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Sunday, June 15, 2008 10:42 AM MDT

Editor:

During the Middle Ages there was a weather event dubbed the Little Ice Age. Many people died because of failing crops due to a much colder climate. Potatoes could still be grown but people refused to grow or eat them; they chose starvation instead. They did so because church leaders including a pope declared potatoes the devil's food because they grow beneath the ground.

Today, there exists a plant that can produce 1,000 gallons of methanol alcohol fuel per acre, compared to 350 gallons of ethanol produced from corn. Some 60 to 70 gallons of high grade lubricating oil per acre can be produced; combine the alcohol and oil and you have bio-diesel.

This level of production would certainly reduce our dependency on big-money oil without raising food costs.

In addition to fuel, 20,000 often superior, lower cost products can be derived from it such as cosmetics, textiles, and so on. In fact, about 85 percent of the building materials needed to build and furnish a house can be produced from this most useful plant.

Used as a medicine it's been proven to help the brain completely regenerate brain cells damaged by such diseases as Alzheimer's, etc. It's also proven to kill at least seven types of cancer cells. There are several other medical uses that could be a great benefit to human kind, as well.

So why are we not using this extremely beneficial plant to its fullest extent?

Well it seems somewhere down the line someone declared cannabis, hemp, better known by its nickname, marijuana, was indeed the devil's weed because it can also provide pleasure to those who smoke it.

So rather than ending the absurd cannabis prohibition once and for all, we instead choose to be saddled down with unnecessarily high fuel and food prices, as well as super high medical costs. After all, we need to protect ourselves from this devil weed no matter the cost. In reality, it's been proven again and again that cannabis is totally harmless to society and users alike.

Although we've invented all sorts of gadgets from that Little Ice Age till the present, as a species we've regressed rather than progressed. This is due to the indisputable fact that most people refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past.

Self induced ignorance is voluntary slavery.

JOE DePAUL, Casper


Risk outweighs lifetime reward		Governing bodies follow rules of order

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Comments to this story.

Dewd wrote on Jun 15, 2008 11:25 AM:

" It's Sunday but I do not go to church. Joe DePaul's comments are all the sermon I need today . Yea , verily. I fully and wholeheartedly agree. In many of the third world countries I've traveled, Hemp is common and much is made from it, especially clothing. I would only add that the US Declaration of Independence and the pages of the Constitution are inked on hemp paper, and for a long time the United States currency was printed on hemp stock . And early American notables such as George Washingtom grew the stuff as a cash crop and for everyday subsistence. It is well past the time to go Back to the Future with full scale Hemp farming across America, for all the reasons Joe DePaul illuminates and a few hundred more.... "

linda wrote on Jun 16, 2008 1:57 AM:

" are there any references on the 3:1 ratio? --
What's the downside of methanol vs. ethanol other than methanol being a less dense energy form? (but certainly not 1/3rd as dense). Any idea how it compares to the new "manna" switchgrass? that can be grown in poor soil much as cannabis can? If course I'm sure the SG, doesn't offer all the other benefits of Cannabis, but our government's drug war is a war against the US citizenry. It's based on pseudo-Christian values that they use to claim Cannabis is impure -- for the exact reason you mention -- the fact that it can counter dysphoria and pain by inducing temporary euphoria. Of course we have to protect the children -- from all that methanol that might be produced -- they might drink it and go blind -- not to mention using the hemp paper to publish child-porn on...yep...obviously a problem. "

Matias wrote on Jun 21, 2008 4:12 AM:

" I never knew that hemp could be used for so many things. I knew that hemp certainly is not as "bad" as they make it sound, but I never knew that hemp could be used for bio-diesel production. Thanks for the information! "

Charlton wrote on Jun 21, 2008 5:55 AM:

" You guys are crazy!! If we let farmers grow the devils weed, the country will go to pot! Bars will go out of business. Women will stop shaving their armpits and the Grateful Dead will play the national anthem. Crazed reefer addicts will run around raping women, children and animals at will. We can't have that in our great country!

If we want to solve the oil crisis all we have to do is take over arab-land and take our oil. The papers that founded this country say that god smiled on us. So we can just take all the oil we want.

I think the farmers should go back to growing cotton candy, cheese plants and tabakky. Leave the miricle plants to the saints. "

DANO wrote on Jun 21, 2008 6:00 AM:

" As awesome as this is, i'd like some sources please. "

NAV wrote on Jun 21, 2008 10:27 AM:

" The potato is a new world food domesticated by the Inca in Peru. It wasn't introduced into Europe until the 1500's. That is AFTER the middle ages. So, no, the potato couldn't have been grown in the middle ages. It didn't exist in Europe. Don't blame the pope. Learn your history. "

manoadano wrote on Jun 22, 2008 1:56 AM:

" i'm with dano. back it up or it's no better than the potato lie. "

wygent wrote on Jun 22, 2008 8:00 AM:

" The information above would be much more attractive if it were true. The allegations that hemp will produce 1000 gallons of alcohol per acre is pure fiction. The amount of alcohol produced by any agricultural product is a function of the total carbohydrate content of the plant. Cannabis is not extremely high on that scale. As an oil producer, it is slightly better, but not anything like oil palm or rape seed. There are clearly products that can be made from the fiber as well as recreational advantages, but to promote it as the solution to our energy shortage is every bit as dishonest as the arguments forbidding its production. I'm all for ending the war on drugs, but don't start out by being as disingenuous as those who profit most from its promotion.

WYGENT "

jw wrote on Jun 22, 2008 8:04 AM:

" NAV:
You are the one who should learn his history. The "little ice age: ran from about 1350 to around 1850. Potatoes were introduced during the 16th century and it is a matter of clear record (look it up) that the "church" discouraged eating potatoes because they grew in the earth, the devil's domain. "

rick wrote on Jun 22, 2008 8:24 AM:

" yep-let's seethe source on these claims-if they are accurate they most certainly deserve to be made credible rather than opinion. "

BornInTheUSA wrote on Jun 23, 2008 2:49 PM:

" We'd have a much better world if war mongering drunkards like george bush and religions loons like the little rat that runs Iran sat down and smoked a couple of doobs. "

Mountain Climber wrote on Jun 23, 2008 4:10 PM:

" I must admit, I was skeptical. So, naturally, I went to MSN live search. Here are a few websites that came up in response to the query "benefits of hemp" Google shows many similar articles. I'll leave it to the readers to judge the veracity of the articles themselves. These are only a few of th m-a-n-y sites that came up.

www.hemp-guide.com/benefits-of-hemp.html

www.yaoh.co.uk/health-issues1.html

www.sabines-hemp.com/default.asp?pg=Benefits%20of%20Hemp

naturalfitnessinc.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=11&chapter=0

www.advanceddoctors.com/hemp.html

www.healing-source.com/hemp_health_benefits.htm

www.ecolution.com/hemp%20info/farming/ "

cosmic wonder horse wrote on Jun 24, 2008 2:37 PM:

" When I was doing research on this subject for a project in class I found out a lot of similar things. Turns out Hugh Downs himself did a 10 minute broadcast in 1990 about the benefits of hemp. Ol' Hugh wasn't enough though. As far as acres go it can produce something like 4 times as much paper as an acre of trees can, and can be planted year-round and harvested several times a year. If its not the quality of the oil versus other organic oils, it certainly makes up for that with quantity.

The world needs more weed (among many other things of course...) and less religion. God I hate religion. "

eboni wrote on Jun 24, 2008 4:20 PM:

" The Great Famine in the Medieval Period ran from 1315-1317 During this time the temperature dropped by 1 degree. The people starved because of overpopulation and the fact that the had reached the limits of sustainance for the technology of the time. They had also used marginal land to feed themselves before this time and this was the main problem. (Source any decent history book of the period particularly 'The Great FAmine' By W. Chester). Also the bit about potatoes is invalid as The Irish Famine in 1842-45 was because the potato crop failed and they did not know how to use the corn given to them. Ireland Is also a devoutly Catholic Country.

Hemp does have many uses and you can buy hemp paper and accessories however the part used for drugs is not the same as the part used for these other things. For all the benefits don't forget that there are also many drawbacks mental health problems and the 'Gateway' aspect being one of them. "

Mountain Climber wrote on Jun 24, 2008 5:45 PM:

" To Eboni

I agree, and always have, that marijuana is a gateway drug. So, for that matter, are beer and tobacco. Sigh.

But, in this case, non-hallucinigenic hemp is certainly available for cultivation, and has been for years. There's really no reason why its advantages shouldn't be available as well "

PeteinTex wrote on Jun 24, 2008 6:39 PM:

" To the gateway argument I say false correlation. He wasn't referencing the potato famine, btw. He was saying that a there was a readily available food source and people didn't take advantage of it because of prevailing prejudices at the time. So congrats on knocking down the straw-man and pointing out that his analogy is weak at best. His point, however, remains intact.

btw - did anybody else notice that eboni commented at 4:20? teehee

. "

profit wrote on Jun 24, 2008 9:35 PM:

" Hemp and marijuana are not the same thing. Hemp's THC content is negligible. Hemp was once grown in this country as a cash crop, but was outlawed because of the ill conceived hysteria over smoking the similar plant: marijuana. Hemp was often referred to as "ditch weed" in the midwest because it still grows wild there- a holdover from its legal days. Hemp is easily grown and is a logical choice for paper products and clothing. Growing hemp in this country is still illegal, tho selling paper and clothing made of hemp is not. We should pressure lawmakers to correct this and encourage hemp growers nation wide. Marijuana has been proven to have medicinal properties but the powers that be would rather not talk about that. They want to stick to their story that a mere plant threatens the stability of this nation. Go figure. Oh and to you, eboni, if you insist on the "gateway theory" then you must be honest by identifying alcohol as the gateway drug. The lion's share of addicts first experience with drugs was with alcohol. Go figure. "

lemmeshowya wrote on Jul 3, 2008 7:43 AM:

" I've smoked plenty of pot before and if it's proven to regenerate braincells then why did it make me slower and dumber? Maybe it kills cells with information stored in them and regenerates empty ones? That's nice. I wasn't a heavy smoker of it either. Pot makes people dumber and that's just a simple fact. It also caused other health problems and causes accidents(slower and dumber). Facts. You can continue to ignore your body for so long but eventually it'll catch up to you. Numbing one's self instead of fixing what's wrong is usually a stupid idea. You're meant to feel better when you've done something healthy, not create false pleasures. Anyways that's my feedback from MY actual experiences not just references etc. "

skeptic wrote on Jan 6, 2009 6:36 PM:

" wow. amazing. and to think this article didn't once have to cite any sources! did you know that trillions of humans die every minute by not utilizing cannabis? that's a staggering number (like much of this article's numbers). really makes you think...that this article needs citation. then we could see the incredible be the credible. "

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