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• Dec. 1, 2008 • Access MembersOnly section
To Ask or Answer Industrial Hemp Questions, Click Here
2008 Annual Meeting Appoints New Board
The NAIHC 2008 Annual Meeting elected the new NAIHC Board for 2008-2009 on November 19, 2008 and outlined plans for year ahead.
New NAIHC Brochure for You to Print
New brochure now available: "Industrial Hemp - The Plant, The Law & The Solution."
Attend 2008 Annual Meeting Nov. 19
Join in the NAIHC 2008 Annual Meeting by
teleconference, Wednesday, November 19, 2008 -- all members invited to
participate in setting priorities for the year ahead and electing board
members.
Vermont Joins North Dakota in Voting for Industrial Hemp
Vermont’s
Governor Jim Douglas made no announcement on his web site. But on May
29, Douglas decided against a veto. So Vermont’s “Hemp for
Vermont” bill which won overwhelming support in the legislature
is now law. (The bill passed in the state House 126 to 9 and 25 to 1 in
the Senate). This means Vermont joins North Dakota as states endorsing
industrial hemp – a crop still outlawed under federal rules. For
the full story, Click Here.
Wausau Daily Herald OpEd Praises Industrial Hemp
An opinion piece by Jim Maas of the Libertarian Party of
Wisconsin blasts current federal subsidies for farmers but singles
industrial hemp out for praise. Maas writes that “Hemp has
thousands of uses. Besides fibers for paper and textiles, it can be
used for biodegradable plastics, health food and fuel. Hemp requires
little to no pesticides, replenishes soil with nutrients and nitrogen,
controls erosion of the topsoil and produces a lot of oxygen. The
downside? Our government prohibits its use.”
Click Here for the complete Wausau Daily Herald article.
Canadian Video on Industrial Hemp
Industrial hemp organizations have put together an excellent summary of centuries of hemp history: "Hemp
- The Environmentally Sustainable Alternative (Part 1)." Calling hemp
"the world's most valuable plant," the nine-minute YouTube video
tells the story
well, pointing out the absurdity of the United States still banning a
crop which was a major crop until it was made illegal in 1937 -- only
to be heavily promoted by the U.S. government during World War II --
and then banned once again. For background on the video and
more info, visit Kate Weldon's post on Barry's
Bay This Week, reporting
that "Hemp video number two is already in the works. 'The Hemp Revival
– 1994 to 2008' will feature footage of hemp
used for carbon negative building, car parts, plastics and health food"
-- reminding us that hemp growing is once again both legal and
profitable in Canada.
Hemp on the High Seas Once Again -- Cutting Fuel Costs
The Dot Earth blog from New York Times writer Andrew Revkin notes that
hemp is making a come-back: "A new age of sail may be a bit closer to
reality. The MV Beluga SkySails, the first freighter in the modern era using a kite-like sail along with its conventional engine when the winds are right, completed a transatlantic passage and the owners report that the sail cut fuel burning around 20 percent on days when conditions were right."
Reason Foundation Report on Industrial Hemp
A comprehensive report on the environmental and economic
benefits of industrial hemp was released March 13 by the Reason Foundation, a non-profit research and educational
organization. Contrasting industrial hemp with competitors such as cotton,
corn, polyester and fiberglass, the report states that:
“Cannabis sativa L. is the most
politicized plant in U.S.
history—so much so that science too often falls to the wayside as factions
attempt to either demonize or venerate the plant. Complicating the debate,
two very different varieties of the plant are common: the pharmacological
variety, marijuana, and the agricultural variety, hemp. Hemp is the
subject of this study.”
“Hemp
offers three products: the long ‘bast’ fibers, similar to flax or jute
fibers; the short ‘hurd’ fibers, which have a number of industrial uses;
and finally the seeds. Emerging industrial applications include composite
construction materials and biofuel sources. Hemp is often evaluated for
performance alongside biomass and oilseed crops, fiberglass and
agricultural byproducts like wheat straw.”
“Hemp
cultivation is not permitted in the United States today. In its
final decades as a domestic crop prior to 1958, government regulation
hindered its competitiveness in world markets.”
“This
study seeks to add to the discussion about hemp prohibition by comparing the
environmental efficiency of hemp to its substitutes in a few key
applications.”
For the Reason Foundation’s full 50-page report, Illegally
Green: Environmental Costs of Hemp Prohibition, Click Here. For the Executive
Summary, Click Here.
David
West, Andy Kerr et al
on
Research Page
Index
to Industrial Hemp research papers by NAIHC Board Members Andy Kerr,
Paul Mahlberg, Shelby Thames, Robert Armstrong, and by David West
on"Hemp and Marijuana:
Myths &
Realities"
DVD - "Hemp
and the Rule of Law"
Now on DVD
-- a documentary by Kevin
Balling premiered at the Asheville Film Festival
and at the ARTIVIST Film Festival in Hollywood. The one-hour
documentary traces
hemp's legendary past in U.S. agriculture and chronicles the heated
debate to return the crop to American farmers.
