From: cosc186y@rosie.uh.edu (92F06787)
Subject: Re: [alt.politics.elections] HEMP flyer I gave Al Gore
Followup-To: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs,alt.politics.elections
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 15:23:00 GMT

In article <1992Oct3.164051.6420@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes...
>[A repost - Carl]
> 
>From: Ben Masel <bmasel@igc.apc.org>
>Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
>Date: 30 Sep 92 22:21 PDT
>Subject: HEMP flyer I gave Al Gore
>Message-ID: <1640500022@igc.apc.org>
> 
> 
> 
>I passed an earlier version of this at a Clinton-Gore appearance
>in LaCrosse a month ago. Went over well with older folks, farmers.
>Feel free to reprint, give your address
>_____________________________________________________
> 
>HOW THE NEXT PRESIDENT CAN SAVE THE FARM ECONOMY
>(and balance the budget) (and protect the environment)
> 
>America cannot return to prosperity without restoring prosperity
>to its farmers. Subsidies are not the answer, as they only lead to
>further overproduction of food crops the market doesn't want. We
>must move toward high yielding agricultural crops as primary
>feedstocks for industry.
> 
>PROTECTIONISM IN REVERSE
>Hemp, the single most prolific and versatile plant for these uses
>is off limits to the American farmer. Russian farmers typically
>yield 5 tons of hemp stalk per acre per year. They lack modern
>factories for turning hemp into useful products. The Dutch
>government has invested $20 million in a research project to
>develop improved strains and machinery. Unless a similar effort is
>undertaken here we will find ourselves once again aced out of huge
>markets.
> 
>PAPER
>Hemp outyields trees at least 3 to 1. Because of its higher
>cellulose content, hemp requires less chemical processing, and
>thus has lower costs and pollution, according to the Dutch
>Studies.* Last year the first shiploads of Brazilian eucalyptus
>pulp unloaded at the Port of Green Bay. The US Department of
>Agriculture has promoted kenaf, a traditional African fiber plant
>as a paper alternative. Two years ago Pat LeMahieu, a former
>agronomy researcher at the UW-Madison now director of operations
>with Agrecol, achieved an impressive 6 ton per acre yield of
>kenaf.  In the Feb 8, 1991 Isthmus, (Madison's weekly,) LeMahieu
>said hemp has higher quality fiber, more potential uses, the
>ability to withstand cold better, and possibly higher yields. "If
>it weren't for the alkaloids [psychoactive ingredients] in hemp,
>we wouldn't even be talking about kenaf." Hemp is also far more
>drought resistant than Kenaf.
> 
>FIBER
>Historically hemp supplied fabrics from the finest linens to the
>sails for seagoing ships. (Canvass is the Old Dutch word for
>cannabis.) Cotton, with only 1/3 the fiber yield,  is the most
>chemical intensive crop in production. Hemp chokes out competing
>weeds, and has few insect pests, so hemp farmers have little use
>for pesticides. While hemp likes a rich soil, most of the
>nutrients migrate to the leaves and eventually flowers, which are
>returned to the soil when growing hemp for stalk, so with
>appropriate rotation fertilizers are unneccessary. Hemp's long
>taproot brings minerals from deep soil layers, leaving them
>accessible to the following crop. Unlike cotton, hemp can be grown
>throughout the United States, and its lower cost makes it
>competitive with synthetic fibres. Fabric used to be the most
>recycled item in commerce. Now it is the least because no one has
>discovered a way to seperate the cotton from the polyester.
> 
>FUEL
>Like any biomass (plant derived) fuel, burning hemp releases into
>the atmosphere only as much Carbon Dioxide as was removed in
>photosynthesis, with no net contribution to the Greenhouse Effect.
>Hemp's low Sulfur content contributes little to Acid Rain. Recent
>advances in Biomass Gasification technologies suggest hemp
>replacing coal in our electric power stations.  Technology for
>conversion to liquid fuels is farther behind, and still expensive
>when compared to current oil prices as subsidised by our military
>presence in the Persian Gulf.  Shifting more of the tax burden to
>environmentally destructive use of fossil fuels would stimulate
>research, and hasten the inevitable changeover to clean biomass.
> 
>FOOD and MEDECINE Cultivation of hemp seed for food and livestock
>feed dates at least to the ancient Sumerians.  While it is second
>to soybeans in total protein content, hemp seed has a more
>complete balance of amino acids. More importantly, hemp seed oil
>is the top plant source for linoleic and linolenic acids, the
>essential fatty acids for which fish oil is touted to lower blood
>colesterol and strengthen the immune system. Of course pressing
>the oil from hemp seed makes these nutrients available at a tiny
>fraction of the cost of fish oil. Hemp flowers provide a medecine
>useful for the treatment of such diverse problems as Muscular
>Sclerosis, Anorexia, Glaucoma, and the Nausea associated with
>Chemotherapy and AIDS.
> 
>ONE OBSTACLE REMAINS.
>The flowers of the hemp plant, when smoked or otherwise ingested,
>produce a mild euphoria, which we have culturally and legally
>labeled as inherently evil. The law defines any part of the plant
>other than stalk, fiber, or sterilized seed as marijuana, and
>there is no way to raise stalks without leaves. While low potency
>fiber strains are available in Europe, and fiber crops are
>harvested before the flowers form, (much more potent than leaves,)
>US law makes no distinction.
> 
>No-one has ever died from using marijuana. Indeed, in a review of
>its medical use, US Administative Law Judge Francis Young found it
>to be "among the safest therapeutically active substances known to
>man." The sole remaining argument against it is the so-called
>"Gateway Effect.," which states that its use leads to hard drugs.
>In fact, it is the prohibition of the plant which puts it in the
>same marketplace as heroin or cocaine.  When the supply of
>marijuana is interrupted retailers find themselves without any
>income, and some shift to selling whatever they can get, luring
>their customers to truly dangerous drugs. In a  legal cannabis
>market, supply would be continuous and regulated.
> 
>DOES GEORGE BUSH REALLY CARE ABOUT DRUG ABUSE?
>As Vice President he headed the South Florida Drug Interdiction
>Task Force, and simultaneously oversaw Ollie North's Contra supply
>operation, whose planes returned from Cental America loaded with
>Cocaine. The Task Force decided which drug smugglers would be
>targeted by law enforcement, and consequently which would not. If
>he was really "out of the loop" on contra supply, why did he
>protect their illicit fundraising? Is the government's war on
>marijuana a cover for continuing intelligence agency involvement
>in the importation of hard drugs? Can you fool all of the people
>all of the time? To find out, tune in in November.
> 
>	 Ben Masel,  Wiscsconsin State Director
>		     National Organization to Reform the Marijuana
>		     Laws 911 Williamson St, Madison, WI 53703
>		     (608) 257-5456
> 
>*  Characterization and Processing of Annual Crops (Esp. Hemp) for
>Pulp and Paper by  Marie-Jose de Smet,  Agrotechnical Research
>Institute, ATO- DLO, Haagsteeg 6, 6700AA  Wageningen, The
>Netherlands,  as presented at the First European Conference on
>Industrial Uses for Agricultural Crops, Maastricht, the
>Netherlands, November 1991.
> 
>--
>Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.elections