US Hemp Co

Regulation of Cannabis sativa L. is complicated by the fact that there are two common varieties of the plant with very different properties: the agricultural variety, known by the common name hemp, and the pharmacological variety, marijuana. Prior to prohibition in the United States, industrial hemp was the subject of considerable excitement and speculation. The same is true today, as lawmakers and stakeholders in many states are considering the potential for reintroducing industrial hemp into the domestic economy.

The environmental performance of industrial hemp products is of particular interest because, to a large degree, environmental inefficiencies impose costs on society as a whole, not just on the producers and consumers of a specific good. Many commodities which came to replace traditional uses of industrial hemp in the United States in the last century and a half have created significant environmental externalities.

Assessments of industrial hemp as compared to hydrocarbon or other traditional industrial feedstocks show that, generally, hemp requires substantially lower energy demands for manufacturing, is often suited to less-toxic means of processing, provides competitive product performance (especially in terms of durability, light weight, and strength), greater recyclability and/or biodegradability, and a number of value-added applications for byproducts and waste materials at either end of the product life cycle. Unlike petrochemical feedstocks, industrial hemp production offsets carbon dioxide emissions, helping to close the carbon cycle.

The positive aspects of industrial hemp as a crop are considered in the context of countervailing attributes. Performance areas where industrial hemp may have higher average environmental costs than comparable raw materials result from the use of water and fertilizer during the growth stage, greater frequency of soil disturbance (erosion) during cultivation compared to forests and some field crops, and relatively high water use during the manufacturing stage of hemp products.

Overall, social pressure and government mandates for lower dioxin production, lower greenhouse gas emissions, greater bio-based product procurement, and a number of other environmental regulations, seem to directly contradict the wisdom of prohibiting an evidently useful and unique crop like hemp.

Los Angeles (March 13, 2008) – With oil hitting $110 a barrel and gas prices creeping towards $4 a gallon, the federal government continues to prohibit U.S. farmers from growing hemp, which could be used to efficiently produce biofuels, including cellulosic ethanol.

Hemp is also a cost-effective, environmentally-friendly substitute for polyester, cotton, fiberglass and concrete, according to a new Reason Foundation study that examines hemp’s potential uses and the ways other countries are benefitting from it. Industrial hemp production is banned in the U.S. as an archaic consequence of the war on drugs.

“There are numerous environmental advantages to hemp,” said Skaidra Smith-Heisters, a policy analyst at Reason Foundation and author of the report. “Hemp often requires less energy to manufacture into products. It is less toxic to process. And it is easier to recycle and more biodegradable than most competing crops and products. Unfortunately, we won’t realize the full economic and environmental benefits of hemp until the crop is legal in the United States.”

The Reason Foundation study reveals that polyester fiber manufacturing requires six times the energy needed to grow hemp. And cotton is one of the most “water- and pesticide-intensive crops in the world.” Hemp’s naturally higher resistance to weeds and pests means it requires dramatically fewer pesticides than cotton.

Not only has the government banned hemp production in the U.S., it is also directly subsidizing other crops that the study shows to be “environmentally inferior.” Corn farmers received $51 billion in subsidies between 1995 and 2005; wheat farmers were given $21 billion; cotton farmers fleeced taxpayers for $15 billion; and tobacco farmers were handed $530 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies.

The Reason study says the Drug Enforcement Administration’s inability to distinguish between industrial hemp and marijuana is irrational and ignores scientific fact. The report states, “Marijuana cultivated for drug value contains between 3 and 10 percent of the active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Industrial hemp typically contains 0.3 percent or less of this active ingredient-as a result, it has no value as a drug.”

Full Report Online

The full study, Illegally Green: Environmental Costs of Hemp Prohibition, is available online at: www.reason.org/ps367.pdf. A summary of the report is here: www.reason.org/ps367polsum.pdf.

About Reason Foundation

Reason Foundation is a nonprofit think tank dedicated to advancing free minds and free markets. Reason Foundation produces respected public policy research on a variety of issues and publishes the critically acclaimed monthly magazine, Reason. For more information, please visit www.reason.org.

Contact

Skaidra Smith-Heisters, Policy Analyst, Reason Foundation, (707) 569-9279
Chris Mitchell, Director of Communications, Reason Foundation, (310) 367-6109

If not for a curious veto by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year, California farmers would be tending to their first, very useful and profitable crop of industrial hemp right now. Instead, legislators in Sacramento are back for the second year in a row, working on a law to allow industrial hemp cultivation in the state.

Last year, the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act, which would permit and regulate the cultivation of hemp in the state for the first time in more than a half-century, sponsored by Assembly members Chuck DeVore (R– Irvine) and Mark Leno (D–San Francisco), was vetoed by Schwarzenegger. The two assemblymen have re-introduced the act this year with the notable help of fiscally conservative Senator Tom McClintock (R–Thousand Oaks).

The sizeable economic opportunity for domestic industrial hemp products explains the tenacity of lawmakers and industrial hemp advocates seeking a second chance for the law. The long, strong fibers of the hemp plant require less energy to manufacture than many petroleum-based plastics used in comparable industrial applications today. Carmakers like Ford and BMW report that replacing heavy fiberglass and epoxy automotive components with durable, lighter-weight hemp-based fiberboard cost—and pollute—less. Savings are realized both in the production stage and through better gas mileage for the life of the vehicle. Altogether, millions of cars are already on the road today with hemp components, and the industry says they’d likely use more hemp if it was available domestically.

The California Energy Commission even lists hemp as a possible biomass energy crop; a source of fuel that will be needed to meet the ambitious emissions reductions goals set by the governor.

Hemp can also produce textiles similar to cotton, an important agricultural commodity in California, worth $630 million in 2005. On a per-acre basis, however, hemp would likely produce more fiber, using half the irrigation water and half the nitrogen fertilizer, in half the time that it takes to grow even genetically-engineered herbicide tolerant (“Roundup Ready”) cotton varieties in California.

Substituting hemp for cotton would also result in substantially fewer herbicides, pesticides and other agricultural chemicals being used in the San Joaquin, Sacramento and Imperial valleys.

According to the Hemp Industries Association, more than 75 percent of the sales of legal hemp products are already made by California-based businesses, many in the popular hemp foods and cosmetics industries. But California companies must import the raw materials for their products from Canada or other places where hemp growing is allowed, at an added expense of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

For politicians the hang-up seems to be that some believe the relationship between industrial hemp and marijuana is too close for comfort. In the message explaining his veto last September, Gov. Schwarzenegger stated that he would not support a law perceived to conflict with federal statutes, and that, “California law enforcement has expressed concerns that implementation of this measure could place a drain on their resources and cause significant problems with drug enforcement activities.”

With worries about terrorism, school shootings, and escalating gang violence, you’d think California law enforcement would have better things to do than complain about growing hemp, based on the unfounded and archaic linkage between this promising industrial crop and marijuana as it is grown and consumed today. Law enforcement authorities should understand that a field of industrial hemp is the last place anyone would try to grow marijuana. They have an ally in California hemp farmers, who will be required to take extra precautions to keep illegal marijuana growers from trespassing and damaging hemp fields. And from the marijuana grower’s perspective, cross-pollination with a hemp crop in close proximity would ruin their product—not unlike crossing two purebred dogs of different breeds. The two plants are the same species, but industrial hemp contains insignificant amounts of the active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC), that is valued in marijuana.

Further, hemp grown for fiber is planted in dense stands of tall, thin plants, similar to bamboo in appearance—easily distinguished from the bushy, flower-laden drug varieties. As an added precaution, the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act would require that farmers test their crops before harvest and only use seed from stock containing three-tenths of one percent THC or less.

The fear that marijuana could be “hidden” in industrial hemp crops is unfounded. When harvest season comes around this year, hopefully Schwarzenegger won’t have trouble identifying the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act for what it really is: a serious opportunity to make economic and environmental gains for all of California.

For eight years, businessman Kim Hough lobbied Western Australia (WA) governments for approval of an estimated $1 billion-a-year industry that would boost local farming. The only problem was, it was illegal. Then, on May 19, the Industrial Hemp Act of WA came into effect. It allowed the cultivation and processing of industrial hemp with less than 0.35 per cent tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient of cannabis or marijuana.