surprises me that, from an Industrial standpoint, there isn't more of an out cry for a Domestic Hemp Industry. There is major money to be made here. Imagine being able to grow one crop and being able to make about a hunder different things out of it. Hemp dominates every plant known to man in its uses and the fact that you can make paper with out cutting down trees. Hey one less tree cut down is one less thing for the Enviro-freaks to cry about and you know we all love to hear them cry.

Drunknsage

My wife is a parer research chemist and I am a farmer. I know of what you speak of but you are only on the edges. Hemp is warm, soft, durable, makes good paper, clothing, industrial fibers, rope, and so on.....It is not however where all research has been spent for the past 50 years. Flame retardants, machine designs, pulping timber stands, syntheteic fiber manufacturing facilities, and so on. Hemp is also not real durable when less than ideal conditions exist.

That being said, the USDA did a study three years ago on the commercial viability of hemp production here in the US. They came to the conclusion that all the hemp the US could grow and market would be satisfied by twenty acres of production. Of couse today we are importing some 50,000 tonnes of finished hemp goods and Candada is growing over 20 million acres of it and still does not fill demand. Granted much of the interest is by the fringe and it is most likely a trend which will ebb, but it's value as a cash crop should not be dismissed.

I have a hemp shirt that is the softest most durable damn thing I own. I am very pleased. At present I am working on a new product with all the trash wool from my sheep flock. If I can figure a way to mass produce it cost effectively I will be a very wealthy man. Since my real farming focus is on sheep production, I really do not have the energies to jump on the hemp bandwagon.

Funny the envirmentals have a plant that clogs up the rivers over there that grows 3 inches a day. It is not MJ by the way, just a weed that has better properties than MJ ever dreamed of. You have to have a permit to take it across state lines and to test it. A fellow in Alabama wanted to get a permit to grow 15 acres of it to test it and is having a hard time of it. It does not transplant real well via seeds (pods, ect) but by breaking into sections and floating downstream and lodging and taking root. Enviromentals hate it, saying it clogs out other growths and waterways and is durn near impossible to kill. But it's potential as a paper alternative is incredible, shadowing that of MJ.

I'll see if I can dig up the article.