Hemp 2
It has been once said that as a human race, if our current rate of deforestation of trees continues at the same rate as today, in less than fifty years we will no longer be able to survive on this planet. Sometime in the near future, a great change must be made for the fate of human kind. This change is going to have to be to legalize industrial hemp. Hemp is a plant that has a wide variety of uses. It has been proven that the stalk of the hemp plant can produce three times as much paper that trees can produce(1). Many countries have already begun to start cultivating hemp but it still remains illegal to grow industrial hemp in the United States. The reason that hemp became illegal is because the marijuana tax act illegalized marijuana in 1937, and because industrial hemp is marijuana's cousin, the two became to be thought as the same thing and hemp became illegal. But these two different plants are far from the same. Industrial hemp contains such a low level of THC, which is the psychoactive substance in marijuana, that it cannot reasonably be considered a drug(3). No matter how much hemp you try to smoke, it is absolutely impossible to get high off of it. The government opposes legalizing hemp because th
3.Elvin, John. "Green Mountain state says go smoke a rope." Insight on the News.June,3 96 4.Jenkins, Phil. "Field of Opportunity," Canadian Geographic, March99 v119 i2 p58 Our average American farmer can buy a shirt or shoes made of hemp, but if he tries to grow it, he will be arrested. This is one of the many ridiculous, hypocritical contradictions that our American society, the land of the free, is built upon. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were both hemp farmers. Hemp fibers were used to make shrouds, ropes, and sails for our nation's navy, and the paper that our founding fathers used to write this nation's constitution contains hemp. If we care to breath air, and prevail as a human race than we will preserve this earth's natural resources, by legalizing and cultivating industrial hemp. Clearly, Hemp fares well against the forces of nature, but how will it prevail against the Global market force if it becomes legal. If the initial demand for hemp is high and the price looks good, farmers will need to avoid going overboard and overplanting, it's happened before. Now, more than ever, agriculture is a global business, and the parts of the world that never stopped growing hemp are certain to want to infiltrate our domestic market(4). Hemp not only has the potential to substitute trees for paper, but also wood, for hemp can be pressed into boards for building materials. It can also be used to produce furniture, carpets, food oil, and a range of plastic products. It may also work as a substitute for petroleum diesel meaning that it could be used as fuel for diesel engines(3). Even though hemp is currently illegal to grow in the U.S, it is not illegal to own hemp products. All hemp products sold
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Approximate Word count = 1161
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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