US could use hemp as sustainable resource

by Ethan Gaebel
Source: collegiatetimes.com

The petroleum industry is booming. The world thrives on plastic and is powered by gas. But oil is a finite resource — America will run out of it and will need to have something to replace it with before it is depleted. The country needs oil for more than powering cars. Petroleum is essential to creating plastic items, such as computer keys and plastic outlet covers. And there is a renewable way for the country to get all of the plastic society demands — while cleaning the air petroleum has dirtied with hemp.    

Hemp is a species of cannabis that does not contain any of the psychoactive chemicals that illicit species of cannabis contain, but its production was made illegal at the same time as marijuana.

But how is cannabis going to replace petroleum? It can be processed to make plastics. The Canadian company Motive Industries is testing a car that has a body made out of a bio-composite plastic made mostly from hemp. The car should be available for sale near the end of this year. 

Motive’s president even addressed the fact that the company is getting a leg up on America by telling the CBC, “it’s illegal to grow it in the United States, so it actually gives Canada a bit of a market advantage,” which is very true. While the Canadians get to perfect this bio-composite that can be grown in massive amounts, American engineers are left to work with petroleum plastic, which will eventually no longer be available. 

The best part about hemp plastic is, unlike petroleum, its bio-composite materials are biodegradable. BMW has is taking advantage of this by trying to find a way to make more recyclable cars using hemp plastic. In 2006, researchers found that 11.7 percent of total waste is plastic, meaning more than 10 percent of garbage in the world will never decompose. Sure, people can collect bottles and recycle them into benches, pretending they are solving the problem. But they can also just use hemp to make plastic and let the Earth recycle it.

Almost anything that can be made out of cotton or wood can be made out of hemp. A study done in conjunction with Washington State University found that hemp can be used to replace dry wall and wood paneling. These replacements were also found to have excellent thermal and sound insulating properties, as well as superior strength and flexibility versus their wooden counterparts.

It was even found that hemp could be used for support beams. Hemp-infused houses are simply superior structures. The price of materials would even be lower because one acre of hemp produces an amount of pulp (which is used to turn into pressed boards, particle boards and concrete construction materials) equal to the amount of pulp produced by 4.1 acres of trees. Paper can also be more efficiently produced by taking advantage of the vastly superior amount of pulp produced by hemp.

But alas, hemp is still illegal, and the U.S. cannot take advantage of all of these properties without paying a pretty penny to import hemp from Canada, China, England, France or one of the many other reasonable countries that have not outlawed a plant without psychoactive properties. In fact, the U.S. imports more hemp than any other country. So why is hemp illegal in the first place?

The U.S. government did not distinguish between the species of the cannabis plant — rather, it lumped hemp in with the psychoactive species of cannabis and made both illegal with one fell swoop. However, there are many who argue that the criminalization of marijuana was actually spurred on because of the hemp industry. This is based on the fact that several of the big pushers of The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 had large financial interests in the success of competitors of hemp, the timber and nylon industries in particular. Society may never know exactly why it was made illegal, but that does not mean legislation cannot be reversed.

The country’s success, back in time, was written in hemp. In 1773 and 1776, there were also hemp laws drafted in the colonies (by the colonies, not Britain). The difference between those laws and 20th century laws is that these were “must grow” laws stipulated all farmers must grow hemp because it was such a necessary commodity.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were hemp farmers, and Ben Franklin founded the first paper mill in America, which used only hemp. So it is pretty easy to see why the Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper.

Hemp has been found to have more than 25,000 applications — it is a plant of all trades. America has the ability to alleviate its dependence on environmentally detrimental oil sources and move toward a cleaner future with hemp.

It is time the nation stopped handing its money to greedy oil barons and started offering money to American farmers growing a clean crop that will benefit people in every industry. The engineers of this country deserve to have access to this diverse resource for the creations of tomorrow. Keeping hemp illegal is just slowing down progress.