Hemp advocates tout plant’s virtues
Idaho Mountain Express: Hemp advocates tout plant’s virtues
Hemp advocates tout plant’s virtuesIndustrial hemp fibers can be manufactured into fabrics for clothing, blankets, carpet, upholstery, sails, tarps, awnings, rope and numerous other items. It can be made into paper, plastic or hemp oil. British researchers have used it to manufacture surfboards. It’s used in some health food snacks, for lotions and in manufacturing car parts.Industrial hemp, advocates note, requires little or no herbicides or pesticides. Bugs don’t usually like to eat it and it grows thick enough and fast enough to block out would-be competitive weeds. It has good soil-restoration qualities.
It was grown extensively in the United States until laws in the 20th century made it illegal. It can be legally grown now, but only by permit from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Those permits are few and far between.
Several states, including North Dakota, Maine, Montana and West Virginia, have passed legislation to allow farmers to grow industrial hemp, but their efforts remain blocked by the DEA. California passed a bill to legalize hemp but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.
Worldwide, the industrial hemp picture is different. Growing the plant is allowed in most countries, and 33 nations, including Canada, are developing industries centered on production of the crop.
Erwin A. “Bud” Sholts, of the North American Industrial Hemp Council, studied crop diversification while employed with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and found that industrial hemp was the only viable crop to fit in with corn and soybean crop rotations.
Sholts said the biggest problem with legalizing industrial hemp in the United States is because the DEA and other government entities continue to cling to an outdated definition of the plant that links it to marijuana. He said it will take either a presidential declaration or an act of Congress to change that definition.
“It’s going to happen, because American agriculture wants it, American industry wants it and the public wants it,” Sholts said.
And the public has shown by their votes that they want industrial hemp, at least in the town of Hailey, Idaho, where this story was published. A hemp legalization initiative, along with initiatives for cannabis decriminalization and medical marijuana, were passed in Hailey by large margins last election.
