# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2007, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/41 "2007-06-28T19:01:41Z")
[QUOTE=An Arky] 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. [/QUOTE] People are going to get bungied up about this for ever more until it is legalized. Most people could care less when it is legalized, most know the benefits and degradations of the plant. And honestly when it becomes legal the earth is not going to wobble into uncharted territory, it’s going to continue to spin just like it has ad infinitum…People will grow it, people will smoke it eat it etc…etc…and it will be regulated just like alcohol. When you are caught under the influence you will get a DUI just like someone who is drunk. (Though I’m sure this will happen much less often to people who are a little stoned than drunk) I have to roll my eyes about this whole thing because I’m so tired of people mounting arguments and defenses for something as inoccuous as Pot. ---
**Author:** ![FlyingDragonFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c89c15/32.png) [@FlyingDragonFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingDragonFan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/42 "2007-06-29T19:12:24Z")
[QUOTE=Great Dave] 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. [/QUOTE] I’m wearing a 75/25 hemp/cotton t-shirt right now as I type, and it’s a great shirt. I’ve had it for around 6 years, and it’s showing almost zero signs of wear. It was given to me as a Christmas present by my 50-year-old mother; I doubt she was concerned about protesting the legal status of pot-smoking when she bought it. I _think_ she got it from a mail-order company that makes their stuff from hemp grown in Romania. If hemp clothing was more accessible, I’d undoubtedly have a lot more of it. That’s not to say that **Blake** ’s economic analysis is off base, just that there are solid uses for hemp that some people would support. ---
**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 29, 2007, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/43 "2007-06-29T22:03:47Z")
I just think the hemp supporters are over-egging their pudding; they’d have you believe hemp can be used to make shoes, ships and sealing wax, that it can create world peace, that it will wake you up with a nice hot cup of tea and a smile in the morning. I mean, why are they trying so bloody hard to trumpet the supposedly miraculous properties of this rather ordinary plant? Why? Why have I never heard similarly fervent arguments in favour of _any other crop_? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/44 "2007-06-30T00:23:49Z")
[QUOTE=Blake] That is the issue. It’s not a case of policing the “few people” who choose to grow commercial hemp. It’s policing the potential multitude who choose to grow marijuana and use the now-inconspicuous commercial hemp as a screen. [/QUOTE] This argument is at a minimum overstated, and more likely completely specious. As you have mentioned, hemp cultivation in Canada is legal. And yet, pot growers in Canada do not use hemp cultivation as a screen for their activities. They grow their pot primarily in hydroponic grow houses, just like American pot growers do. If legalization of hemp cultivation were going to be a pot enforcement nightmare, we’d see evidence of that in Canada. I suppose you might argue that Canada’s generally lax enforcement of marijuana laws makes the camouflage unecessary, but this doesn’t strike me as very convincing given the frequency I see grow house raids reported in the media. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/45 "2007-06-30T08:29:07Z")
[QUOTE=redtail23] What’s your objection to decriminalization of marijuana (assuming it would be subject to controls similar to alcohol)? [/QUOTE] I have none. But Hemp is not really some super plant (as **Mangetout** sez “_they’d have you believe hemp can be used to make shoes, ships and sealing wax,_”) and the push for Hemp is really the desire for that wedge. I don’t like “stealth” campaigns. If you want legalized marijuana, ask for it, don’t go trying to “fill my ears with wisdom”. :mad: The Master Speaks: [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5\_131.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_131.html) "Getting back to the present, let’s not pretend that hemp and marijuana are two different things. They come from the same plant, Cannabis sativa. The “industrial hemp” variety, which is useless for recreational purposes, is tall and spindly, where the stuff prized for high-potency smoke is short and bushy. While it’s reasonably easy to tell the two apart when you’re up close, they can’t be readily distinguished during aerial surveillance. Federal drug officials are probably right when they say legalization of hemp cultivation would greatly complicate enforcement. Given the unlikelihood of total decriminalization of cannabis, Cecil can appreciate that proponents of the weed might want to sneak partial decriminalization in through the back door. On the one hand I think, hey, whatever works. But on the other hand I think, this is just the kind of hypocrisy we 60s types used to try so hard to avoid… Look, I’m the first to concede that the gentle weed is harmless and ought to be legalized. But the day I start believing this dope-will-save-the-planet stuff is the day I switch to Kool-Aid. To address your claims and some of the dozens of others that flooded my mailbox:Hemp is ideal for paper, cloth, and a thousand other products. Don’t be ridiculous. Even hemp advocates concede the stuff has a lot of drawbacks. It makes a fairly coarse cloth (OK for jeans though) and, given current technology, doesn’t lend itself to high-volume, low-cost paper production. (Granted, research in this area is continuing.) Many proposed uses are speculative or far-fetched…" ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/46 "2007-06-30T14:44:28Z")
Very eye-opening and informative debate. I think I find myself losing the sympathy I alluded to earlier… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2007, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/47 "2007-06-30T14:45:49Z")
[QUOTE=An Arky] So is using it for medical purposes. There’s nothing marijuana medically does that can’t be done by something else. [/QUOTE] I’d like a cite on this please. I have been given to understand that it has some unique properties for the suppression of nausea during intense chemotherapy and there is, in fact, not a replacement treatment that doesn’t have significant other side effects. I also have the impression that its use in glaucoma treatment is irreplaceable using other drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/48 "2007-07-02T00:24:20Z")
[QUOTE=Gorsnak] This argument is at a minimum overstated, and more likely completely specious. As you have mentioned, hemp cultivation in Canada is legal. And yet, pot growers in Canada do not use hemp cultivation as a screen for their activities. They grow their pot primarily in hydroponic grow houses, just like American pot growers do. If legalization of hemp cultivation were going to be a pot enforcement nightmare, we’d see evidence of that in Canada. [/QUOTE] How do you know we don’t? Do you have any figures for the maount of marijuana in Canada is cultivated maongst hemp crops? Do you have any figurtes for the cost of policing this practice? It seems like you are using absence of evidence as evidence of absence. [QUOTE=Zakalwe] I’d like a cite on this please. I have been given to understand that it has some unique properties for the suppression of nausea during intense chemotherapy and there is, in fact, not a replacement treatment that doesn’t have significant other side effects. I also have the impression that its use in glaucoma treatment is irreplaceable using other drugs. [/QUOTE] Before I’d believe any of this I’d have to see some damn convincing arguments as to why a weed is better at provinding these results than a carefully formyulated and dosed pill or powder containing _exactly_ the same active ingredients. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/49 "2007-07-02T01:40:57Z")
[QUOTE=Blake] Before I’d believe any of this I’d have to see some damn convincing arguments as to why a weed is better at provinding these results than a carefully formyulated and dosed pill or powder containing _exactly_ the same active ingredients. [/QUOTE] But how do you get those ingredients without some limited legalized cultivation of marijuana? You think THC grows on trees? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/50 "2007-07-02T05:39:40Z")
[QUOTE=Zakalwe] But how do you get those ingredients without some limited legalized cultivation of marijuana? You think THC grows on trees? [/QUOTE] There is effectively unlimited amounts of MJ confiscated. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/51 "2007-07-02T05:42:03Z")
[QUOTE=Zakalwe] But how do you get those ingredients without some limited legalized cultivation of marijuana? [/QUOTE] Which is totally irrlevant to the issue at hand. The claim was that marijuana had unique medicinal properties. If exactly the same properties are more easily and safely available from _Cannabis_ extract then they are not unique to marijuana at all. ---
**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:** [July 2, 2007, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/52 "2007-07-02T11:10:24Z")
That sounds a bit like saying cacao doesn’t have any properties that aren’t available in refined chocolate, therefore we don’t need cacao. (I think it may be the case that people are using the word _marijuana_ rather loosely - to mean the Cannabis plant, rather than specifically the dried herb form) ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/53 "2007-07-02T15:55:22Z")
[QUOTE=Blake] How do you know we don’t? Do you have any figures for the maount of marijuana in Canada is cultivated maongst hemp crops? Do you have any figurtes for the cost of policing this practice? It seems like you are using absence of evidence as evidence of absence. [/QUOTE] I don’t have any figures. Do you? From what I can find, the cultivation of marijuana amongst commercial hemp is simply a non-existent phenomena. See, for example, this RCMP report: [Marihuana Cultivation in Canada: Evolution and Current Trends](http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/crimint/cultivation_e.htm). In a very lengthy document concerning law enforcement and marijuana cultivation, hemp is mentioned zero times. The indirect evidence confirms the general sense I reported in my earlier post: the trend in Canadian marijuana cultivation is indoor hydroponics. After extensive googling, I cannot find mention of a single instance of pot growers using commercial hemp as camouflage. Perhaps you could provide some actual..ermm…you know…_evidence_ that commercial hemp is being used to hide marijuana in Canada? And if you can’t, then perhaps you could acknowledge that the experience here at least suggests that commercial hemp won’t result in a pot enforcement nightmare. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/54 "2007-07-02T22:48:58Z")
[QUOTE=Blake] Which is totally irrlevant to the issue at hand. The claim was that marijuana had unique medicinal properties. If exactly the same properties are more easily and safely available from _Cannabis_ extract then they are not unique to marijuana at all. [/QUOTE] Okay, I guess we’re crossed on definitions. I was treating _cannabis_ and _marijuana_ as synonymous. How do they differ in your usage? ---
**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:** [July 2, 2007, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/55 "2007-07-02T23:47:23Z")
[QUOTE=Zakalwe] Okay, I guess we’re crossed on definitions. I was treating _cannabis_ and _marijuana_ as synonymous. How do they differ in your usage? [/QUOTE] Hey, sorry I didn’t get back to this sooner…yeah, I was thinking that \*smoking marijuana \* doesn’t have any unique medicinal qualities that can’t be duplicated with something else, plus the smoking part certainly isn’t healthy. I know they make Marinol from cannabis extract, with the cannabis being grown by the government, and AFAIK, that’s legal and all. I read up on it a bit, and it seems that the efficacy of [Marinol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinol) might be debateable, since it’s detractors say they don’t extract the right canniboids or something. I have no way of telling if that’s just more of that backdoor hype or not. Also, I was operating under the assumption that they could just synthesize whatever active ingredient they needed, bypassing the growing/smoking thing altogether. Anyway, I’m not harshing on medicinal cannabis or hemp because I’m anti; I think it ought to be straight up legal, but regulated, like alcohol. It’s ridiculous to outlaw a _plant_. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/56 "2007-07-03T02:39:21Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] **Blake** Hemp makes great paper. [/QUOTE] Not from what I have read and experienced. Hemp paper is rough, poor material that does just about all it can to not accept inks. This is hardly a new revelation. Old issues of ‘Pulp & Paper’ that still had chapters on hand-made paper described hemp-based paper as ‘of the lowest quality’. There’s also the fact that our papermaking technology has had over a hundred years to make papermaking as efficient as possible. Germany has had legal hemp for a while now, and they are at the forefront of paper technology. They haven’t exactly done much with it, because they aren’t impressed with the potential. ---
**Author:** ![NajaNivea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NajaNivea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NajaNivea)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/57 "2007-07-03T02:43:31Z")
[QUOTE=An Arky] Also, I was operating under the assumption that they could just synthesize whatever active ingredient they needed, bypassing the growing/smoking thing altogether. [/QUOTE] Here’s what I don’t get about this argument: even if the active ingredient could be synthesized, chemically processed, and packed into a FDA approved pill… _why do we need to, when it can be grown, dried, and smoked or ingested in natural form for the same effect_? If we agree that marijuana is medically useful, why must some absolutely insist on getting big pharma involved and the necessity of artificial production? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/58 "2007-07-03T02:43:43Z")
[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] This ignores the massive problems with harvesting (hemp outright damages harvesting equipment) as well as the fact that many softwood tree farms are designed on hill ledges, where a normal crop wouldn’t grow as well and would be a bitch to harvest. Hemp vs. trees as far as fiber for paper content is a bit like the tortise and the hare. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/59 "2007-07-03T07:00:05Z")
[QUOTE=NajaNivea] Here’s what I don’t get about this argument: even if the active ingredient could be synthesized, chemically processed, and packed into a FDA approved pill… _why do we need to, when it can be grown, dried, and smoked or ingested in natural form for the same effect_? [/QUOTE] Becuase it makes you high and can cause damage to your lungs. Lung Cancer aside, inhaling buring weeds into your lungs is rarely a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365/60 "2007-07-03T18:19:50Z")
it’s pretty obvious hemp is just being used as a gateway plant [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hemp/409365.md?page=4)