Hemp Horizons

Recently I saw John Roulac speak at Lassen's Natural Food store in Ventura, California as part of Hemp History Week. John is a real hemp pioneer. He is the founder and CEO of Nutiva, one of the fastest-growing USA based hemp food companies. John mentioned a book he wrote about hemp back in 1997 called "Hemp Horizons." The book is out of print but available on amazon.com. I just placed my order and can't wait to dig into it.

Below is an excellent review of the book by J.W.K of Nagano, Japan with an extensive quote from the work.

With this book, Roulac has given us THE complete and definitive book of hemp's past, present to future. It traces hem's historical roots, details the hundreds of uses of hemp, explains the historical legal underpinnings of hemp's brush in with the law, examines the global hemp industry, and shows hemp in the modern marketplace. In effect, this book provides readers with the most factual, historically comprehensive, and even-handed presentation of this controversial crop to date. To give an understanding of how useful and potentially revolutionary this crop is, allow me to quote one of my favorite parts of the book:

"So imagine that one day within the next ten years, you wake up in a house whose walls, roof, flooring, insulation, and paint are derived of hemp. You feel great after sleeping on your hemp-stuffed mattress, covered with soft linens spun from hemp fiber. Your feet sink into the hemp carpeting as you get out of bed and open the hemp drapes. It's a beautiful morning.

"You jump into the shower, where you soap, shampoo, and hair conditioner made from hemp. You step out onto the hemp bath mat, drying yourself with a superabsorbent hemp towel. You clean your ears with H-Tips (better than the old cotton swabs), and apply hemp-oil lotion, moisturizer, and lip balm. You make a mental note to buy some more hemp toilet paper, recalling how it wasn't too long ago that we were still cutting down centuries-old trees just to flush them away.

"Opening your closet, you dress in hemp jeans, shirt, and jacket; put on hemp socks and shoes; tie the hemp laces; and grab your hemp wallet, which holds checks and currency printed on hemp paper.

"You're hungry, so you walk into the kitchen with its hemp-based linoleum floor. You make some wheat-and-hemp-flower toast, and pour a glass of fresh, organic hemp milk. After eating, you make a salad with hemp-oil dressing to take to work. Then you wash your dishes, using hemp-oil dish soap and a hemp pot-scrubber, and put the dishes away in a cabinet built of hemp fiberboard. Sitting down on the hemp-framed and upholstered couch, you glance at a newspaper printed with hemp ink on hemp recycled paper, and learn that the hemp industry is now the largest agribusiness and the major job provider in your state. You turn on the stereo, which sits on a hemp fiberboard cabinet, and listen as music vibrates from speakers also made from hemp fiberboard. They contain specialty hemp paper for the speaker cones and are covered with black hempen cloth.

"Leaving the house for work, you open the door of your car, built of strong, lightweight composites that include hemp. Relaxing into the driver's seat, luxuriously upholstered with hemp textiles, you rest your feet on floor mats that look like rubber but are made from hemp. As you drive to your job at the new hemp-fiber processing facility, you pass farmers harvesting some of the locally grown hemp that is revitalizing your community's rural economy."

A beautiful morning indeed, but it would be even more beautiful if you knew how environmentally friendly and healthy your new hempen life actually is. The rubber-like mats in your hemp mobile are all natural and 100 per cent biodegradable; the roots of the hemp plants that line the fields of your county help enrich and solidify much-needed topsoil and therefore increase the yield of other rotational crops. You smile while spreading hempseed hummus on your hemp-wheat toast knowing it is the single most complete source of non-animal protein on the planet - and tastes much better than tofu. The smile increases as you pour hemp oil on your salad, knowing it is high in essential fatty acids that help you think better, boost your immune system, decrease your chances of cancer, and reduce the risk of high blood pressure, platelet coagulation, and hardening of the arteries. Lastly, before heading off to work, you opt for your hemp skateboard instead of the hemp mobile, as it is a brilliant, bright and sunny day.

The fact of the matter is, this beautiful morning has no imaginative end. The only thing keeping us from achieving the dawn of a new tomorrow is our monopoly cotton and paper industries, and a government which seems to be supporting those industries by restricting and limiting hemp production permits and also by unleashing the DEA on would-be hemp producers (despite the fact that it has NEVER been illegal to grow hemp in America). Whatever you want to know about hemp is in this book. A must read.