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FFFFF PPPPP The Free Press Presents.. FFFFF PPPPP
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FFF PPPPP The Industrial Uses of Marijuana FFF PPPPP
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FF PP Typed by The Griffin FF PP
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Note: The Free Press are back on the file typing trail due to a new BBS
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Article written by John Getpman for the "Loompanics Unlimited Catalog".
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The marijuana plant is one of the great unused economic resources in
America today. The successful commercial exploration of the marijuana
plant will bring about a renaissance in the Americas that will dominate
the next century. The self-proclaimed moralists advocating the current
prohibition against the marijuana plant, because of the intoxicating
effects of its flowers, have binded our society, and themselves, to the
incredible potential this plant has for America's future. Civilizations
have risen and fallen with their ability to maximize the long term
exploration of their agricultural resources. Prior to the twentieth
century, the marijuana plant (then known more modestly as hemp) was the
single most important industrial, or non-food producing crop in America
and the world. We must conserve the knowledge of the gifts the marijuana
plant offers human society, and apply that knowledge if our way of life
is to prosper.
Before attending to a discussion of its industrial use, the question
of the intoxicating qualities of marijuana needs to be briefly addressed.
Marijuana has been used as an intoxant, and as a therapeutic drug, for
thousands of years, as well as an economic resource. It has economic
value as an intoxant, as does alcohol, and as a medicine. While these
uses are being debated, the less controversial issue of marijuana's
industrial potential is generally ignored. In fact, that demonstrates
the odd, myopic hysteria surrounding marijuana that hides from us the
benefits the plant has to offer us.
A case for the economic potential of the intoxicating product of the
marijuana plant, its flower buds, would be simple to make. As a black-
market crop it has become the most valuable farm crop in the country.
This alone argues for it's legalization. And like the Greeks, whose
development accelerated dramatically when their farmers found that growing
grapes for wine provided capital for economic development, American
civilization would prosper. But the industrial uses of the marijuana plant
make it a multi-purpose crop that will spread prosperity around the globe.
The marijuana plant is a cheap, conservative source of the most durable
fiber on the planet, as well as for pulp. Long ago the U.S. Department of
Agriculture found that one acre of hemp could provide the same quantity of
pulp as four acres of trees. This year the Agriculture Department announced
the need to double our timber harvest by the year 2030, and industry
spokespersons for the forest products industry said that still wouldn't
meet the demand for timber. The marijuana plant could take the burden of
pulp production away from our forests, leaving more trees avaliable for
construction, leaving our forests intact & providing a refuge for wildlife.
Why is pulp so valuable? We make paper out of it, and a lot of it at that.
A Chinese man, Ts 'a Lon, invented the world's first paper in 105 A.D.
The chinese were quite familiar with the Marijuana plant. Fabric-marked
pots and hemp textiles dated to 4000 B.C. have been found in North Central
China. In the Neolithic era Chinese produced clothing, rope, fishnets,
pottery mats, food, and oil all from the marijuana plant. They were also
familiar with the intoxicating properties of the flowers.
The marijuana plant has been culturally significant throughout Western
Civilation. The Romans cultivated it for use in making clothing,strong rope
and durable sailcloth. Henry VIII ordered every farmer to cultivate 1/4
acre of hemp for every 60 acres they tilled. He was on to something-
seapower. The list of ship paraphernalia provided by the marijuana plant
includes sails, riggings, anchor ropes, cargo nets,fisherman's nets, flags,
shrouds,clothing, thread and more. In the age of Discovery an average ship
required 50 to 100 tons of hemp rigging.
Prior to the twenthieth century the marijuana plant provided almost all
of the world's paper, textiles, and rope. It was essential for cultural
development, meeting the basic needs of the populace (clothing), and access
through, and rule over, the high seas. It was the stuff their empires were
built on. Most importantly, the marijuana plant provided the elements of
self-reliance to the newly created American colonies.
In Common Sense, Thomas Paine argues that among other reasons, Americans
should fight for independance because we possessed the natural resources
that could bring us greatness. One bit of evidence he offered was that
"Hemp abounds." Indeed, the first edition of Paine's Common Sense was
published on hemp paper. At Jamestown, in 1619, one of the first laws
passed in the new land required farmers to grow hemp. It was legal tender
in America from 1631 to the early 1800's. The marijuana plant was the
chief cash crop in Kentucky until the Civil War. Not only did the
marijuana plant hold together the ship that brought our ancestors here, it
also provided the canvas that covered the Conestoga wagons that settled the
West.
The marijuana plant was so widely used that despite the considerable
attention given to growing it in the U.S., Russia remained the supplier of
80% of the world's hemp until late into the 19th century. It might be
argued that the marijuana plant's value diminished when seapower lost it's
reliance on sails. However during World War II America lost her source of
marijuana fiber when the Japanese took the Phillipines. The U.S. government
planted over 400,000 pounds of marijuana seed to produce 42,000 tons of
hemp rope annually for the war effort.
In 1936 Popular Mechanics hailed the invention of a new machine that
processed hemp fiber and beckoned a new age in the exploration of hemp.
Reefer Madness dawned instead,and the incredible potential of the marijuana
plant remains untapped.
Besides being a more productive source of pulp than trees and producing
the most durable natural fiber known to man, the marijuana plant has
another valuable industrial property. It provides 4 to 50 times the
Cellulose found in a cornstock. Cellulose can be made into methanol, a
cheap, clean fuel.
The cultivation of marijuana plants has ecological benefits aside from
saving trees, a worthy feat in itself. A marijuana plant puts down a 10
to 12 inch root compared to a 1 inch root of rye and barley.This long root
breaks the soil and leaves it good for next year. It is a wise decision to
plant it on land laying fallow, or after forest fires, because these roots
will prevent soil erosion and also preserve the watershed.The leafy nature
of the plant will cover the weeds and starve them of sunlight. It even
provides a way of clearing a field before planting another crop. According
to Popular Mechanics, two crops of marijuana will reclaim land from
thistles. All the farmer has to do is harvest the stalks before they go to
seed. And by the way, one acre can yield 3-6 tons of hemp, a nice way to
suppliment to any farmer's income.
Clearly the marijuana plant has potential as an industrial, multi-
purpose crop. It is a source of fiber, pulp, energy and has beneficial
ecological value. It is an agricultural resource our farmers can use to
strengthen their finances and protect the family farm from the now
treacherous farm economy, our society, and our future. But is it of
significance to the advancement of our civilization?
History and anthropology reveal to us how crucial exploration of the
marijuana plant was to the development of American culture and Western
Civilization.It helped make possible such historic acts as the exploration
of the world by sea, the printing of the Guntenberg Bible, the declaration
of Independance, the U.S. Constitution, and even protected our soldiers
from the cold at Valley Forge. It is people who make history, but they
make it out of material things. It is the human spirit that is inspired,
but they need tools and products to express that spirit. Great
civilizations are built out of human survival, & human survival comes from
the efficient exploitation of all our natural crops.
It can be said that the exciting potential of the marijuana plant, it's
energy potential notwithstanding, may have had its day prior to the
industrial revolution that has shaed our modern society. In fact, this is
the most crucial lesson we must realise and apply. Much of this world
lags behind in the development that characterizes our society. Marijuana
helped the American colonies begin their development, and it can do the
same to the Third World. The marijuana plant provides a means for these
societies to accelerate their development that is compatible with the
agriculturally based indigenous cultures they are composed of. The
cultivation of marijuana,then, also provides a means to promoting freedom
in the undeveloped world. This is what will lead to a new renaissance.
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THE INDUSTRIAL USES OF MARIJUANA is reprinted by permission from the Fall,
1986 COMMON SENSE FOR AMERICA, published by The National Organization For
The Reform of Marijuana Laws. Comments should be addressed to:
NORML
2001 "S" Street NW, #640
Washington, D.C.
20009
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Written by "The Free Press" January 14, 1990
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