Industrial Hemp
Goals
To promote, change laws preventing, and to educate about, the use of industrial hemp within California (and the nation).
Green Party efforts will move forward on these three basic ideas:
1) Hemp a better deal than the other fibers being grown. Hemp needs less resources in term of chemicals and water to produce a superior fiber that is the strongest nature fiber from what many have said is the fastest growing plant. Cotton is currently the leading plant fiber and it requires half of all chemicals used in agriculture to fertilize the crop and to then pesticide it. Hemp requires no fertilizer as it grows in every soil, albeit it will grow faster in better soil. Hemp also needs no pesticides, so the economic cost alone in less oil give a higher profit in growing hemp rather then cotton. Then there is the environmental cost of the oil used in cotton compared the complete lack of such in Hemp culture. The three crop cycle of Hemp, grain, and then alfalfa is well known to fix nitrogen into the soil and reduce pesticide use as the Hemp plant simply outgrows the other plants that we call weeds.
Cotton also uses a lot of water, water that has to be pumped with all the economic and environmental costs of doing so. Hemp evolved in Central Asia during the retreat of the ice to a dry culture with the oils in cannabis plant often being a defense against the heat/light. So, using Hemp as opposed to Cotton reduces water consumption in agriculture and all that follows in terms of water infrastructure construction with costs and environmental damages.
Thus, Hemp rather than Cotton has more fiber produced with less costs and damages to the earth. Therefore a truly capitalist economy would never have ended Hemp growing which has a long history in the United States. The Tariff of Abominations of 1828, which some cite as a large cause of the Civil War, included a tariff on hemp at the insistence of Kentucky, which had a large hemp agricultural sector. Hemphead, Hemphill, Hempstead are all names of towns which are derived from the hemp agricultural tradition in America.
2) Growing Hemp creates more useful resources than Cotton or other fibers at a higher profit and with less environmental damage. Thus the impact of growing hemp on governmental fiscal challenges is positive as more resources create more jobs and a larger economy that is better able to provide funds to cover necessary governmental expenditures. Growing hemp literally grows governmental finances.
3) The Green Party should be fully supportive of the Hemp Industry advocating for the full legalization of all forms of cannabis, and industrial hemp in particular. With Hemp culture providing food, fiber, fuel, oils, medicines; it is one of the solutions to a sustainable economy and as such is a great campaign issue. Hemp for Victory was the title of the WWII USDA film to promote the reintroduction of hemp during the war years and should be part of any Green Party Candidate's platform.
Project Activators
Project Resources
These links provide further information on Industrial Hemp: