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A tumor is a mass of swollen tissue. Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia discovered that cannabis is an incredibly successful herb for reducing many types of tumors, both benign and malignant (cancerous). The DEA and other federal agencies had ordered these tumor studies done after hearing erroneous reports of possible immunicological problems associated with cannabis smoke. But, in 1975, instead of health problems, an apparent medical breakthrough occurred and successful tumor reductions were recorded! Following this remarkably positive discovery by the Medical College of Virginia, orders were immediately handed down by the DE and the National Institute of Health to defund all furter cannabis/tumor research and reporting! Millions of Americans who might be alive today are dead because of these and other DEA orders regarding marijuana. Since 1996, the Medical College of Virginia has again applied to receive grants for cannabis research and has been turned down by the DEA.
Though it is known to be extremely damaging to the immune system, chemotherapy is claimed by practitioners to benefit cancer and AIDS patients. But chemo has some other serious side effects too, including nausea. "Marijuana is the best agent for control of nausea in cancer chemotherapy," according to Dr. Thomas Ungerleider, who headed California's Marijuana for Cancer research program from 1979 to 1984. This is also true in AIDS and even in the unsettled stomach common in m otion sickness. Pharmaceutical nausea control drugs come in pills that are often swallowed by the patient, only to be thrown back up. Because cannabis can be ingested as smoke, it stays in the system and keeps working even if vomiting continues. Throughout the state's 10-year Compassionate Marijuana Medical law, George Deukmejian, both as attorney general and as governor, with no regard for the suffering or dying cancer patients, made it virtually impossible for them to get cannabis. Californa Governor Pete Wilson was following the same course until the medical marijuana initiative passed in November 1996.
Cannabis is beneficial for 60% of all epileptics. It is definitely the best treatment for many, but not all types of epilepsy, and for victims' post-seizure mental traumas. Cannabis extract is more effective than Dilantin (a commonly prescribed anti-epileptic with severe side effects). Medical World News reported in 1971: "Marijuana . . . is probably the most potent anti-epileptic known to medicine today." (Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana Medical Papers, 1839-1972, page xxii.) Cannabis users' epileptic seizures are of less intensity than the more dangerous seizures experienced by users of pharmaceuticals. Similarly, smoking cannabis has proven to be a major source of relief for multiple sclerosis, which affects the nervous system and is characterized by muscular weakness, tremors, etc. Aside from addictive morphine, cannabis, whether smoked or applied as an herbal pack or poultice, is also the best muscle relaxant, back spasm medicine and general antispasmodic medication on our planet. In September 1993, in Santa Cruz County, California, Sheriffs rearrested eqileptic Valerie Corral and confiscated the five marijuana plants she was growing for medicine even though 77% of the citizens of Santa Cruz voted in November 1992 to instruct local law enforcement not to prosecute medical marijuana users. Charges against Corral had been dropped earlier in March 1993 because she was the first person in California to meet all six points of a medical necessity defense. In 1997, Valerie, who runs a compassionate use club, was named Citizen of the Year in Santa Cruz. (Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, 1976; Consult U.S. Pharmacopoeia prior to 1937; Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana Medical Papers, 1839-1972.)
Young un-budded hemp plants provide extractions of CBDs (cannabidiolic acids). There are many antibiotic uses of the cannabidiols, including treatment for gonorrhea. A 1990 Florida study indicated its use in treating herpes. The acid side of tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiols occur inversely to the amount of the plant's THC and is therefore more acceptable to prohibitionists because "it won't get you high." For virtually any disease or infection that can be treated with terramycin, cannabis derivatives did better in Czechoslovakian studies, 1952-1955. The Czechs in 1997 still published farm crop reports on strategies to grow cannabidiol rich hemp. (Also see Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana; Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana Medical Papers; Roffman, Marijuana as Medicine, 1982; International Farm Crop abstracts.)
Cannabis is a topical analgesic.2 Until 1937, virtually all corn plasters, mustard plasters, muscle ointments, and fibrosis poultices were made from or with cannabis extracts. Rheumatism was treated throughout South America until the 1960s with hemp leaves and/or flower tops heated in water or alcohol and placed on painful joints. In fact, this form of herbal medicine is still widely used in rural areas of Mexico, Central and South America, and by California Latinos for relief of rheumatism and arthritis pain. Direct contact with THC killed herpes virus in a University of South Florida (Tampa) 1990 research study by Dr. Gerald Lancz, who warns that "smoking marijuana will not cure herpes." However, anecdotal reports indicate a faster drying and healing of the outbreak after topical application of "strong bud," soaked in rubbing alcohol and crushed into a paste.
Cannabis is the best natural expectorant to clear the human lungs of smog, dust and the phlegm associated with tobacco use. Marijuana smoke effectively dilates the airways of the lungs, the bronchi, opening them to allow more oxygen into the lungs. It is also the best natural dilator of the tiny airways of the lungs, the bronchial tubes - making cannabis the best overall bronchial dilator for 80% of the population (the remaining 20% sometimes show minor negative reactions). (See section on asthma - a disease that closes these passages in spasms - UCLA Tashkin studies, 1969-97; U.S. Costa Rican, 1980-82; Jamaican studies 1969-74, 76.) Statistical evidence - showing up consistently as anomalies in matched populations - indicates that people who smoke tobacco cigarettes are usually better off and will live longer if they smoke cannabis moderately, too. (Jamaicna, Costa Rican studies.) Millions of Americans have given up or avoided smoking tobacco products in favor of cannabis, which is not good news to the powerful tobacco lobby - Senator Jesse Helms and his cohorts. A turn-of-the-century grandfather clause in U.S. tobacco law allows 400 to 6,000 additional chemicals to be added. Additions since then to the average tobacco cigarette are unknown, and the public in the U.S. has no right to know what they are. Many joggers and marathon runners feel cannabis use cleans their lungs, allowing better endurance. The evidence indicates that cannabis use will probably increase these outlaw American marijuana-users' lives by about one to two years - yet they may lose their rights, property, children, state licenses, etc., just for using that safest of substances: cannabis.
But if cannabis is beneficial to health then medicines can be produced from it. In fact they're under trial as we speak for MS I believe.
Most people don't use cannabis for medicinal purposes, so how does any of that justify legalising cannabis for the rest of the population?
Cannabis lowers blood pressure, dilates the arteries and reduces body temperature an average of one-half degree, thereby relieving stress. Evening cannabis smokers in general report more restful sleep. Using cannabis allows most people a more complete rest with a higher amount of "alpha time" during sleep as compared with prescription or sleep-inducing patent sedatives. Prescription sleeping pills (the so called "legal, safe and effective" drugs) are often just synthesized analogs of truly dangerous plants like mandrake, henbane and belladonna. As late as 1991, doctors, pharmacists and drug companies were fighting off new legislation to restrict these often abused compounds. (L.A. Times, April 2, 1991). Unlike Valium, cannabis does not potentiate the effects of alcohol. It is estimated that cannabis could replace more than 50% of Valium, Librium, Thorazine, Stelazine, other "-zine" drugs and most sleeping pills. It is unconscionable that, over the past two decades, tens of thousands of parents have committed their own children, aged 11 to 17, to be treated by massive doses of so-called "-zine" drugs in order to get them off pot, at the urging of parent groups, the PDFA, the feds and administrators and doctors from federally approved, private and high-profit drug rehabilitation centers. Often, "-zine" drugs do work to stop these youths from using pot. They also stop a kid from loving his or her dog, too - and children stand a one-in-four chance of suffering from uncontrollable shaking for the rest of their lives.* But at least they're not high. * The U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said that 20-40% of "-zine" drug users have or will develop permanent lifetime pasies (shakes), November 1983. These prescription neurotoxins are chemically related to the pesticide and warfare nerve gas Sarin. Hundreds of private drug-rehabilitation centers and their leaders keep this policy alive and in front of the media, often quoting discredited reports from NIDA or DEA (see Chapter 16, debunking) - because they earn fat profits selling their useless or destructive "marijuana treatment" for children. After all, a relapse just means using marijuana against after a number of bouts with an "authority." This is mind control and an attempt to destroy individual free will.
Medical research indicates that light cannabis smoking might be useful for a majority of mild emphysema victims. It would improve the quality of life for millions of sufferers and extend their life spans. The U.S. government and DEA (since 1976) saky the side effect of being "high" is not acceptable, no matter how many years or lives it saves; even though some 90 million Americans have tried marijuana and 25 to 30 million Americans have tried marijuana and 25 to 30 million Americans have tried marijuana and 25 to 30 million still smoke marijuana relaxationally, or use it responsibly as a form of daily self-medication, without one single death from overdoes - ever! All research into the oxygen blood transfer effects cause by cannabis indicates that the chest (lung) pains, extremity pains, shallowness of breath, and headaches we may experience on heavy smog days are usually alleviated by cannabis smoking throughout the day. Dr. Donald Tashkin, the U.S. government's leading scientist on marijuana pulmonary research, told us in December 1989*, and again in December 1997, that you cannot get or potentiate emphysema with cannabis smoking. * See Tashkin's Marijuana Pulmonary Research, UCLA, 1969-1997. Since 1981, this author has personally taken part in these studies and has continuously interviewed Tashkin on cannabis' medical indications; last personal interview was in December 1997.
Most of all: it is best for the world's number one killer - stress. It can safely curtail or replace Valium, Librium, alcohol, or even Prozac, for millions of Americans. While cannabis intoxication varies with psychological set and social setting, "the most common response is a calm, mildly euphoric state in which time slows and a sensitivity to sights, sounds and touch his enhanced." In contrast to marijuana's safe, therapeutic action, benzodiazepine (Valium) abuse is the number one drug abuse problem in the country, and is responsible for more emergency room admissions in the United States than either cocaine-related problems or morphone and heroin-related admissions combined.* While tobacco constricts arteries, cannabis dilates (opens) them. Because migraine headaches are the result of artery spasms combined with over-relaxation of veins, the vascular changes cannabis causes in the covering of the brain (the meninges) usually make migraines disappear. Evidence of vascular change caused by cannabis can be seen in the user's red eyes, which are extensions of the brain. However, unlike most other drugs, cannabis has no apparent effect on the vascular system in general, except for a slightly increased heart rate during the onset of the high
Users of marijuana often (but not always) experience "the munchies," a stimulated appetite for food, which, at this time, makes cannabis the very best medicine on the planet for anorexia. Hundreds of thousands of Americans in old age, convalescent wards or hospital situations have anorxia. Most could be helped by cannabis - yet these Americans are being denied a healthy life by governmental policy dictated by government police! This effect can also extend the lives of AIDS and pancreatic cancer (eat or die). However, the DEA and U.S. government prevented any research or use of cannabis in pancreatic cancer therapy since 1976. They have effectively allowed tens of thousands of people to die each year, denying them the right to live otherwise normal, healthy and productive lives.
Marijuana smoking can help dry your mouth for the dentist. This is the best way to dry the mouth's saliva non-toxically in what is known among smokers as its "cotton mouth" effect. According to the Canadian Board of Dentistry in studies conducted in the 1970s, cannabis could replace the highly toxic Probathine compounds produced by Searle & Co. This may also indicate that cannabis could be good for treating peptic ulcers.
One well known effect of THC is to life the spirit, or make you "high." Cannabis users in Jamaica praise ganja's benefits for meditation, concentration, consciousness-raising and promoting a state of well being and self assertiveness.5 This kind of attitude adjustment, along with a healthier appetite and better rest, often represents the difference between feeling like you are "dying of" AIDS or cancer and feeling like you are "living with" AIDS or cancer. Cannabis also eases small pains and some big ones and helps senior citizens live with aches and pains like arthritis, insomnia and debilitating infirmities, and enjoy life in greater dignity and comfort. Legend has it, and medical evidence indicates, that cannabis is the best overall treatment for dementia, senility, and maybe Alzheimer's disease, for long-term memory "gain" and hundreds of other benefits. U.S. statistics of the 1970s indicated that you will live eight to 24 years longer if you substitute daily cannabis use for daily tobacco and alcohol use. New research is outlawed, of course.
Every U.S. commission or federal judge who has studied the evidence has agreed that cannabis is one of the safest drugs known. With all its therapeutic uses, it has only one side effect that has been exaggerated as a concern: the "high." The DEA says this is not acceptable, so cannbis continues to be totally illegal in utter disregard for both doctor and patient. Every day we trust physicians to determine whether the risks associated with therapeutic, yet potentially dangerous drugs are acceptable for their patients. Yet, doctors are not allowed to prescribe the herb that Federal Judge Francis Young in 1988 called "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." We don't put out doctors in charge of stopping violent crimes. The police, prosecutors and prison guards should not be in charge of which herbal therapies people may use to treat their personal health problems.
...and your still asking why it should be legalised!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it is the most versatile and incredible plant on this earth ...according to researchers and scientists.
for textiles from tough canvas to delicate lace. bio fuel ...building materials ...high energy food ...the very best seed oil on the planet.
it has a million uses ...it can replace harmful medications ...economicaly it can transform the lives of farmers in every corner of the world.
why the hell should any government in the world deny me accsess to the most amazing plant on the planet?
Get real. Most people who smoke the stuff don't have glaucoma, or epilepsy or emphysema or AIDS.
AIDS? :rolleyes:
it was and is my gateway drug away from heroin.
it is my relaxant. it is my pleasure. it is my stress reliever ...just has it has been for thousands of years for millions of people ...this plant is so glorious it must be god given ...
I'm glad it got you off heroin and I'm glad you've had a positive experience of using it.
But some aren't so fortunate and that is why it remains a harmful substance in my eyes.
Cannabis hempseeds contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human life. No other single plant source provides complete protein in such an easily digestible form, nor has the oils essential to life in as perfect a ratio for human health and vitality.
Hempseed is the highest of any plant in essential fatty acids. Hempseed oil is among the lowest in saturated fats at 8% of total oil volume. The oil pressed from hempseed contains 55% linoleic acid (LA) and 25% llinolenic acid (LNA). Only flax oil has more linolenic acid at 58%, but hempseed oil is the highest in total essential fatty acids at 80% of total oil volume.
"These essential fatty acids are responsible for our immune response. In the old country the peasants ate hemp butter. They were more resistant to disease than the nobility." The higher classes wouldn't eat hemp because the poor ate it. - R. Hamilton, ED.D., Ph.D. Medical Researcher-Bichemist U.C.L.A. Emeritus.
LA and LNA are involved in producing life energy from food and the movement of that energy throughout the body.
Essential fatty acids govern growth, vitality and state of mind. LA and LNA are involved in transferring oxygen from the air in the lungs to every cell in the body. They play a part in holding oxygen in the cell membrane where it acts as a barrier to invading viruses and bacteria, neither of which thrive in the presence of oxygen.
The bent shape of the essential fatty acids keep them from dissolving into each other. They are slippery and will not clog arteries like the sticky straight-shaped saturated fats and the trans-fatty acids in cooking oils and shortenings that are made by subjecting polyunsaturated oils like LA and LNA to high temperatures during the refining process.
LA and LNA possess a slightly negative charge and have a tendency to form very thin surface layers. This property is called surface activity, and it provides the power to carry substances like toxins to the surface of the skin, intestinal tract, kidneys and lungs where they can be removed. Their very sensitivity causes them to break down rapidly into toxic compounds when refined with high heat or improper storage exposes them to light or air.
Nature provides seeds with an outer shell that safely protects the vital oils and vitamins within from spoilage.
It's a perfect as well as perfectly edible container. Hempseed can be ground into a paste similar to peanut butter only more delicate in flavor. Udo Erasmus, Ph.D. nutritionist says: "Hemp butter puts our peanut butter to shame for nutritiounal value." The ground seeds can be baked into breads, cakes and casseroles. Hempseed makes a hearty addition to granola bars.
Pioneers in the fields of biochemistry and human nutrition now believe cardiovascular disease (CVD) and most cancers are really diseases of fatty degeneration caused by the continued over-consumption of saturated fats and refined vegetable oils that turn essential fatty acids into carcinogenic killers. One out of two Americans will die from the effects of CVD. One out of four Americans will die from cancer. Researchers believe cancers erupt when immune system response is weakened. And more Americans are succumbing to immune deficiency diseases than ever before. Promising studies are now under way using the essential oils to support the immune systems of HIV virus patients.
The complete protein in hempseed gives the body all the essential amino acids required to maintain health, and provides the necessary kinds and amounts of amino acids the body needs to make human serum albumin and serum globulins like the immune enhancing gamma globulin antibodies.
The body's ability to resist and recover from illness depends upon how rapidly it can produce massive amounts of antibodies to fend off the initial attack. If the globulin protein starting material is in short supply, the army of antibodies may be too small to prevent the symptoms of sickness from setting in.
The best way to insure the body has enough amino acid material to make the globulins is to eat foods high in globulin proteins. Hempseed protein is 65% globulin edestin plus quantities of albumin (present in all seeds) so its easily digestible proteen is readily available in a form quite similar to that found in blood plasma.
Hempseed was used to treat nutritional deficiencies brought on by tuberculosis, a severe nutrition blocking disease that causes the body to waste away. (Czechoslovakia Tubercular Nutritional Study, 1955.)
The energy of life is in the whole seed. Hempseed foods taste great!
They will insure we get enough essential amino acids and essential fatty acids, to build strong bodies and immune systems, and to maintain health and vitality. Please copy. Excerpted from Hempseed Nutrition by
You can stop your hemp rant now btw
Of the 3 million plus edible plants that grow on Earth, no other single plant source can compare with the nutritional value of hempseeds. Both the complete protein and the essential oils contained in hempseeds are in ideal ratios for human nutrition. Only soybeans contain a higher percentage of protein. However, the composition of the protein in hempseed is unique in the vegetable kingdom. Sixty-five percent of the protein content in hempseed is in the form of globulin edestin.1 (The word edestin comes from the Greek "edestos," meaning edible.)
The exceptionally high edestin content of hempseed combined with albumin, another globular protein contained in all seeds, means the readily available protein in hempseed contains all the essential amino acids in ideal proportions to assure your body has the necessary building blocks to create proteins like disease-fighting immunoglobulins - antibodies whose job is to ward off infections before the symptoms of sickness set it.2
Cannabis seed protein even allows a body with nutrition-blocking tuberculosis, or almost any other nutrition-blocking ailment, to get maximum nourishment.*
* Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, Plenum Press, NY, 1976; Czech. Tubercular Nutritional Study, 1955.
Even more important for building a strong immune system, hempseeds are the highest source in the plant kingdom of essential fatty acids. These essential oils, linoleic and linolenic acids, are responsible for the luster in your skin, hair, eyes, and even your thought processes. They lubricate (clear) the arteries and are vital to the immune system.
These essential fatty acids were used by Dr. Joanna Budwig (nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year since 1979) to successfully treat "terminal" cancer patients, as well as those suffering from cardiovascular disease, glandular atrophy, gall stones, kidney degeneration, acne, dry skin, menstrual problems and immune deficiency.
This, as well as other research, prompted William Eidelman, M.D., UCLA, and R. Lee Hamilton, Ed.D., Ph.D. Medical Researcher-Biochemist UCLA Emeritus, to speak out on behalf of "the life-giving values" of cannabis hemp. They state: "These essential oils support the immune system and guard against viral and other insults to the immune system. Studies are in progress using the essential oils to support the immune systems of persons with the H.I.V. virus. So far they have been extremely promising.
"What is the richest source of these essential oils? Yes, you guessed it, the seeds of the cannabis hemp plant. The insane prohibitions against the most valuable plant on Earth, cannabis hemp, must yield to public demand. The promise of super health and the possibility of feeding the world is at our fingertips." (December 29, 1991 and July 1997)
Hempseed extracts, like soybeans, can be spiced to taste like chicken, steak, or pork and can be used to make tofu-type curd and margarine, at less cost than soybeans. Sprouting any seed improves its nutritional value and hemp can be sprouted and used like any other seed sprout for salads or cooking.
Sprouted hempseeds make milk, just as soybeans do. Alan "Birdseed" Brady of Santa Cruz, California and Abba Das of Colorado use this milk to make a delicious and nutritious ice cream in many flavors that actually lowers cholesterol levels.
Hempseed is ground and used like flour, or cooked, then sweetened and combined with milk to produce a nutritional breakfast cereal - like oatmeal or cream of wheat. This type of porridge is known as a gruel. (Like the fiber, hempseeds will not get you high.)
"Hemp is a favorite [bird seed] because of its nourishing oily content." (Margaret McKenny, Birds in the Garden, Reynal & Hitchcock, NY, 1939.) Incredibly, when cannabis hemp is grown for seed, half the weight of the mature, harvested female plant is seed!
English and European fisherman who cast in freshwater lakes and rivers first told me in 1995 that hempseed has always been the preferred bait in Europe for chumming - that is, casting the hempseeds on the water - causing the fish to scramble from all over to get the seeds, thereby getting caught. Not one of the many European fisherman I talked to knew that hemp seeds and marijuana were one in the same. So hempseed is the favorite of fish as well as most birds.
The byproduct of pressing hempseed for its nutritious vegetable oil is a high protein seed cake. Hempseed cake was one of the world's principal animal feeds until this century.* Hempseed can supply a nearly complete diet for all domesticated animals (dogs, cats), many farm animals and poultry, and allows animals maximum weight gain for less than current feed costs. And without any need for artificial growth steroids or other drugs currently poisoning the human race and food chain.
Isn't it strange - doesn't it make you mad as hell - that the number-one food of all time for most birds, fish, horses, humans, and life in general, is illegal to have naturally and healthfully in the United States of America, as ordered by the Nazi/Gestapo-like Amerikan Drug Enforcement Administration and, through them, the USDA?
By itself, widespread use of hempseed food protein could save many of the world's children now dying of protein starvation! An estimated 60% of all children born in Third World countries (about 12-20 million a year) will die this way before reaching five years of age. Many times that number have their lives dramatically shortened and/or their brains decimated.3
Remember, hemp is a hearty plant that grows almost anywhere, even in adverse conditions. Australians survived two prolonged famines in the 19th Century using almost nothing except hempseeds for protein and hemp leaves for roughage.4
Furthermore, recent studies indicate that depletion of the ozone layer threatens to reduce world soya production by a substantial amount - up to 30% or even 50%, depending on the fluctuation of the density of the ozone shield. But hemp, on the other hand, resists the damage caused by increasing ultraviolet radiation and actually flourishes in it by producing more cannabinoids which provide protection from ultraviolet light. 5
It's no wonder that some Central and South Americans hate America and want us out: they see us as ignorant killers. For years, our government demanded the paraquat poisoning of their lands; lands these farmers had grown cannabis on by law since 1545, when King Philip of Spain ordered it thrown throughout his empire to provide food, sails, rope, towels, sheets and shirts - as well as providing one of the people's most important medicines for fever, childbirth, epilepsy, and poultices for rheumatism - in short, one of the oldest livelihoods, medicines, food staples and relaxational pleasures.
In South and Central America today, anyone who is caught growing their old staple, cannabis, has his land expropriated and is imprisoned by the U.S. supported government/military leaders who then qualify for more American foreign and military aid in exchange for continuing this policy of wiping out cannabi
We have explained what hemp has historically meant to this country's economy. Now, we must also consider the future of hemp.
We predict that the net effect of ending American hemp prohibition will be to generate "ripple effect" economics - a revitalized American agriculture producing hemp as the raw material for a multitude of industries creating millions of good jobs for skilled and semi-skilled professional workers thoughout America. The resulting wealth will remain in local communities and with farmers, smaller businesses and entrepreneurs like you!
Fuel is not synonymous with petroleum and coal. Biomass energy systems can supply a sustainable source of fuel and will create millions of new clean jobs. Hemp biomass derived fuels and oils can replace every type of fossil fuel energy product.
During transpiration, the growig hemp plants "breathe in" CO2 (carbon dioxide) to build cell structure; the leftover oxygen is breathed out, replenishing Earth's air supply. Then when the carbon rich hemp biomass is burned for energy the CO2 is released back into the air. The CO2 cycle comes close to ecological balance when the new fuel crop is grown the next year.
An independent, semi-rural network of efficient and autonomous farmers should become the key economic player in the production of energy in this country.
The United States government pays (in cash or in "kind") for farmers to refrain from growing on approximately 90 million acres of farmland each year, called the "soil bank." And 10-90 million acres of hemp or other woody annual biomass planted on this restricted, unplanted fallow farmland (our Soil Bank) would make energy a whole new ball game and be a real attempt at doing something to save the Earth. There are another 500 million marginal unplanted acres of farmland in America.
Each acre of hemp would yield 1,000 gallons of methanol. Fuels from hemp, along with the recyclingof paper, etc., would be enough to run American virtually without oil.
In 2000, when our petroleum resources have dwindled to 20% of their original size, America will have 6 choices to avoid economic and environmental ruin:
- Use more coal, further polluting the environment;
- Continue to fund nuclear power and risk annihilation of the planet.
- Convert forests into fuel, permanently altering life sustaining ecosystems;
- Continually wage wars over foreign oil;
- Build massive wind, solar, geothermal, and tidal energy systems;
- Establish energy farms to grow biomass fuels.
The last two choices are the only rational, life sustaining choices.
Farming only 6% of continential U.S. acreage with biomass crops would provide all of America's gas and oil energy needs, ending dependence upon fossil fuels.
Manahan, Stanley E., Environmental Chemistry, 4th edition.
Hemp is Earth's number one biomass resource; it is capable of producing 10 tons per acre in four months. Hemp is easy on the soil,* sheds its lush foliage throughout the season, adding mulch to the soil and helping retain moisture. Hemp is an ideal crop for the semi-arid West and open range land.
* Adam Beatty, vice president of the Kentucky Agricultural Society, reported instances of good crops of hemp on the same ground for 14 years in a row without a decline in yield. Betty, A., Southern Agriculture, C.M. Saxton & Co., NY: 1843, pg. 113. USDA Yearbook, 1913.
Hemp is the only biomass source available that is capable of making the U.S. energy independent. Ultimately, the world has no other rational enfironmental choice but to give up fossil fuels.
The "catch" is obvious: The energy companies! They own must of the petrochemical, pharmaceutical, liquor, and tobacco companies, and are intertwined with insurance companies and banks.
According to the press, many politicians now in power are bought and paid for by the energy companies, and their U.S. government arm is the CIA - "The Company" - (Robert Ludlum, etc.). The Bush/Quayle Administration was uniquely tied to oil, newspapers, pharmaceuticals - and the CIA.
The world struggle for money is actually a struggle for energy, as it is through energy that we may produce food, shelter, transportation and entertainment. It is this struggle which often erupts into open war. If we remove the cause, these conflicts may never occur.
(Carl Sagan; and U.S. EPA prediction, 1983, of worldwide disaster in the making with 30 to 50 years.)