Hemp can be useful

June 2-8 is the fififth annual Hemp History Week. We must now add to the extensive history of hemp, which, considering recent rulings, have fifinally placed hemp and its 25,000 product possibilities in the “going mainstream” category.

The most exciting thing about hemp is its potential for energy, its enormous biomass that can be used to replace fossil fuels. In a “growing oil wells” scenario, individual farmers can produce energy from their biomass waste and sell it to their regional grid. Jobs are created when a regional utility is built (Feldheim, Germany) that puts people to work collecting and using biomass and other wastes, a highly sustainable enterprise that makes this US citizen wonder why any municipality would throw its weight behind the dangerous and unsustainable extraction of natural gas.

One of the very profifitable industrial uses of hemp is the manufacture of body parts for automobiles. The reduced weight of these extremely strong bio-composites used by both BMWand Mercedes results in increased gas mileage. All car companies could do the same.

Hemp-minded communities can invest in profifitable seed presses. They can create textiles or fifiber from this versatile plant or they can use hempcrete for building and still have much energy biomass cellulose to create regional energy grids.

There are so many uses for cannabis hemp. We are about to embark on the fascinating adventure that has us using hemp instead of petroleum to accomplish the same ends. Why bother with fossil fuels that have us destroying ourselves and our planet?

— Earl Callahan, New Berlin