Hemp Can Save NB and the World
Marijuana is dangerous. But not to the human body or mind in any way, shape or form.
It is, however, a deadly threat to the corporate criminals and oil cartels who currently rule our world.
When corporate profit became the touchstone of civilization, the future could only be sold out.
And one of the biggest sell outs to ever be forced upon an unwitting public was the criminalization of hemp in 1937.
The hemp plant is a masterpiece of nature, truly a plant bestowed upon humanity by a wise and just universe. The hemp plant was revered by people for thousands of years.
But in a twisted perversion where public health and welfare, the future of humanity and the very planet itself mean nothing compared to immediate corporate profits hemp has been banned for 75 years and counting.
Food, fuel, fibre, paper, clothing, plastics, medicines, building materials….. The sheer scope of the thousands of natural products that can be made from hemp are hemp’s fatal flaw. So much value that the powers that be cannot allow this plant to be grown.
Everything petroleum can do, hemp can do better: Biodegradable plastics and bio-fuel are easily made from hemp.
Hemp was deliberately demonized and made illegal by a conspiracy between William Randolph Hearst and the DuPont Chemical Company in the mid 1930’s. Up until then most people had no clue what “marijuana” was, although hemp was a valuable cash crop for fibre.
Hearst was one of the richest men in America who owned vast tracts of forest he wanted to cut for pulp. He was also the owner of the largest newspaper chain in America. He used his papers to demonize hemp and scare the hell out of a naïve and gullible American public.
The DuPont Company had invented nylon and petroleum based plastics. No way did they want any competition to this industry.
Hemp clearly had to go, and through a campaign of lies and propaganda these corporate criminals succeeded in making the most useful plant on our planet illegal. And people still don’t get it even today!
Hemp has been used throughout the world since the beginning of time for just about everything mankind needed.
You can produce 4 times as much paper from an acre of hemp as you can from an acre of trees at one quarter of the cost, and you can grow another crop the next year.
An acre of pulp wood takes 25 or 30 years to re-grow.
Think of it! The pulp industry requires continual clear cutting of forests. The industry pours millions of gallons of pollutants into our New Brunswick waterways as the wood is processed.
Add to that the silt run off created by all the bare ground left from clear cut areas…. Causing the rivers to choke with silt and becoming a major factor in the disastrous flood in Perth-Andover last year.
Compare this industry, which also always needs government subsidies and bailouts to stay alive, to utilizing hemp for the pulp and paper industry.
A new crop each year, providing four times the cellulose of an acre of trees! As an added bonus that same crop is providing nutritious and tasty food as well as pulp!
It sounds like a no-brainer to me, but entrenched corporations and oil and energy companies are determined to continue to suck the life out of our planet by continuing their mad quest for yet more fossil fuel.
It will be a sad day for New Brunswick if these unimaginative and greedy men begin hydro-fracking for shale gas in earnest in our beautiful province.
Hemp requires no chemicals to grow, has very few natural enemies and grows in the widest variety of climates of any plant on our planet.
It is also the fastest growing plant on earth, growing 4 times faster than corn.
The seeds from the hemp plant provide the highest source of complete vegetable protein of any food
source on the planet.
One acre of hemp can provide enough seed to feed 12 people for a year!
Most of our larger grocery stores are now stocking hemp foods from farms in western provinces. Hemp Hearts, oil, butter, milk…. Why are we not producing these products in our own province?
It would provide far more jobs in all sectors than all the gas extraction plots and schemes on the planet, and be good for the environment!
Hemp has been used medicinally for thousands of years, and concentrated extracts of cannabis were one of the most widely used medicines in America for 150 years.
It is estimated that hemp would have at least 50,000 commercial uses if it were made legal today.
Sure, it’s legal to grow in Canada, but because of the influence and prejudice of those American bullies next door we have not fully embraced this crop.
Hearst with his yellow journalism tactics and the hysterical rhetoric of the anti-hemp corporations are still poisoning the public discourse on this subject.
Many people are still convinced that hemp was made illegal for the good of humanity!
(insert sound of sardonic & hollow laugh here)
There is still the persistent myth that cannabis is a so-called “gateway drug.”
The true gateway to drug abuse is poverty and despair. And even people with money can despair of our future and turn to drugs to escape.
A few years back when California first held a referendum vote to legalize cannabis the two biggest lobbyists against legalization were the liquor industry and illegal cannabis grow operations!!!
Ironic, don’t you think?
We are all also still saddled with the belief systems of our Puritan forefathers. This is that sad and destructive conviction that God loves us better when we suffer.
Two of my favourite quotes of all time poke fun at Puritans:
H.L. Mencken famously said: Puritanism…The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
Thomas Babington MacMacauly perceptively wrote: The Puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.
We all need to step up to the plate, together, and demand that our government begin to work for us, the people, and our communities….not Big Oil, Big Pharma and Corporate Agriculture.
Hemp agriculture can and will remake our world.
Stephanie Kelley
