Hemp is one of the most useful plants on Earth.

For thousands of years, humans have used parts of the hemp plant for food, textiles, paper, fabric, and fuel oil. Today, modern processing technologies have made it possible to create alternatives to gasoline, plastic, and other petroleum products that can help the human race lessen its reliance on polluting and expensive fossil fuels.

The hemp plant is a renewable resource that can be produced domestically. It grows quickly, naturally resists plant diseases, requires little weeding, thrives in most climates, and enriches the soil it grows in.

Here are some of its most important applications:

Food and Nutrition

Hemp Nutritional Supplements

Hempseeds and hemp oil are highly nutritious and delicious. Hempseeds are an excellent source of protein, minerals, and dietary fibre. Hemp is the only plant that contains all of the essential fatty acids and amino acids required by the human body. These essential nutrients affect a variety of body functions, including metabolism, the skin, mood, behaviour, the brain, and the heart.

Many people eat fish and take fish oil supplements to get these essential fats, however concerns around over fishing and the chemical contamination of modern fish have made many choose to switch to hemp instead. It is an especially excellent option for vegetarians.

Hemp is also good for animals, and some veterinarians recommend including it in the diets of pets and livestock. In Europe, fishermen sprinkle hempseed on the water as an effective bait. When hempseed is included in bird seed, songbirds will pick it out of the mix as they prefer it over other seeds.

Hemp foods are becoming more and more popular as the public discovers the nutritional benefits and culinary uses of hemp.

Body Care

Hemp Bodycare

Due to its high content of beneficial oils and natural emollient properties, hemp is becoming a common ingredient in lotions and many other skin, hair, and cosmetic products. It is a good alternative to the toxic chemicals present in many petroleum based lotions and cosmetics.

Paper

Hemp - Federal Reserve Note (1914)

Hemp is an ideal material for making paper. It regenerates in the field in months (unlike trees which can take 30 years or more to become harvestable after planting.) Moving towards the use of hemp for paper can help save the world’s forests.

Historically, hemp has been used to make paper for thousands of years. It makes a fine quality paper that is naturally acid free and does not become yellow and brittle or disintegrate over time like conventional paper.

Fabric, Textiles, and Rope

hemp-rugs

Hemp can be used to make a variety of fabrics, similar to but more durable than cotton. Hemp is also excellent for making rugs and other textiles. The word canvas comes from the Latin word for hemp.

The oldest known woven fabric was made from hemp, as were Levi Strauss’ original denim jeans, and the first American flag. It was a common material for clothing until the cotton industry gained strength in America.

Hemp is the traditional rope making fibre due to its flexibility, strength, and resistance to water damage. In past centuries, hemp was extremely important to the Navy, the shipping trade, and fishing because it was used to make ropes, riggings, nets, and sails.

Fuel

Hemp for Energy War

For centuries, Hemp oil was used as lamp oil. It began to be phased out in America in the 1870s when petroleum was introduced.

Today, hemp oil can be used to create biofuels to replace gasoline for diesel engines. Unlike fossil fuels, biofuels are renewable and produce less of the greenhouse gas carbon monoxide.

Plastic Alternatives

Hemp Plastic CD Cases

Standard plastic is made from fossil fuels using toxic chemicals. Almost everything we buy is wrapped in cellophane and our landfills are full of it. A variety of alternatives to plastic can be made from hemp.

In 1941, Henry Ford held a media event where he swung an axe at a prototype car body made of hemp and other plant material to prove its strength. The technology was never put into mass production, cars continued to be made of steel, and plastics made from petrochemicals became the norm.

Fortunately, the number of available products made from hemp plastics is on the increase as awareness of the importance of developing sustainable alternatives grows.

Building Materials

Hemp - Composite Eco Housing

Hemp based materials can replace wood and other materials used to build homes and other structures including foundations, walls, shingles, paneling, pipes, and paint.

The modern hemp building materials Hempcrete and Isochanvre are lightweight, waterproof, fireproof, self-insulating, and resistant to pests.

Hemp’s Past and Future

If hemp is so useful and practical, why hasn’t everyone heard of it? The answer lies primarily in politics. In the United States, growing hemp is largely prohibited and there is a great fear around it due to its resemblance to marijuana. Hemp may look like marijuana, however it does not contain the active chemicals that cause mind-altering effects.

Historically, hemp was important in America and several of the founding fathers grew it on their estates. Thomas Jefferson himself said, “Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country.” There were times when farmers were legally required to grow it. During World War Two, the American government encouraged farmers to grow it to help aid the war effort.

In the 1930s, a “reefer madness” campaign began in the United States to stir up fear around marijuana and hemp. Today it is clear that these beginnings of “the war on drugs” were pushed into being by the newspaper, cotton, and petroleum industries which have all benefited financially from hemp prohibition. There are many people in the United States working to make growing hemp legal, however for the time being the laws remain restrictive.

In Canada, the cultivation of hemp has been allowed by the federal government since 1998 with a special license. Fortunately, as hemp becomes a growing agricultural sector in Canada and other countries, the availability of hemp based products will continue to grow worldwide.

• Source: Information Distillery

​A petition now circulating in Missouri would place a constitutional amendment on the November 2012 ballot to legalize marijuana for people 21 and older.

The “Show-Me Cannabis Initiative” calls for a repeal of marijuana prohibition in the state, reports Kevin Murphy at the South County Times.

The measure would regulate cannabis similarly to the way Missouri currently regulates alcohol. Marijuana would be legal and sold by licensed stores, or could be grown at home for personal use. Medical marijuana would be available to those with a physician’s recommendation, including those under 21 with parental consent and a doctor’s supervision.

Retail sales of cannabis would be taxed by the state at up to $100 a pound.

MU NORML Blog
Dan Viets, Missouri NORML: “We are now closer than we’ve ever been to repealing the criminal prohibition of marijuana”
​The petition, which was approved by Secretary of State Robin Carnahan on November 7 for circulation, requires the release of those jailed for nonviolent, cannabis-only offenses, and would expunge all records related to such offenses.

The measure would also legalize the cultivation of low-potency, non-marijuana varieties of hemp, allowing for the return of a hemp industry that flourished up until World War II ended.

The petition was submitted by Columbia attorney Dan Viets, Missouri state coordinator for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Viets is a longtime advocate for drug law reform, both in Missouri and on the federal level.

“We are now closer than we’ve ever been to repealing the criminal prohibition of marijuana,” Viets said.

Prevailing attitudes about cannabis are changing dramatically, according to Viets. He pointed to a recent Gallup poll that shows, for the first time in U.S. history, that 50 percent of Americans favor pot legalization, with only 46 percent opposed.

Just five years ago, 60 percent of U.S. citizens opposed marijuana legalization, with only 36 percent in support, Gallup reported.

“The greatest support is still among the youngest groups, with the lowest level of support coming from among the older folks,” Viets said. “The simple fact of the situation is that demographics are changing. Dramatic increases in support will continue in the years to come.”

“We are squandering massive amounts of tax money on police, and on prosecution and prison for people who don’t need to be treated like criminals,” Viets said.

About 150,000 signatures are needed on the initiative petitions, due in the Secretary of State’s office by May 6, 2012.

Even if the signatures are gathered, and voters approve the measure in November 2012, the federal prohibition against marijuana will continue. Viets conceded that marijuana sales in Missouri could be subject to federal prosecution since the federal government collects taxes on retail sales.

But he predicts that the federal government would do little to stop marijuana law reform at the state level.

“We don’t have to sign on to the federal government’s prohibition against marijuana,” Viets said. “If the federal government wants to march in and round up marijuana smokers, they could, but they won’t.”

Viets also predicted that the Missouri Legislature would not support marijuana legalization — but lawmakers cannot pass legislation repealing a constitutional amendment approved by the voters.

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By Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily

The medical marijuana drug Sativex, which could be approved in the United States in the coming years as a treatment for pain relief, has little potential for abuse, experts say.
The British pharmaceutical company GW Pharmaceuticals is currently testing the drug, which is delivered as a mouth spray and called Sativex, in clinical trials. The company plans to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the drug as a treatment for cancer pain when the trials are completed, likely sometime in 2014, a spokesperson for GW Pharmaceuticals told MyHealthNewsDaily.

The active ingredients in Sativex, known as cannabinoids, are derived from the cannabis plant. It is the first marijuana-based drug to be made by extracting the compounds from the plant, rather than synthesizing them. Two other drugs, Marinol and Cesamet, based on synthetic cannabinoids, were approved by the FDA in the 1980s.

Because the drug contains THC, the ingredient primarily responsible for marijuana’s “high,” it’s possible people would use the drug for recreational rather than medical purposes.
“There is no doubt in my mind that there will be people that abuse it,” said Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein, director of the Florida Poison Information Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

However, because the drug is delivered through ingestion, rather than smoking, it would take much longer to have an effect — at least an hour, compared with the minutes it takes to get high after smoking marijuana, said Margaret Haney, a professor of clinical neurobiology at Columbia University. This means drug users seeking a high would be less likely to abuse it. “Smoking is a really effective way to get a chemical into the brain,” Haney said. The mouth spray “is a far safer administration,”she said.
And Marinol and Cesamet, which are also administered orally, have a low rate of abuse. “We don’t see a lot of problems from [those],” Bernstein said.

Not the same high

GW Pharmaceuticals intends to market Sativex in the United States for treatment of cancer pain. The drug is already approved in United Kingdom, Spain, Canada and New Zealand to treat muscle spasms due to multiple sclerosis, according to the company website.

Patients can adjust the dose of Sativex to prevent it from entering the blood too rapidly, allowing them to experience symptom relief without the marijuana high, according to GW Pharmaceuticals.

In addition, while marijuana is a hodgepodge of about 64 different substances, Sativex is composed mainly of two ingredients: THC and another cannabinoid called CBD. The latter component is thought to ameliorate some of the side effects of THC, including the high that marijuana users feel, said Dr. Armando Villarreal, an assistant professor of neurosurgery and pain management at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

And for habitual marijuana users, the cultural and ritualistic practices that go along with smoking pot, such as passing a joint, may be an important part of the experience, Bernstein said. These rituals cannot be replicated with the spray. “A lot of people that smoke marijuana would rather smoke it,” he said.

Unlikely overdose

Unlike drugs such as painkillers, which come with a risk of death if people take too much, patients who “overdose” on the marijuana spray would be at little risk for acute health problems, Haney said.
“What could happen is the person could get very uncomfortably intoxicated,” Haney said. But in terms of other serious health effects, “there’s none that I know of,” Haney said.
“Marijuana, in the scheme of things, is a relativity safe drug,” Bernstein said. “Even as a smokeable drug of abuse, it’s relatively safe…compared to cocaine or heroin.”
However, Villarreal noted that for people with psychiatric disorders, smoking marijuana has been shown to make the patients’ mental problems worse. It’s possible Sativex may also cause this problem in some patients, he said.

Could it help patients?

So far, the studies that have been conducted do not provide enough evidence to say Sativex is effective in improving pain symptoms, Villarreal said.
Sativex has mainly been tested as a drug to treat pain caused by damaged nerves. If the drug is approved by the FDA, Villarreal speculated, its use could be restricted to certain pain patients. Those with cancer pain that is not caused by damaged nerves may not be candidates for the drug, Villarreal said.
About 1 in 11 people who try pot end up addicted to it, Haney said. It would be interesting to study whether Sativex could help people in dependent marijuana users quit the drug, she said.

• Read From Source

The Liberal Party of Canada has voted to legalize pot.

Seventy-seven per cent of delegates at the Liberals’ biennial convention told their party’s leadership Sunday morning that they want a future Liberal government to legalize marijuana.

Their interim leader Bob Rae acknowledged the war on drugs hasn’t worked, but told reporters the party’s caucus would have to study the implications of the resolution.

“Frankly, the status quo doesn’t work and that’s what needs to change,” Rae said. “The Liberal party is saying that the current laws do not work and that we need a new direction.”

“It’s now up to us to take that resolution and see exactly what it will mean in terms of policy, because there are some practical questions that we have to look at,” Rae added, noting in French that one such issue would be how to control the supply of legalized pot.

Rae insisted he was at ease defending the principles of the resolution and that he would work with the membership on the issue in the months and years ahead as the party drafts its next election platform.

“I accept that it is the will of the party that was expressed and as leader we will continue to work together,” Rae said.

“This country does not need more prisons, it needs less criminals,” he said.

The resolution, which was brought forward by the party’s youth wing, calls upon a Liberal federal government to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana production, distribution and use while enacting “strict penalties for illegal trafficking, illegal importation and exportation, and impaired driving.”

The resolution also calls for significant investments in prevention and education programs on the harms of marijuana and amnesty for Canadians convicted of simple possession in the past.

Samuel Lavoie, the president of the Young Liberals of Canada, said he wasn’t sure the resolution would make it into the Liberal party’s next election platform, but that he hoped it would not be ignored.

“I think everyone in the party, not only the interim leader (Rae), but everyone in the party, recognizes that there were 3,000 Liberals here this weekend and that this is a motion which, however controversial, passed with more than 75% of support, so I think it would be difficult for anyone to just ignore the result and the will of the membership,” he said.

Liberals should stop being scared of any soft on crime label the Conservative party might give them, Lavoie added.

“The Conservative staffers in the Prime Minister’s office will never vote for the Liberal party,” Lavoie said. “We are talking to Canadians, the fact is this is a sensible policy, an evidence-based policy that is very easy to defend and polls show that we have a majority of support amongst Canadians. There is a cross-partisan support amongst non-conservative voters for this. So we feel like this is something that will get us votes not lose us votes,” he said.

More than 1,400 delegates took part in the vote. If Liberal members re-affirm the motion in two years during another policy process, the Liberal leader will still have the right to veto any part of the election platform under current rules.

• Read From Source

While the food versus fuel debate continues to put crop-based biofuel production on the back burners it might just be Cannabis sativa that blazes the competition. Researchers at University of Connecticut have found that industrial hemp has properties that make it viable and even attractive as a raw material, or feedstock, for producing biodiesel. Hemp biodiesel has shown a high efficiency of conversion (97 percent) and has passed laboratory’s tests, even showing properties that suggest it could be used at lower temperatures than any biodiesel currently on the market.

The plant’s ability to grow in infertile soils also reduces the need to grow it on primary croplands, which can then be reserved for growing food according to Richard Parnas, a professor of chemical, materials, and biomolecular engineering at UConn.

“For sustainable fuels, often it comes down to a question of food versus fuel,” said Parnas, noting that major current biodiesel plants include food crops such as soybeans, olives, peanuts, and rapeseed. “It’s equally important to make fuel from plants that are not food, but also won’t need the high-quality land.”

Cannabis sativa is known for it’s ability to grow like a “weed” in many parts of the world, needing little fertilizers, or high-grade inputs to flourish. But the seeds, which house the plant’s natural oils, are often discarded. Parnas points out that this apparent waste product could be put to good use by turning it into fuel.

“If someone is already growing hemp they might be able to produce enough fuel to power their whole farm with the oil from the seeds they produce. The fact that a hemp industry already exists means that a hemp biodiesel industry would need little additional investment,” he said.

Although growing hemp is not legal in the U.S., Parnas hopes that the team’s results will help to spur hemp biodiesel production in other parts of the world. And while the Proposition 19 ballot in California to legalize Marijuana was defeated last week, the pathways have been opened for more discussion on Cannabis sativa production in the U.S..

As for other industries that utilize Cannabis plants, Parnas makes a clear distinction between industrial hemp, which contains less than one percent psychoactive chemicals in its flowers, and some of its cousins, which contain up to 22 percent.

“This stuff,” he pointed out, “won’t get you high.”

Hemp has always been a cash crop. Fuel may be the most important product you can get from hemp for our growing energy needs, but there are literally thousands of different products you can make from hemp. From clothing, to makeup, to biodegradable plastics, it’s pretty much a miracle plant. It has 4x the yield of tobacco, is incredibly resilient to changes in environment and it grows very quickly. I would argue that hemp would be a staple in any sustainable society. It’s really a shame that it’s illegal in the US.

I’m pretty sure that harvesting hemp (basically the stalks and stems of the plant) comes mostly from the male plants, while the female plants are the ones with all the potent psychoactive flowers that get you high. And there are medical benefits to that aside from a relaxing social benefit. So it really is quite an amazing plant that people need to be made aware of it’s tremendous benefits.

• Read From Source

THERE IS no doubt in Dr. Albert Lockhart’s mind that ganja is a valuable product.

“When you arrive at a function, the first thing you are offered is a glass of alcohol. Alcohol produces more damage than ganja has ever produced. There is a direct relationship between alcohol and absenteeism, death and disability from motor vehicle accidents, family violence … there is no such direct relationship between ganja and anything but the U.S. has said that it is a narcotic,” said Dr. Lockhart.

He should know. As part of the now famous and highly-acclaimed West and Lockhart team (as in Dr. Manley West, professor emeritus in pharmacology), Dr. Lockhart, researcher and consultant ophthalmologist, pioneered research on ganja as medicine in the ’70s and ’80s. They developed two anti-glaucoma drugs from ganja ­ Canasol and Cantimol ­ topical eye medicines that lower intraocular pressure and changed the thinking in medicine about glaucoma. (Raised intraocular pressure is linked to optic nerve damage and partial blindness in glaucoma).

“We are not encouraging smoking. Smoking anything: ganja, tobacco or bush, is related to cancer but we are saying that there are active ingredients in ganja for medicine,” he said.

But 74-year-old the Rev. Leroy James Campbell, a researcher from St. Ann, told The Gleaner that he has been smoking ganja for 22 years and with good results.

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

“My first good result was to heal myself of high blood pressure after having the condition for 19 years between 1964 and 1983. I started smoking ganja in March 1983 and by October 1983, I was able to throw away my medications and I haven’t used them since. So in six months I was able to cure myself,” he said.

Rev. Campbell said that “the ganja puts you in a meditative state so that you can think on God … it is not the ganja that cures but it is the state that it puts you in.”

West and Lockhart are into far less spiritual research when it comes to ganja as medicine, though they too speak of its medicinal value. Dr. Lockhart said that there are about 20 active ingredients or principles in ganja which are not tied to THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) the most psychoactive ingredient of the ganja linked to most of the well-known side effects.

“These 20 active principles can be separated from the THC and you don’t have to use the THC . In fact, in our medicines we don’t use THC,” Dr. Lockhart said.

Besides Canasol and Cantimol, the West-and-Lockhart team has developed from ganja, Asmasol, the only medication for respiratory problems which doesn’t affect the heart and cannot be used to develop amphetamine. Most cough medicines on the market, Dr. Lockhart said, people can use to develop psychoactive drugs and a medicine to reduce vomiting.

“Vomiting in patients with AIDS and cancer can be reduced and they can begin to put on weight as the helps them to improve their appetite,” he said.

Another medicine against motion sickness was also produced by the local scientists from ganja and in this drug there are not the usual side effects of dry mouth, dilated pupils and blurred visions associated with other anti-motion sickness medicines.

Although their ganja-based products are accepted here, in Caribbean, parts of Europe and elsewhere, the products have not been accepted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for sale in the US market. Since the FDA does not recognise studies done on non-U.S. citizens, the local scientists would have to find about US$164 million to run clinical trials in the US leading to FDA approval. They don’t have this kind of money.

Dr. Lockhart said that he is still in the laboratory, along with Professor West, working on ganja-related products that can treat pain related to AIDS and cancer.

“We are trying to keep the experiment going on the immune system because ganja seems to have beneficial effects on the immune system … I would say that that is the direction that we are now going in,” he said.

Marijuana, whose botanical name is cannabis, has been used by humans for thousands of years. It was classified as an illegal drug by many countries in the 20th century. Over the past two decades, there has been a growing movement to legalize marijuana, primarily for medical purposes.

Medical marijuana use has surged in the 16 states and the District of Columbia that allow its use. But states and cities are also wrestling with the question of what medical marijuana is, or should be.

Its use has particularly increased among teenagers. According to a December 2011 government report, one out of every 15 high school students smokes marijuana on a near daily basis, a figure that has reached a 30-year peak even as use of alcohol, cigarettes and cocaine among teenagers continued a slow decline.

The popularity of marijuana, which is now more prevalent among 10th graders than cigarette smoking, reflects what researchers and drug officials say is a growing perception among teenagers that habitual marijuana use carries little risk of harm. That perception, experts say, is fueled in part by wider familiarity with medical marijuana and greater ease in obtaining it.

In late November 2011, the governors of Washington and Rhode Island petitioned the federal government to reclassify marijuana as a drug with accepted medical uses, saying the change was needed so states like theirs, which have decriminalized marijuana for medical purposes, can regulate the safe distribution of the drug without risking federal prosecution.

The move by the governors — Christine Gregoire of Washington, a Democrat, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, an independent who used to be a Republican — injected new political muscle into the long-running debate on the status of marijuana. Their states are among the 16 that allow medical marijuana, but which have seen efforts to grow and distribute the drug targeted by federal prosecutors.

In April, Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that would have repealed the state’s voter-approved medical marijuana law. Even so, Mr. Schweitzer made it clear that he would like to see reform of the law.

• Read From Source

Thousands of websites, including some of the most popular, are going dark today to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill which is designed to thwart copyright infringement but that Web experts warn could threaten the functionality of the Internet.

Encyclopedia giant Wikipedia, popular news-sharing site reddit, browser pioneer Mozilla, photo-sharing favorite Twitpic and even ICanHazCheezburger.com are blocking access to content throughout Wednesday, symbolizing what the bill may allow content creators to do to sites they accuse of copyright infringement. Other websites, including Google, are expressing solidarity with the protests by featuring anti-SOPA content on home pages.

The online protests are being joined by a physical demonstration in New York City, where thousands of representatives from the city’s tech industry plan to demonstrate outside the offices of Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Kristen Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), co-sponsors of the Senate version of SOPA, beginning at 12:30 p.m. As pressure has mounted, both have expressed willingness to compromise.

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A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association compared lung function of marijuana smokers, tobacco smokers and nonsmokers. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss the surprising results on The Young Turks.