:: May 2005 Volume 4/Number 3

Why Hemp Makes Sense

By Ted McDonald

Despite its considerable benefits, hemp, like its more famous cousin marijuana, continues to get a bum rap.

From before the turn of the century until 1938 the United States Department of Agriculture predicted that hemp, the earth’s premier renewable natural resource, would become the number one crop in America. Jack Herer is an authority on hemp history, benefits and legislation. In his book, “The Emperor Wears No Clothes,” he tells us, fully restored hemp industries could generate over 500 billion dollars per year, replace our reliance on fossil fuels and do much to curtail our current rate of deforestation.

Hemp can be used for thousands of products including food, shelter, clothing, paper, fuel and more. Assemblyman, Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, is pushing legislation for legal production of industrial hemp and says, “…federal law allows the entire hemp plant to be imported into this country, but we can’t grow it, which is just idiocy.” He continues, “It has about as much THC [the psychoactive component of marijuana] content as the poppy seeds on your bagel have opium.”

The difference between industrial hemp and marijuana is much known but little reported. Both are different variants of the plant genus Cannabis, which contains molecular compounds called cannabinoids. In marijuana, levels of the cannabinoid THC are high and levels of the cannabinoid CBD [the anti-psychoactive ingredient] are low. Precisely the opposite is true in the industrial hemp variant where CBD is high and THC is low.

Industrial hemp is made into foods such as protein powder, nut butter and hemp seed oil. All contain the optimum ratio of essential fatty acids and a very high protein content. Hemp seed has a 3.75 to 1 ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 EFAs and is closer to fish than most vegetable oils in essential fatty acid content. The protein percent of total weight in hemp is 50% compared to 35% in soybeans, 26% in fish and 3.3% in milk. Mike Fata, the co-founder of Manitoba Harvest, the leading distributor of hemp foods in North America, says, “Consumers are seeking hemp because of its incredible nutritional profile and later discovering its nutty flavor.” Consider it a perfect alternative to fish, which may be contaminated or high in mercury.

As a crop, hemp also reaps 4 times the amount of paper per acre than trees and is much cheaper to produce. According to Jack Herer, “If the hemp pulp paper process of 1916 were in use today, it could replace 40% to 70% of all pulp paper (from trees), including corrugated boxes, computer printout paper and paper bags.” This process essentially reverses the Greenhouse Effect because we would need to cut down enormously less trees.

Frank Angiuli, the founder of Natural High Lifestyle, a Los Angeles based clothing line made with hemp fibers says, “The plant itself grows with a deep root system that is good for the soil, as opposed to cotton, which tends to hurt soil in many ways. Hemp is also pest-free so it can be grown without harmful pesticides unlike most crops in this country.”
The nutritious oils yielded from hemp may also be burned as lighting fuel and automobile fuel. Hemp is the earth’s number one biomass (the main ingredient in biodiesel) resource and can produce 10 tons per acre in 4 months, making us much less dependent on crude oil.

In 2001 the Hemp Car, an alternative-fuel project car that utilized hemp biodiesel for fuel, traveled 13,000 miles around the United States and Canada raising awareness for consuming hemp biodiesel as fuel.

Biodiesel is an alternative, environmentally friendly fuel source made from hemp oil and other vegetable oils and animal fats. According to the National Biodiesel Board, “The lifecycle production and use of biodiesel produces approximately 80% less carbon dioxide emissions and almost 100% less sulfur dioxide. And, biodiesel is the only alternative fuel in the U.S. to complete Environmental Protection Agency’s Tier 1 Health Effects Testing under section 211(b) of the Clean Air Act, which provide the most thorough inventory of environmental and human health effects attributes that current technology will allow.”

Bruce Margolin, an attorney whose L.A. firm advises coordination on the California Cannabis Hemp & Health Initiative 2008 for which signature gathering will begin in 2007, firmly believes that laws prohibiting hemp harvesting in this country will soon crumble. Recently the DEA was prohibited from outlawing the importation and sale of hemp products in this country. In addition, says Margolin, “The crucial case of Rashe vs. Ashcroft is now in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. If Rashe wins,” he explains, “care givers would be able to cultivate and share cannabis for medicinal purposes.” This victory would ultimately lead to the overturning of current marijuana laws, allowing U.S. farmers to harvest cannabis and manufacture any and all hemp by-products increasing the economy and reducing the negative effects on our planet.

Ted McDonald is a yoga teacher at Malibu Yoga and Maha Yoga as well as the co-founder of Adventure Yoga Retreats. Reach him at ted@ayretreats.com.

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