Posted on 04/21/2004 4:31:33 PM PDT by Wolfie
High on Hemp
America’s Most Controversial Crop May One Day Fill Supermarkets and Fuel Automobiles
Even if you "Just Say No" to drugs, you've probably crossed state lines many times with large amounts of hemp. And if you haven't, no doubt one day you will. Hemp, a member of the cannabis family of plants, is related to marijuana and illegal to grow in the United States. Nevertheless, hemp is everywhere — in clothing, cosmetics and even in the door panels of more than a million Ford, Chrysler and General Motors cars.
Advocates call hemp a miracle crop. It can be blended to make an array of textiles, from carpeting to finely woven Armani suits. It can be heat-treated to form fiberglass-like building materials and car parts. It can be eaten, or it can be put in a car engine as a replacement for petroleum.
You can shop for hemp salad dressing, hemp skin cream and hemp toilet paper. Then you can carry the goodies home in a hemp grocery bag, and laugh about it over a hemp beer.
Apparently, industrial hemp is good for practically everything but getting high. This form of cannabis has only the slightest amount of THC — the illegal mind-bending substance in marijuana.
Nevertheless, hemp is still having trouble shaking its shady image. That's why hemp farming is banned in the United States under the Controlled Substances Act, even though it's legal in Western Europe, Canada and Asia.
America was once a hemp-producing country. It was farmed by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The paper upon which the Declaration of Independence was drafted and the rags Betsy Ross used to sew the first flag were made of hemp.
But hemp's heyday came to an end after World War II, when the government began crackdowns on marijuana. Hemp can still be legally imported, and Americans purchase about $25 million of this product annually for use in clothing, food and industrial goods.
Now, with Earth Day, comes the renewed call to lift the ban on this versatile, eco-friendly crop, which we may one day put in our both our mouths and our gas tanks. Hemp advocates say that's more than a pipe dream, so let's see what they're so high about.
A Smokin' Ride: A car that's made of hemp and runs on hemp seems like the idea of someone who has watched one too many Cheech and Chong movies — and not America's most famous auto manufacturer, Henry Ford.
Yet the man behind the Model T was a big believer in bio-diesel fuels. Ford's hemp mobile, devised in the late 1920s, consisted of a steel chassis with fiber and plastics made from hemp resin.
Two years ago, Kellie and Grayson Sigler of Virginia honored Ford's vision of a petroleum-free car when they crossed North America in their HempCar — a modified Mercedes station wagon that trekked 13,000 miles burning this whacky weed.
The good news: The HempCar got 27 miles a gallon. The bad news: Hemp fuel presently costs about $50 a gallon. Nevertheless, the Siglers say hemp fuel burns clean, and nobody compared the exhaust fumes to a big fat joint.
Even if you don't have hemp in your gas tank, you might have it on your chassis. The University of Toronto is experimenting with superheated hemp to make biodegradable car bumpers that are lightweight and tough, helping to make a bad trip better.
Junkie Food: Hemp baker Lynn Gordon says the only thing that's addictive about her Healthy Hemp Sprouted Bread is "the great taste."
Two years ago, the Drug Enforcement Administration tried to crack down on the growing market for hemp-based food, which now includes a hemp breakfast cereal, hemp waffle mix and — if you still have the munchies — "hempzel" pretzels.
Now, you can expect an explosion of more hemp products, thanks to a federal appeals court in San Francisco. Judges recognized that hempseed in products like Gordon's bread have no more danger than poppy seeds, which contain trace amounts of opium but pose no harm to bagel lovers.
Hemp tastes similar to pine nuts. The nutritional value is said to be the real selling point. Advocates tout the plant's seeds and oil as a miracle nutrient, high in vitamins B and E, rich in essential fatty acids and packed with protein.
Now, we can talk about the health benefits of such new products as Heavenly Hemp Tortilla Chips, HempNut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, and Cheddar HempNut Cheese Alternative.
High Fashion: As a force in fashion, hemp long ago beat the granola off its image. Giorgio Armani has featured hemp in his Emporio Armani collections. Other designers have followed suit.
There's even an all-natural, eco-friendly hemp thong. "You'd be surprised how well they sell," says George Bates of Shirt Magic in Lewiston, Calif.
"This is for the woman who has one eye on the environment and the other eye on impressing her boyfriend."
The Body Shop and Earthly Body are among the cosmetic sellers that hail hemp's high concentration of fatty acids for dry lips, skin and hair. Julia Roberts told British reporters last year that she favors Alterna's Hemp Seed Straightening Balm.
Seedy Joints: If you're really trying to make a statement, check into the HempWorld hotel in Amsterdam, where there's hemp in the doormat, the bedsheets, the bathroom shower curtain, the restaurant's house wine and the coffee.
Another seedy joint: California's Compassion Flower Inn, which calls itself the world's first "bed, bud and breakfast."
Guests are greeted at the entrance with a cannabis-leaf mosaic and can learn about the wondrous weed in the hotel's hemp library.
The Compassionate Flower celebrates all forms of cannabis. Guests can even light up a joint, if they have a note from their doctor.
"We're a safe haven for the use of medicinal marijuana," says innkeeper Andrea Tischler, who has a prescription for medicinal marijuana.
"Hemp and marijuana get confused so much, but mostly by people who don't smoke marijuana," Tischler says. "I wonder what it is that's distorting their senses and if we can ban that."
Wasn't Cheech's van in "Up in Smoke" fueled by hemp ;)
The other bad news: There isn’t enough arable land in the world to meet a fraction of U.S. demand.
I also like how he inserts “nevertheless” in there. Meanwhile, my Civic just got 44 mpg on my last trip through Riverside and it burns the $2.00/gal gas.
During WW II hemp was grown for the production of hemp rope for the US Navy. After the war it was discontinued as a cash crop, but the seed was widely scattered over the country side. It still grows wild in many placcceeessss.
Wrong. It came to an end when we found out their were better products for making rope and cloth.
Rediculous statement. The eco-freak druggies would still be supporting hemp and the sane people would still prefer not to wear hemp underwear.
You mean that our vessels of today do not go to sea? :-)
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