T
The420Guy
Guest
At a national convention in April, I saw several hemp products recently patented in Austria. I held in my hands a brick of composite material that will be used to build airplanes. There was also a pipe specifically designed to carry fiber optics.
Every country in the world except America is involved in full research and production of hemp products. NAFTA guarantees this unfair trade advantage, mandated by the narrow interpretation of the hemp plant by Congress and the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Automobile manufacturers, for example, are importing hemp from other countries to produce composites for American automobiles. This does not make any sense.
During World War II, Kansas was a principal supplier of seed for the national "Hemp for Victory" government campaign. It is the perfect state for the cultivation of hemp, as Kansas lacks several environmental factors to cultivate drug cannabis. The U.S. General Accounting Office refers to Kansas cannabis hemp as "ditch weed," not marijuana.
Archer Daniels Midland says in its advertising that if we need more fuel, we will just grow more corn. Yet hemp produces more gallons of fuel per acre than corn.
Hemp renders 3,000 gallons of fuel per acre. Consider the economic position our state would enjoy, should we be growing our own fuel.
Imagine also if we no longer imported paper from other states to fill our store shelves. Kansas would be growing its own paper. Imagine that Kansas businesses no longer imported plastics. Or that building materials for new construction came from Kansas soils.
Many more dollars would float into the Kansas economy. That could bring economic salvation for the farmers, entrepreneurs and state treasury.
Cultivating hemp in Kansas would encourage and empower agribusiness investors to create thousands of jobs in the new industries created by unbiased acceptance of this bountiful plant.
Author Debby Moore of Wichita is the chief executive of Hemp Industries of Kansas.
----
Copyright © 2002, The Wichita Eagle. All rights reserved.
By Debby Moore, The Wichita Eagle
Every country in the world except America is involved in full research and production of hemp products. NAFTA guarantees this unfair trade advantage, mandated by the narrow interpretation of the hemp plant by Congress and the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Automobile manufacturers, for example, are importing hemp from other countries to produce composites for American automobiles. This does not make any sense.
During World War II, Kansas was a principal supplier of seed for the national "Hemp for Victory" government campaign. It is the perfect state for the cultivation of hemp, as Kansas lacks several environmental factors to cultivate drug cannabis. The U.S. General Accounting Office refers to Kansas cannabis hemp as "ditch weed," not marijuana.
Archer Daniels Midland says in its advertising that if we need more fuel, we will just grow more corn. Yet hemp produces more gallons of fuel per acre than corn.
Hemp renders 3,000 gallons of fuel per acre. Consider the economic position our state would enjoy, should we be growing our own fuel.
Imagine also if we no longer imported paper from other states to fill our store shelves. Kansas would be growing its own paper. Imagine that Kansas businesses no longer imported plastics. Or that building materials for new construction came from Kansas soils.
Many more dollars would float into the Kansas economy. That could bring economic salvation for the farmers, entrepreneurs and state treasury.
Cultivating hemp in Kansas would encourage and empower agribusiness investors to create thousands of jobs in the new industries created by unbiased acceptance of this bountiful plant.
Author Debby Moore of Wichita is the chief executive of Hemp Industries of Kansas.
----
Copyright © 2002, The Wichita Eagle. All rights reserved.
By Debby Moore, The Wichita Eagle
