# Hemp **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 25, 2007, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365 "2007-06-25T18:10:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/21 "2007-06-26T08:03:19Z")
> [@](#): > > **Blake** : Blake: Hemp does have some uses, but they arent real solid. [The Farm (Summertown, Tennessee) sent volunteers to the Hemp House Project at Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota.](http://www.plenty.org/pineridgehouse.htm) Scroll down to the bottom to see a photo or two of the almost finished hemp house. It is a standard stud frame house but the bricks are made using hemp as is the insulation. I know that panels can be made from hemp to form the walls inside, but I don’t know if that was done in this case. Wild hemp used to be cultivated and was at one time an important crop. It grows wild in the Dakotas and Nebraska and other states. That’s because it needs very little attention and no pesticides. When cultivated it does need fertilizer. The hemp for this house was growing wild or ordered from Canada. > [@](#): > > This “hemp house” is a project of the Slim Buttes Land Use Association, initiated by Tom Cook and his neighbors in the Slim Buttes Community on the Reservation. Their plan is to grow industrial hemp for use as building material, fiber and food. Hemp could be an answer to many of the needs of the Reservation. Keep in mind that this reserevation includes the poorest county in the United States. The Reservation has 83% unemployment. > [@](#): > > Tom is especially interested in a process that presses oil out of hemp seeds and uses the remaining flour in a variety of food applications. Last year the Lakota Tribal Council voted to allow industrial hemp to be grown at Pine Ridge. The next step, according to Tom, is for the Lakota Tribe to institute its own Department of Agriculture, which will set standards for the regulation of the crop, and then to apply to the U.S. DEA for a permit to grow hemp. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/22 "2007-06-26T08:19:41Z")
Personally, I think it should be legalised (actually, I think it already is here), if only so that the claims being bandied about regarding its miraculous properties can be demonstrated to be bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/23 "2007-06-26T09:33:14Z")
[QUOTE=Blake] That website is not in any way reliable. As soon as website makes the outrageous claim that hemp needs no fertiliser or insecticide you know that it is biased pro-hemp bullshit. Hemp is a plant, not a god. It requires fertilizer just like every other plant on the planet, and just like every other plant on th eplanter it has insect predtaors that require treatment with pesticides. [/QUOTE] I would like to point out as a former resident of South Dakota that hemp grows wild in most of the state; it was, at one time, a perfectly legal crop since the navy demanded hemp ropes. One sees it growing in ditches and in patches in cattle pastures. Ditches and pastures typically don’t get a lot of insecticides sprayed on them, nor do ditches get a lot of fertilizer—cattle pastures are obviously an exception as they get more (organic, not chemical) fertilizer than almost any place I can think of. I would also like to add that in South Dakota hemp is so ubiquitous that it is known far and wide as “ditch weed.” There have been many attempts to eradicate the stuff but it defies destruction; maybe it is more god-like than we realize. (That’s a joke, by the way.) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/24 "2007-06-26T09:44:54Z")
Sure, but wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, etc also survive in field margins in a feral state here - for years or decades after cultivation ceases. There’s a difference between something growing successfully as a weed in ditches and hedgerows, and it being a successful and productive crop in large monocultures. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/25 "2007-06-26T09:48:37Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] Sure, but wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, etc also survive in field margins in a feral state here - for years or decades after cultivation ceases. There’s a difference between something growing successfully as a weed in ditches and hedgerows, and it being a successful and productive crop in large monocultures. [/QUOTE] Certainly, but **Blake** seemed to be saying that insecticide and fertilizer deliberately applied are absolutely necessary for the growth of hemp and, at least in limited quantity, that simply isn’t so. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/26 "2007-06-26T10:35:43Z")
If you want to grow it as a commercial crop (which is what everyone is talking about here), then fertiliser and at least _some_ form of pest control will be necessary. If the claim is simply that hemp _can_ grow on its own, in certain circumstances, well, that doesn’t set it apart from pretty much everything else in the plant kingdom, so it’s not worth mentioning. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/27 "2007-06-26T14:33:49Z")
[QUOTE=Zoe] [The Farm (Summertown, Tennessee) sent volunteers to the Hemp House Project at Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota.](http://www.plenty.org/pineridgehouse.htm) … Keep in mind that this reserevation includes the poorest county in the United States. The Reservation has 83% unemployment. [/QUOTE] Thanks for that link, **Zoe**. I see no good reason why marijuana or hemp should be illegal. If some good can come from this low-maintenance crop, why not utilize it? The situation at Pine Ridge is desperate. If this use of hemp makes a better life more attainable, I cannot understand the government’s objections. You can’t get a buzz off it, so why bitch about it? It’s another example of Zero Tolerance at its worst. Fucking ridiculous is what it is. ---
**Author:** ![essell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/34f0e0/32.png) [@essell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/essell)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/28 "2007-06-26T14:37:42Z")
[QUOTE=AHoosierMama] Seems like I’ve heard that it is easy to hide the marajuana plants among the rows of hemp, so opponents just want to keep all of it illegal. [/QUOTE] I heard that was a baseless fear because Marajuana growers don’t want hemp cross pollinating their crops, it’d ruin the seeds of the next generation. IANAH so I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/29 "2007-06-26T15:20:45Z")
**Blake** Hemp makes great paper. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/30 "2007-06-26T18:03:38Z")
[QUOTE=Blake] The probelm remains as I stated above: criminals don’t seek licences. If there are 50, 000ha of hemp under licenced cultivation in the US that is more than enough that neigbours and passers by will not look twice at a hemp field. That means that _unlicenced_ growers can very easily plant a screen of fibre hemp around a marijuana crop without arousing suspicion. The only way to detect this will be to monitor _all_ US agricultural land via sattelite on a monthly basis, and cross reference that satellite imagery with a database of known licienced crops. That’s certainly perfectly plausible with curent technology, but it is by no means free. Then the DEA will need to be able to obtain a warrant based on that satellite imagery in order to do an on-ground search to confirm the crop is hemp, and I don’t even know if that would be legal. [/QUOTE] There’s only one way to detect this? Really? I find it hard to believe that a farm producing illegal marijuana in any quantity goes completely undetected simply because they’re somehow hiding their plants behind a magic fence of hemp. Are they going to smuggle out the drugs in the shipments of hemp as well? Just wondering, are you opposed to the cultivation of poppy seeds for cooking? Because that’s almost the exact same situation from an agricultural standpoint. The difference, at least from what some have said here, is simply political. The drug legalization side doesn’t view poppy seeds as helping them toward their goal, but they do think of hemp that way, so (in the US) you’re free to have your bagels and strudel how you like them. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/31 "2007-06-27T00:52:36Z")
[QUOTE=Zoe] The Farm (Summertown, Tennessee) sent volunteers to the Hemp House Project at Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. [/quote] Since you quoted me with reference to this I’m assuming it addresses some comment I made. But I can’t figure out what. Yes you can use hemp as a building material, along with rice, quinoa, pandanus or palm trees. That doesn’t make any of those things solid financially and practically utilisable building crops in the US. Simple question: if you believe that hemp is such a fanstastic building material why aren’t any houses built with this tuff in places like Canada, India or Holland where hemp cultivation Is perfectly legal? As with almost all hemp uses it is a second rate product. It’s not a solid usage for an industrial country. [QUOTE=LouisB] Certainly, but **Blake** seemed to be saying that insecticide and fertilizer deliberately applied are absolutely necessary for the growth of hemp and, at least in limited quantity, that simply isn’t so. [/QUOTE] So the sole point of that pro-hemp website was that hemp is exactly like every other organism on the planet? In that case I retract my claim: it isn’t inaccurate, it’s simply misleading or at best worthless. But I think we both know what they meant when they said that hemp as a crop requires no pesticide or fertilizer even if they have left themselves room to weasel out of it if ever challenged. [QUOTE=Kalhoun] Thanks for that link, **Zoe**. If some good can come from this low-maintenance crop, why not utilize it? [/quote] 1. Hemp isn’t particularly low maintenance 2. If the harm it causes is greater than the good then surely we shouldn’t be using it? > [@](#): > > The situation at Pine Ridge is desperate. If this use of hemp makes a better life more attainable, I cannot understand the government’s objections. A better question might be “Why use hemp, as opposed to Eucalyptus or Sisal or Flax?” > [@](#): > > You can’t get a buzz off it, so why bitch about it? Have you read this thread? Of course characterising any dissenter’s opinion as “bitching” is simply trying to poison the well and a pretty cheap tactic. [QUOTE=mswas] **Blake** Hemp makes great paper. [/QUOTE] Sure it does, but once again it’s a second rate compromise. Hemp produces far less mid quality paper than trees, but it produces more low quality paper. But it produces far less low quality paper than rice or flax. It is capable of producing a better top-quality paper than wood, but it can’t compete with banana or sisal for top-quality paper. This is what I said above: hemp is a second rate option for a wide variety of uses. If someone wants ultra-high quality paper for surgical or scientific applications they would plant banana or other crops specifically for high quality paper. If someone wants mid-quality paper they would plant trees which produce far more mid-quality paper. And if they want low quality then they are spoiled for choice because thousands of crops produce more low quality paper than hemp. This sort of thing makes hemp great for subsistence agriculture where one plant can provide fibre, paper, food, oil, thatching etc. It doesn’t make it particularly useful for agriculture in the developed world where crops have to be tailored to specific uses. [QUOTE=panamajack] There’s only one way to detect this? Really? I find it hard to believe that a farm producing illegal marijuana in any quantity goes completely undetected simply because they’re somehow hiding their plants behind a magic fence of hemp. Are they going to smuggle out the drugs in the shipments of hemp as well? [/quote] Do you really believe that hemp is magic? It isn’t you know. Of course there are other ways of detecting the material once it has left the farm. But since we were specifically disusing the DEA doing on-farm inspections it’s hardly relevant is it? > [@](#): > > Just wondering, are you opposed to the cultivation of poppy seeds for cooking? Because that’s almost the exact same situation from an agricultural standpoint. No, it isn’t even remotely similar. Do you really think the neighbours won’t notice hundreds of labourers spending hours every day for weeks on end doing a daily harvest of a poppy field? People can’t hide amongst 12 inch tall poppy plants, and the method of harvesting opium are labour intensive, time consuming and totally inconsistent with seed harvest. That attracts attention In contrast you can do almost anything behind a screen of 12 foot tall fibre hemp. Moroever the nature of marijuana is that you can do a single harvest. > [@](#): > > The difference, at least from what some have said here, is simply political. No, it isn’t. It’s agricultural and it’s legal. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/32 "2007-06-27T01:04:13Z")
[QUOTE=Blake] Sure it does, but once again it’s a second rate compromise. Hemp produces far less mid quality paper than trees, but it produces more low quality paper. But it produces far less low quality paper than rice or flax. It is capable of producing a better top-quality paper than wood, but it can’t compete with banana or sisal for top-quality paper. [/QUOTE] This isn’t precisely true. A tree takes multiple years to achieve a growth cycle whereas a hemp plant can achieve it in one year, and the land can be used to grow another crop the next. One would need to look at the production of paper over the course of ten years by equal plots of land. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/33 "2007-06-27T02:37:54Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] This isn’t precisely true. A tree takes multiple years to achieve a growth cycle whereas a hemp plant can achieve it in one year, and the land can be used to grow another crop the next. One would need to look at the production of paper over the course of ten years by equal plots of land. [/QUOTE] Nope, you’re just focussing on quantity and ignoring quality. If we just want quantity then many crops including rice will produce far more paper than either hemp or trees. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/34 "2007-06-27T20:51:15Z")
[QUOTE=Blake] Nope, you’re just focussing on quantity and ignoring quality. If we just want quantity then many crops including rice will produce far more paper than either hemp or trees. [/QUOTE] I’ll have to suspend judgment for now, I don’t know more about this. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/35 "2007-06-28T15:01:01Z")
[QUOTE=Blake] It’s somewhat ironic that probably the main reason for hemp cultivation is to produce products to sell to people who want to protest hemp being illegal in their own countires. IOW if pro-hemp types in the US, England and elsewhere weren’t buying hemp t-shirts to support legal hemp then there would be almost no hemp grown anywhere. The irony comes from realising that if these people got there wishes then no-one would wear hemp and hemp production worldwide would almost certainly _fall_ due to legalisation. [/QUOTE] Pure conjecture. I wear have several articles of hemp clothing, and it has nothing to do with my wanting hemp or pot to be legalized. It’s comfy, and requires less ecological damage than cotton. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/36 "2007-06-28T15:30:23Z")
[QUOTE=An Arky] I’m for legalization, but I think that pushing for industrial hemp and medical marijuana is just a chickensh\*t, underhanded way of going about it. I’d be more in favor of every single day, having thousands, if not millions, blaze up right in the faces of the cops, DEA, whoever and simply overwhelm the justice system until it becomes unsustainable to enforce the prohibition. There’s easily the numbers for it, but likely not the gonads. Of course the first few shovelfuls of sand into the river ain’t gonna look much like a dam. Yeah, I know, put down the bong… Actually, I have put down the bong and am no longer “on the team” so to speak, so I think I can say this without stoner bias creep(er)ing in. [/QUOTE] Good luck organizing that one- “I can’t believe we spaced on the date!” “What’re we gonna do?” “Well, we can’t just stand here, staring at our hands…Although…” "They call’em fingers, but I ain’t never seen’em fing… oh, there they go." [/simpsons] Actually, most cops in the SF area wouldn’t give two shits. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/37 "2007-06-28T16:26:23Z")
Yeah, the whole multiple city Marijuana Marches have kind of died down. They’re like gay pride parades at this point. People get into them as an excuse to come party in the streets while old hippies get up on stage and talk a lot of bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/38 "2007-06-28T16:28:24Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] [I find myself asking why, if industrial hemp is so readily distinct from “true” marijuana, why many of the people that seeem so passionate about its acceptance are illegal marijanua users. [/QUOTE] Because the prohibition of industrial hemp is a glaringly stupid aspect of the pro-drug-war position. The opposition would have to be, well, stoned out of their minds to ignore the opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/39 "2007-06-28T16:31:33Z")
[QUOTE=An Arky] I’m for legalization, but I think that pushing for industrial hemp and medical marijuana is just a chickensh\*t, underhanded way of going about it. [/QUOTE] I simply don’t understand this mindset. Declining to attack the opposition at their weak points out of some sense of “fair play” is just stupid, if the issue at hand is important enough to make it worthwhile to fight the battle at all. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/40 "2007-06-28T16:40:38Z")
Sorry you disagree; I just think that using specious arguments, even for something I wholeheartedly support, doesn’t cut it. And touting hemp as some miracle multi-use crop is a specious argument. It has no unique qualities that can’t be duplicated by legal crops. So is using it for medical purposes. There’s nothing marijuana medically does that can’t be done by something else. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365.md?page=3)