Hemp proves useful yet again, but the U.S. remains uninterested

Email this article to a friend

Printable Version

Articles Related to This Article: • Interview with Ruth Shamai of Ruth's Hemp Foods • Hemp for America! Farmers plant hemp seeds on DEA's front lawn • Hemp milk offers new alternative to dairy, soy products Support NaturalNews advertisers - Advertise with NaturalNews Help support NaturalNews with health books and educational programs from Truth Publishing: • Swine Flu Advanced Preparedness • 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health • Raw In Ten Minutes (recipes) • How to Halt Diabetes in 25 Days ... and much more.

Hemp is a fantastically useful fiber. It's ten times stronger than cotton, and can even be used to make paper more cheaply (and more environmentally responsibly) than cutting down trees. Yet here in the U.S., the drug war mentality has caused hemp to remain an illegal crop -- even though hemp isn't marijuana and doesn't make you high when you smoke it. Rather, it makes you sick.

So it's no surprise that Canada is the country finding new ways to apply this extremely useful material to industry. In Canada, there is no politically-motivated drug war, and hemp isn't an illegal crop.

Car bumpers? Why not? The uses for hemp are probably only beginning to be discovered. If U.S. farmers were allowed to grow this crop, it could revolutionize U.S. farming and industry. But the cotton lobby has too much political sway to allow this to happen any time soon. They know that hemp is far stronger than cotton (makes better jeans, for one thing), and that allowing hemp to be farmed in the U.S. would seriously harm the cotton growers' profits.

As usual, it's a political play, having a whole lot to do with protecting profits and almost nothing to do with serving the public. If you want hemp clothes today, you have to buy them as imports (which I do, frequently). In an era of alarming trade deficits, it's actually illegal for U.S. farmers to grow a useful crop that's in very high demand.
About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is a trusted, independent journalist who receives no money or promotional fees whatsoever to write about other companies' products. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of energy efficient LED lights that greatly reduce CO2 emissions. He also launched an online retailer of environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also the CEO of a highly successful email newsletter software company that develops software used to send permission email campaigns to subscribers. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and enjoys outdoor activities, nature photography, Pilates and adult gymnastics.


Get articles like this delivered to you FREE in our popular email newsletter

Related CounterThink Cartoons:

Related Articles: • Interview with Ruth Shamai of Ruth's Hemp Foods • Hemp for America! Farmers plant hemp seeds on DEA's front lawn • Hemp milk offers new alternative to dairy, soy products	Take Action: Support NaturalNews.com Email this article to a friend Share this article on: NewsVine | digg | del.icio.us Permalink to this article: http://www.NaturalNews.com/000016_hemp_farmers_natural_health.html Reprinting this article: Non-commercial use OK, cite NaturalNews.com with clickable link. Embed article link: (copy HTML code below): <a href = "http://www.NaturalNews.com/000016_hemp_farmers_natural_health.html">Hemp proves useful yet again, but the U.S. remains uninterested</a>