RP has the BEST environmental solution: HEMP!!

[Toban]

If you need to convince any environmentalists, don't try to explain that global warming is a fraud. No matter how fake it is, you won't make any inroads because they are emotionally vested in it. What you need to do is give them what they want:

By legalizing hemp farming, Ron Paul will do more for the environment than any other candidate. Hemp is very easy to grow, requires no chemicals (it naturally crowds out weeds), and is much more efficient for biofuels than corn is. Hemp also makes great paper, so we could stop cutting trees down altogether. It can replace cotton too! Cotton requires a lot of chemical and irrigation, while hemp requires neither. You can make biodegradable plastics out of it, instead of using oil - win/win! And the seeds are one of the healthiest foods around.

It's a miracle plant, and the fact that it's illegal is a crime against humanity.

[idiom]

Industrial Hemp, you can't smoke it but your car can :)

[reaver]

It's a miracle plant, and the fact that it's illegal is a crime against humanity.

Yep. Blame Dupont. In 1937 they patented nylon and rayon and lobbied to have hemp cultivation banned. Nylon and rayon thus filled the gap left by hemp rope. Without regulating the competition out of business nylon wouldn't be near as popular today.

The free market should decide whether hemp is a cost effective source of products or not instead of the federal govt.

[truthbetold]

Hemp is 5 times more efficient than Corn in making ethanol. Ford built cars to run on ethanol from hemp and even made a car made out of composite made from hemp. Hemp is a great rotation crop with corn and leads to much less pollution of water through pesticide and fertilizer runoff. The biggest polluter of our water is farming runoff.

[reaver]

Thats right. It creates 10x the methanol as corn does.
Over a 20 year span it produces 5x more paper than trees; The paper can be recycled more times; It also requires fewer chemicals to produce it.
It can be used to replace plywood with a stronger, cheaper, and longer lasting product that is resistant to termites and decay.
Its drought resistant and doesn't require anywhere near the pesticides and herbicides used in other crops. It also replenishes the soil when its grown.



You all should look back at Aspartame. It became legal when Donald Rumsfeld appointed a friend as FDA commissioner under Reagan. The FDA refused to approve it for 16 years before then and it was also on the list of biowarfare chemicals the Pentagon submitted to Congress before then. Sometimes you sit back and ask yourself why aspartame, a chemical responsible for deaths by ingestion, is legal. Meanwhile industrial hemp, named the first billion dollar crop by Popular Mechanics in 37, is not.

[Corydoras]

One thing that is neat about supporting Ron Paul is finding about things you never paid much attention to before. Hemp is one of those for me. I had read it's no good for smoking, and I knew it made good fibers, but I didn't know anything else about it. After reading everything you've said, I think it is unconscionable that it's illegal to grow here. I've been very distressed to read about how palm oil plantations have been devastating the tropics and how jatropha is turning out to be mostly hype, and they can't even be grown here, whereas hemp can. And the way bio-ethanol has been driving up corn prices is hideous. So thanks for informing me and giving me another reason to back Ron Paul!

[Elijah]

Great thread!

[MN Patriot]

Sadly, the hemp issue is a tough sell to most people. Hemp is another issue that shrieks out "KOOK" for most people. They immediately think all you want to do is smoke it. (which plenty of people do already, so what is the point of going through the bother of legalizing it?)
I wouldn't use the hemp issue as a major campaign issue. Yeah, it makes sense, and might make even more sense when they improve the cellulosic ethanol conversion process.

[thuja]

Sadly, the hemp issue is a tough sell to most people. Hemp is another issue that shrieks out "KOOK" for most people. They immediately think all you want to do is smoke it. (which plenty of people do already, so what is the point of going through the bother of legalizing it?)
I wouldn't use the hemp issue as a major campaign issue. Yeah, it makes sense, and might make even more sense when they improve the cellulosic ethanol conversion process.

hemp,contrary to what you may think, is already very popular among people seeking better health, so it will be a very big deal everywhere soon.

crops for fuel will be the end, as they are genetically modified, so this is much better and safer, and less costly. just as long as we keep food growing space open, and not let this fuel from vegetation get out of hand.

i just had my protien shake, which is made of hemp powder.

[thuja]

Great thread!

contibuted to the beautiful blimp!

[jamesmadison]

+1 for cannabis

[thuja]

One thing that is neat about supporting Ron Paul is finding about things you never paid much attention to before. Hemp is one of those for me. I had read it's no good for smoking, and I knew it made good fibers, but I didn't know anything else about it. After reading everything you've said, I think it is unconscionable that it's illegal to grow here. I've been very distressed to read about how palm oil plantations have been devastating the tropics and how jatropha is turning out to be mostly hype, and they can't even be grown here, whereas hemp can. And the way bio-ethanol has been driving up corn prices is hideous. So thanks for informing me and giving me another reason to back Ron Paul!

forests are being completely destroyed in aid of this.

[thuja]

+1 for cannabis

it is not for smoking, take a look at boxes of hemp protien and hemp cereal, hemp tortillas, and hemp bread, and see all the explanations of how you can't get high eating them. just boring food. tastes great, though.

[jamesmadison]

it is not for smoking, take a look at boxes of hemp protien and hemp cereal, hemp tortillas, and hemp bread, and see all the explanations of how you can't get high eating them. just boring food. tastes great, though.

I think you're talking about industrial hemp which is selectively bred to eliminate most of the delta-9-thc, which is psychoactive. I'm not sure if it contains other cannabinoids, but i think that it should.

I'm for growing your own cannabis, psychoactive or not.

[jmdrake]

Sadly, the hemp issue is a tough sell to most people. Hemp is another issue that shrieks out "KOOK" for most people. They immediately think all you want to do is smoke it. (which plenty of people do already, so what is the point of going through the bother of legalizing it?)
I wouldn't use the hemp issue as a major campaign issue. Yeah, it makes sense, and might make even more sense when they improve the cellulosic ethanol conversion process.

My understanding is you can't get high off of hemp. And the "point" of going through the trouble to legalize it would be so that it could be grown on the scale that makes sense for ethanol mass production. This might not be a good "major campaign" issue because by association it brings up the drug legalization issue which is controversial. But that doesn't mean you can't use it one on one.

To the OP thank you for bringing this up! I've twice seen RP supporters asked about the whole foreign oil dependency thing. The answer our meetup has used up until this point is "Ron Paul will end the artificial 'military protection' subsidy to Saudi Arabia which will drive up the price of oil and make alternatives look more attractive." But I've never really liked that answer. Personally I support the idea of supporting alternative fuels in some way (like converting a part of the federal fleet to biodiesal, or cutting the federal tax on biofuels) but I've never heard Ron Paul mention either of those things. Glad to see he has foresight about hemp.

Regards,

John M. Drake

[Toban]

The hemp-kook connection is definitely real. When I told my grandparents from rural kansas that I had bought some hemp, they called right back when after looking it up and finding out that it was related to marijuana. I had to assure them that hemp isn't a drug.

This isn't a main issue for RP, but it is a great argument for environmentally minded people who are skeptical of Paul because he doesn't take an interventionist approach to the climate change issue. It also helps to expose the hypocrisy of the drug war. When people learn about the history of hemp and how useful it is, they have to wonder how the government could suppress it.

I don't think that many RP supporters even know about hemp, so it's good to get the word out to them too, in case they ever come across an environmental issue.

[xao]

You can't smoke industrial hemp. The only kooks are the ones who can't engage their brains and read up on hemp.