Would the legalization of industrial hemp put an end to, or at least curtail deforestation?

The fiber volume supplied by a tree that has taken thirty years to grow can be obtained from hemp plants in as short as three months after the seeds have been planted. In addition, the same amount of fiber only requires half the amount of land to grow on. Hemp is also more earth friendly than other plants, in the sense that it does not require herbicides or pesticides, and it enriches the soil rather than depleting it of nutrients.

Excerpt from a paper I wrote last semester. Yes.

It’s funny, the forestry profs at school would tell you that they’d rather have an acre covered with trees rather than farmland, somehow in their mind, it’s better and more renewable. But @deni raises some great points and I’m less apt to believe someone who makes a living from harvesting trees.

The only upside I see for trees over hemp is that with a forest, you also get wildlife habitat, whereas a hemp field would be pretty devoid of it.

The solid evidence states that hemp plants are much easier to process that wood, and will regrow much faster than any tree. But this is only in terms of paper industry, NOT LUMBER. So yes, hemp can definitely help if we’re talking about deforestation due to paper consumption, but not necessarily consumption due to construction lumber.

I agree, if paper is the main point of most of the deforestation, where 17 trees must be cut down to produce sufficient amount of paper (which is a ton) for use then hemp is a good choice. but hemp is only used for producing large sacks or ship ropes or any kind of hard labor material for transport or bonding. hemp is still produced in Turkey for that matter for example.

A lot of destructive deforestation – in the Amazon, for instance – is done for reasons other than paper production. Hemp farming would not help with that. In places like China, which is tree-poor, it could make a difference economically, although China is a good market for recyclable paper now.

Hemp is a weed, and a hardy one at that. When it was grown in the U.S. during WWII, it escaped cultivation, and can still be found growing wild in a lot of places where it was cultivated. I read about it growing on freeway medians in Indiana, for example. However, hemp grown for industrial purposes isn’t much good for smoking, so I don’t get what the big deal is.

@IchtheosaurusRex – Call me a conspiracy theorist, but the demonization of marijuana in the 30’s was actually a covert attack on hemp. The funding for the anti-marijuana propaganda came from large corporations like Hearst Paper and Dow Chemical, two companies with a very vested interest in the use of trees for paper. Most people knew almost nothing about marijuana, so there was a quick rush to make the plant illegal, all the while not realizing they were also banning hemp, which had been an integral American crop up until that point.

Thomas Jefferson waxed poetic about his love of hemp in essays. He also made it a law that required every farmer to have a hemp plot, as well. He viewed it as a highly important plant to the development of the U.S.

I think Marijuana should be legal to grow and use at all levels, not just for industrial purposes.

Many people each year are arrested for simply possessing a small amount, over crowding our prisons.

http://www.google.com/search?q=percentage+of+arrests+related+to+marijuana&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

The FDA refuses to declare marijuana holds any medical applications, even though doctors throughout the country prescribe it.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=Oq3&q=medical+marijuana&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

By legalizing it we would reduce the black market effect. Marijuana users would not have to be exposed to street drug dealers that may also be offering harder drugs such as Heroin or Cocaine thereby defeating the aspect of marijuana being a “Gateway Drug”.

Also, it is apparent that the government is very much in need of extra revenues. By legalizing it, we would create jobs, and have something all new to tax. Marijuana is a bigger cash crop than corn, why not reap the financial benefits for our country instead of sending drug money to terrorists and crooked drug lords.

Deforestation is an ever alarming issue. Marijuana is has over twice as much cellulose as a tree, and grows at a much more rapid rate. By switching the paper industry to hemp, we would be saving vast amounts of forest relieving the planet of the greenhouse effect. Also, wood can be produced from hemp just the same way as composite wood is made from bits of trees. You may not be able to directly cut a hemp plant into a 2X4, but you can make 2X4’s nonetheless.

Those who use marijuana will continue to do so, legal or not. Those who do not use it will also continue to not use it should it be legal. Certainly restrictions must be in place to keep people from driving while under the influence and being on the job while high, but we already consider ourselves responsible enough to handle the privilege of alcohol. Why Not Marijuana?

@MissAnthrope

Funny story: I heard somewhere about a man (in Virginia, I think), who was discovered to be growing marijuana on his property by surveillance planes. When the state took him to court, he appeared with an ancient ledger of state law. it contained a law left-over from the Civil War that stated that all land owners must use
10% of their property to produce hemp, in order to help supply the troops. Through a fluke, the rule had never officially been removed from state law, and the case was dropped on the technicality (afterward, the law was removed and his plants were confiscated).

@Foolaholic – Haha.. I love it.