The Canadian government, ostensibly to research medical marijuana, but more likely to research tax revenue possibilities, grew a boatload of pot a couple of years ago, but failed to produce a “marketable quality and consistency”…
I think they’re onto the fact that they can raise lots of money through pot sales, god knows the black market industry raised a couple billion a year in Canada anyway. Last I heard, they were still trying to figure out how to grow a decent plant.
Pardon me, but I don’t follow your logic.
First of all, there is a distinction between pulpwood and lumber. Lumber is wood cut for boards. Pulpwood is wood taken to make paper. Lumber barons are in the business of producing, well, lumber.
Secondly, if hemp were as wonderful a source of paper pulp as you claim, the pulpwood industry (i.e. paper manufacturers) would be lobbying hard to legalize it, since it would be a cheaper source of pulp for them than pulpwood, and legalization would allow them to divest themselves of the huge tracts of timberland they now hold, or to use those tracts much more efficiently for hemp production. Why would they oppose legalization? (Again, if you are correct about the wondrous qualities of hemp.)
So here’s me: 
While i really don’t like “recreational” drugs of any sort, i have had difficulty finding reasons for them to be illegal, so long as a couple of limits are set.
1)No advertising of any sort; no product placement, no coincidental increase in pot smoking for example in tv shows etc etc.
This is because the biggest problem i can see, should certain, or all (!) drugs be legal, is that once on the market, powerful advertising will raise usage, especially in younger demographics.
2)Don’t tax them.
Here in the UK there is LOADS of tax (VAT) placed on all consumables except food, with alcohol and tobacco seeing the highest levels next to petrol 
This gives the government a vested interest, and should not be practiced imho.
So yeah, i really don’t like the use of drugs, but if those two rules are put in, we shouldn’t see that much of an increase in usage, and perhaps even a decrease in crime, who knows.
The marxist in me says that, given the current economic policy however, the easy avaliablility of drugs will see the masses resort to increased usage in order to experience ecscape from their oppression, which is already massive in terms of alcohol and tobacco (not to mention general consumerism).
Armed with more effective drugs, this could cause other problems.
Also, cannabis has a calming, unifying effect on groups, so it may make for increased solidarity in the workplace, but definatly less violent protests
Flake out protest anyone?
Actually, it was pointed out to me in another thread (on precisely this same subject) that it wouldn’t be as profitable for tobacco companies to grow MJ as it is to grow tobacco.
Growing cannabis for its psychoactive properties is more labor intensive than growint tobacco, you would need relatively more acreage because a cannabis plant being grown for smoking requires a certain amount of personal space, etc., so they would actually have to hire and pay actual human beings to take care of the plants, instead of using mostly mechanized processes. American companies by and large do not like manufacturing processes that involve actual human beings.
Of course, smaller growers could probably clean up. People with greenhouses, or family farmers with a cannabis patch, could do the equivalent of a micro-brew pub. It would be fairly easy to make money, because they could probably fairly easily sell their product direct to consumers. Tobacco requires some fairy extensive processing before it is ready to market. MJ, once it is harvested, all you have to do is trim the buds and hang them up to dry in a nice, dark, comfy place (or is it the other way around?). So, instead of selling the product to a company that would process it then resell it at a markup to stores that would markup and resell it again, at harvest time, the farmers could maybe hire a couple of college kids to trim the buds, then the finished products could be sold directly to consumers at a higher price than they would get from a middleman, but lower than what the consumer would pay if they bought it at a store. Alternately the growers could sell direct to the stores, with similar pricing results. Chopping and rolling the product into cigarettes wouldn’t really be an issue, since most cannabis smokers don’t mind, and often actively enjoy, rolling their own. It’s part of the ritual.
The main barriers I see to legalization are alcohol and pharmeceutical companies. Cannabis would be a product that would seriously compete with alcohol. The two are often consumed together at parties, but for that end of the day unwinding, many pot smokers have a certain disdain for alcohol, which they regard as an inferior substitute when they don’t have any weed. And pharmaceutical companies would have a hard time selling anti-emetics, certain types of painkillers, assorted anti-depressants, and many other drugs when cannabis could serve many of these medical functions at probably a tenth of the price.
Exactly. I have a big problem with conspiracy theories that depend on “Powerful industry X fears excellent product Y because it could be produced so cheaply that it would screw X’s profits, and X is strong enough to suppress Y and maintain its monopoly despite the obvious appeal of Y.” Well . . . if X is that powerful, why the hell couldn’t they just monopolize Y too? This is especially true when you hear about, say, the big bad oil industry suppressing “viable” solar or wind energy. Nah. If it were viable, they would be leading the pack and would be the only ones to have the money/infrastructure to build the huge wind/solar farms. Same for dope? Homegrowing dope would be somewhat easier, but the industrial infrastructure to make pre-rolled joints cheaply and consistently would still favor the tobacco cos. – and they could still sell their regular cancer sticks. As for “hemp” and its industrial use – I don’t see a lot of home craftsmen threatening International Paper by making parchment in the garage.
I don’t want to hijack, but there’s something really weird and disingenuous about the “hemp activists” (and for that matter the "medical marijuana crowd) – why don’t they just say what they really mean (“I want to smoke tons of spliff, legally”) rather than hiding behind the textile value of hemp fiber or pointing to the relatively-small handful of cancer/glaucoma sufferers who (I agree) ought to be allowed to have restricted access to THC or maybe even dope upon showing of medical need? It’s like lobbying against Prohibition by pointing out the many industrial uses of ethanol. Is there a single “industrial hemp activist” who isn’t also, and primarily, a giant stoner?
Yes, there are plenty of pro-legalization folks who aren’t “giant stoners.” I have never, repeat NEVER, smoked dope in my life. I’m a pharmacist, and would like to see medical marijuana available without stigma to those who could use it. I would also like to see all currently illegal drug use decriminalized. I would also like to see drug abuse treated as a medical condition, not a criminal problem. Alcohol abuse is already treated this way. Drug abuse by rich people is treated this way. Why not drug abuse in poorer folks? Prison is a pretty expensive treatment for addiction, isn’t it?
Actually, one of the big problems with legalization that hasn’t been mentioned so far is that DUI arrests would be difficult. Alcohol has the breathalyzer test, and also a blood test, that correlates with impairment. Pot shows positive for (IIRC) 30 days or so after use. So, were you driving stoned, or were you stoned once last week? Hard to tell from the evidence. Don’t know how to solve this problem.
I don’t expect to see any of those things I’d like to see happen in the next twenty years. I’m hoping, though.
lol, fair point, but this breed do exist, honest
Theres me anyway who isn’t a smoker 
For all those who doubt change on this issue in the US, the newly softened legislation about cannabis in the UK is a glimer of what will happen eventually i should think.
I know here in the uk we have the very close proximity of Amsterdam and their relativly liberal laws on drugs, but it all comes down to popular feeling and movement; once enough people consider it ok, laws HAVE to change simply because there is no point in laws that the People don’t enforce on each other ( which is the only way laws work in general).
I don’t agree with smoking cannabis, or taking other drugs for that matter, but in this case, people smoking weed isn’t going to bother me, so by all means,smoke your troubles away
Why is driving stoned outlawed? Because of impairment. Then don’t test for presence of pot. Just test for the impairment itself. I’m sure you could devise a couple of portable perceptual response & motor reflex tests.
Trouble is, hemp pulp just isn’t that good as a paper product. Nations where they are forced to use it aren’t thrilled with it, and nations where they have legalized it aren’t jumping into hemp paper production. Our paper industry is not about to start doing a total retrofit to change from a source that really isn’t that much in short supply.
There’s other problems as well. Trees can grow on uneven surfaces (and can be harvested there). If hemp grows on an uneven surface it will never be harvested. Also tree have been harvested successfully for centuries. Harvesting hemp to date has been a problem without a solution.
Hemp is hardly “soft on soil depletion”. Some would have us beleive its a harvestable weed, but it isn’t.
As someone else has pointed out, the lumber industry and the paper industry are two different games.
Again, I refer to the harvesting problem. While hemp does grow anywhere, and its fibers are strong, they are not particularly useful for anything (except specialty clothing). Laminates are usually made of wood they are simulating. As for particle board, I seriously doubt that anything is going to replace wood for baording or particle baording material any time soon.
Not really. Hemp is sort of the second best solution to a lot of things. Anyone can also grow trees, but the lumber industry isn’t going anywhere.
Also, keep in mind that hemp has had a chance to do these things you claim in countries besides the USA for quite some time and yet nobody has jumped in. In fact, Germany, who are the (present) world leaders in paper technology have had legal hemp for a decade. They have yet to do anything beyond specialty papers valued solely for the ‘forbidden fruit’ value.
As noted by Cecil, there is absolutely no evidence that the “barons” had anything to do with its being outlawed. Anslinger and racism are the villains in outlawing Cannabis.
Almost non-existant. Hemp ain’t gonna replace Viagra, Lipacor, or any of the popular drugs. The bread isn’t buttered by keeping cannabis illegal. Its done by keeping the popular drugs expensive.
Well Spoke, as far as I see it pulpwood and lumber grade wood come from the same clearcut. Whatever isn’t of sufficient size or strength to produce workable lumber is ground up to make pulp.
As to the rest of the naysayers regarding the huge untapped value of hemp, you reveal your ignorance with generalizations like the ones I’ve seen above. I’m not a stoner, just someone who time and again sees critical products being stifled in the interests of huge manufacturing interests.
Let me get this straight… Would the anti-hemp camp prefer that people believe that industrial hemp and psychoactive grade pot are the same thing? You do yourselves a disservice by making such untruthful insinuations. Of course, the totally uneducated will fall for it, perhaps that’s the target audience of the “marijuana is for evil commie doodyheads” crowd.
Would you also prefer that people believe that the lumber industry in the past and today hasn’t been a huge political influence through manipulation and disinformation? Right…
What’s next, a rehash of the normal crap regarding the dangers of marijuana in the hope that the issue will become clouded?? Perhaps a general myopia regarding the working models of decriminalization that report success?
Next you’ll be telling me that Holland is the country locked in the dark ages while America serves as a progressive model of incarceration…
Let me hear the stories of all your friends and neighbours who have crashed their cars because they smoked a joint prior to driving.
Fat chance. You ever work with Hemp cloth? I’d rather sew leather.
There are reasons that Cotton became King in the US South. They had nothing to do with industry. The problems Hemp has have not had many solutions since the crop was mostly abandoned in the US. (Which happened well before it was outlawed.)
Miskatonic, where to begin…
Where on earth did you get the idea that harvesting hemp is problematic for anyone? Hemp has been harvested for thousands of years in thousands of places on earth,no problem. It grows on hills, it grows in marshes, it grows in cooler and hotter climates. I have no idea how you could be so misinfomed…perhaps through the idea that most harvested pot comes from perfectly flat places such as Columbia and Hawaii… :rolleyes:
What nations are “forced” to use hemp for paper, and what problems do they have with it? It takes much less use of dioxins to treat hemp pulp to a form ready for paper. This alone is a significant improvement over pulpwood, particularly in the light of the dangers of many wood treatment processes involving chemicals.
As for soil depletion, AS I CLEARLY STATED PREVIOUSLY, hemp is RELATIVELY benign as a soil depletor. Don’t grow corn for five years straight on the same acreage, and don’t do it with hemp either. Not too hard to grasp for most farmers. It’s simply more efficient at producing textile and paper quality fibre than what we use now, and I have yet to see any evidence that it has been abandoned as being “problematic” by any real growers of reasonable scale. Until the cotton gin came along, hemp was grown in vast quantities throughout America. The first Levi’s were made from hemp, for god’s sake. Henry friggin’ Ford designed the first Model A engines to run on hemp-based fuel…
What possible reasons could you guys have for despising a cheap and plentiful source of so much needed stuff?? I don’t get it.
For that matter, I bet you could build pretty near a whole car out of plant fibre products. You might want to use processed bean curd for some of the aesthetic accoutrements, and maybe blend the body panels out of assorted cash crop fibres, but I bet it could be done… and I bet hemp would figure in it big time.
Well, I dont know. More young people smoke pot than cigs, but cigs are advertized and pot isnt.
I know the perception is that, if legalized, all kinds of people would start smoking it, but I think the reality is that everyone who allready does just wouldnt hide it anymore, giving the impression that all kinds of people just took it up spur of the moment. Ive never met anyone who wanted to smoke it, could get it, but didnt smoke it just because it was illegal.
As to the whole debate, I dont think pot will be legllized unless or until there is a greater law enforcement effort to fight it. As it is now, the fact that its illegal doesnt really have much effect on whether somone can get it or not; the weather has far more of practical effect than law enforcement as to the availability. Because everyone who wants to smoke it can do so without too much trouble, no one is all that hell bent on getting it legalized, cause it being illegal isnt making much of a dent. If that were to change though, I can see calls for legalization increasing proportionately.
Everyone mostly just seems happy with the way things are for now, pretty much; pot laws arent enforced to such an extent that theyre crimping anything too badly for pot smokers, and as long as pot smokers pretty much keep it to themselves and out of sight, the anti-pot people seem to be content to only get hard-core on enforcement every once in a while as a token gesture. Usually when theyre tipped off by NorCal growers of an impending shipment from Mexico.
It’s been less than a year since 5-MeO-DiPT (Foxy) & AMT were scheduled.
But while the government will continue to panic when a new recreational substance gets traction, I think the pot will eventually be legal.
Where did I get the idea? Gee, maybe its all those reports from the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture pointing out the potential for damaging harvesting equipment when harvesting hemp. Maybe it was hemps’ fall from usage in many countries due to it being such a pain to harvest.
If hemp was as much as folks say it is, then it should show up far more often in the historical record. but go to textile museums in the US and youll find it is very unrepresented. As it is it barely shows up as sailcloth and rope, with handfuls of clothing (usually made from old sailcloth) added in.
Yes, Hemp can grow on a hill. Wonderful. Great. Now drive your harvesting machine up that hill, or through that swamp. Wonderful idea. Just because it can grow there, doesn’t mean you can do anything with it. By comparison, tree farms grown on slopes have been harvested for ages with minimal difficultly.
Now, admittedly, the hemp grown on a hill or harvested can be harvested…by hand. This is not an easy task. It also does not make for a competative crop.
You are misundertsanding my use of the word ‘forced’. They are not ‘forced’ by law, but rather a lack of tree resources. And the problems they have with hemp paper is that…well, it pretty much sucks. It has very poor ink absorbtion qualities, among other failures. Its funny how hemp is often cited as the paper fiber of choice, whereas if you chat with some papermaking engineers and they will point out that crops like Kenaf are a better replacement (they make better paper). But nobody in the hemp crusade really seems too concerned with any replacement for wood pulp that isn’t hemp. Gee.
If you also take a look at older texts on papermaking (such as the 1951 edition of Casey’s Pulp and Paper, ones that are old enough to still have a few chapters on rag-pulp papermaking. You will read direct comments about how paper with hemp cloth was to be used for paper of the lowest quality.
And Don’t beleive that “less dioxin” bit for a second. The chemicals used to make paper depend entirely on the type of paper you wish to make. It doesn’t matter what pulp you have.
Wrong on that last on at the very least. Ford’s obsession was with Soybeans. Hemp propagandists took that one over. Hemp was grown in the US before cotton, but had almost no impact by comparison to cotton’s later development. Linen was the far greater cloth of choice, and wool beat them all out.
As you point out, the first Levi’s were made from hemp. Why did they abandon it? because cotton denim was much easier to work with. Why did Ford stop making his cars run on hemp oil (if true)? Well, it wasn’t any evil industrialist plot that did this, it was just that hemp was once again the second-best solution to the problem.
As for it being abandoned. Sorry, that’s the harsh reality. Read Cecils’ column on this subject: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_131.html
“Hemp wasn’t a mighty industry in the U.S. prior to passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Only about 1,300 acres of hemp–about two square miles–were under cultivation. It was cheaper to import the stuff than grow it. Even so, total U.S. consumption was only about 2,000 tons, and most of that was used for rope and such. Textile manufacturers had long since abandoned hemp for cotton, which was easier to process.”
I don’t despise it. I think it should be legal.
But I think the reality of the situation should be made clear: HEMP AIN’T GONNA SOLVE ANYTHING. IT HAS THE POTENTIAL FOR SOME MINOR USES BUT ITS NOT GOING TO REVOLUTIONIZE ANY INDUSTRIES. That is the harsh reality, and the claim that miracles will occour in the industry adn environment if we just legalized this one little crop is going to be a crashing dissapointment.
Given time and research, you could easily do this, no problem. Guess what, just because you can do it does not make it economically worthwhile to do so.
Maybe it’s because the government is afraid a lot of the workforce would stay stoned on the job? Wouldn’t it be a lot harder to prove someone had been smoking dope than to prove they had been drinking?
If someone is acting sober enough and doing his job well enough that you can’t tell he’s stoned, then why does it matter?
OTOH, if he’s spaced out, lazy, and doing unsatisfactory work, why does it matter whether it’s because he smoked pot or because he’s just a slacker?
I was answering the original question, not discussing whether the government’s fear were well-grounded. But, the fact that someone like you would start an argument about the “right” to be stoned on the job makes me think that employers would be right to fear the legalization of marijuana.
He’s not talking about the ‘right’ to be stoned. Just like for driving, the reason you don’t want people to be stoned at work is because their behaviour/performance might change. So, the theory is Comsume -> Get Stoned - > Work Affected -> Bad. But the critical aspect here is the third part, not the first. Some people have a low threshold and some pretty high. Using a drug test as a proxy which automatically assumes you fulfill the third part as well is inaccurate. Just test for the third part and the cause shouldn’t matter.
The OP asked why marijuana wasn’t likely to be legalized – what thought processes were behind the people opposed to it. I gave what I think is the reason.
If you don’t think this is the reason then argue about that. I don’t want to get into an argument about the validity of the reason.