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Anonymous
does the war on a plant,"hemp",justify the results.
>> Anonymous
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obligatory

also, nobody cares what some douchebag columnist in some OC rag has to say. There's still plenty of hemp rope, hemp skin care products, and hemp seed foods out there.

Maybe, just maybe we use wood pulp because it's better for paper.
>> Anonymous
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>> Anonymous
>>268656

Hemp fibre is pretty rough and brittle and won't survive the drastic milling process we use for copy paper to be used in printers and whatnot.

Also, the hemp we use for its fibre is a different kind of hemp to the ones we toke up with. While the THC is still there, the amount is small enough to be negligible. It's not the "war on drugs" that's causing hemp to become outdated, it's the shift towards synthetics.

It's true, hemp makes "nice" paper, but so does cotton (called rag paper among art supply stores). Neither are useful for everyday documents.
>> Anonymous
>>268660
if technology was used on hemp fibre,im sure the copy paper you so desire can be processed
>> Anonymous
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>>268664
Yes, stop oppressing the wunderweed! Science can solve anything!

Put down the blunt for a moment and ponder economies of scale. Think about the amount of land that would have to be dedicated to hemp production, because those plants will only grow so high.
>> Anonymous
>>268664

True.

The milling process for ANY paper breaks down the fibers in the plant in order to make paper. Hemp can be processed just like trees can, on the same equipment in fact. This is not limited to just hemp--you can do it with nearly any woody plant. The advantage of hemp is that it is a very hardy, fast-growing crop with excellent disease and insect resistance. So, it is easier and cheaper to use hemp for paper than it is to plant trees, or to use most other plants.

Cotton does make nice paper (and clothes) but it is quite inefficient to grow as it does not yield as much fiber as hemp does per acre. It also requires more pesticides.

Synthetic fibers are popular, but you need to ask yourself why? Synthetic fibers became popular back when oil was dirt cheap. Most synthetics are made from oil. Synthetics were more economical than cotton or wool, though now that is changing due to rising oil costs.

And yeah, the war on drugs is definatley a huge waste of resources. After all, didn't the whole Prohibition debacle teach us that sort of policy just didn't work? You'd think we'd have learned from our mistakes.
>> Anonymous
>>268670
One acre of hemp can replace 4.1 acres of trees for pulp production.
>> Anonymous
>>268670

They don't have to grow very high. They grow quickly. The real key is not the size of the plant, but how quickly it grows. In other words, how many tons of fiber per acre per year?

You can plant trees--which do grow tall--but it takes them many years to get that large. Hemp can be harvested annually. A hemp field gives you a harvest every year. A forest gives you a harvest only once every several years.

And once you look at the numbers, growing Hemp gives you MORE fiber per acre than trees do, by a large margin in fact:

USDA Bulletin #404 from 1916 reported that one acre of hemp, in annual rotation over a 20-year period, would produce as much pulp for paper as 4.1 acres of trees being cut down over the same 20-year period. This process would use only 1/4 to 1/7 as much polluting sulfur-based acid chemicals to break down the glue-like lignin that binds the fibers of the pulp, or even none at all using soda ash. The problem of dioxin contamination of rivers is avoided in the hemp paper making process, which does not need to use chlorine bleach (as the wood pulp paper making process requires) but instead safely substitutes hydrogen peroxide in the bleaching process.

Furthermore, it requires much simpler equipment and much less enviornmental damage to cut down hemp plants than to log trees.
>> Anonymous
The whole hemp seed contains roughly 25% protein, 30% carbohydrates, and 15% insoluble fibre as well as carotene, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, sulphur, calcium, iron, zinc, and vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, C, and E.
sitting in second place to soya beans,this foodstuff is illegal to grow because of the goverments fear of revolutionary backlash
>> Anonymous
>>268672

Your post just answered itself: Hemp is extremely hardy, it is difficult to actually process it into anything, and once processed, it makes for very brittle, snappish paper.

The amount of energy a sawmill expends in cutting down trees is nowhere near to harvesting and crushing hemp for the purposes of paper-making.

You give me a hemp harvesting machine that will do the job, and I will give you the proud US army who thought burning a patch of marijuana in afghanistan was the best solution to be rid of it, then stood downwind.
>> Anonymous
"Since 1937, about half the world's forests have been cut down to make paper..." the other part is
"Since 1937, about half the world's forests have been replanted to make more paper, again and again and again..."
>> Anonymous
>>268676

Hemp is illegal becasue the Cotton industry successfully lobbied the Gov't to make it illegal many years ago. There's nothing to help your business like making the competition ILLEGAL.
>> Anonymous
>>268694

"hardy" means that hemp is resistant to disease and drought. It does not mean that hemp is difficult to process into paper.

Think about it: What is more difficult to chop up? A TREE or some hemp plants? Even if a hemp plant were just as strong as a tree (it's not), then hemp is already ahead becasue hemp plants are smaller. In effect, it's already been partially "chopped up" before it's even been harvested.

A combine harvester, "bush hog" or flail attachment on a tractor can all cut down hemp plants. Cutting down trees for timber requires either a feller-buncher, forwarder, or men with chainsaws and a skidder. These are all far more expensive options than what is used to harvest hemp.
>> Anonymous
>>268696
species loss of natural habitat causing ecological disaster.
deforestation and replanting does not include habitat for dependant species in the first instance of natural forest.
>> Anonymous
>>268704

True. Forests that are "replanted" are planted with different types of trees that grow as quickly as possible, as best for the paper industry.

Though honestly I think the financial implications are the largest and most significant issue here: Hemp can provide the same amount of fiber with 1/4 the land. That is very good from an economic and business perspective (and it also means less deforestation as a bonus).

It is absoloutely rediculous that industrial hemp is illegal, especially since it does not contain THC. Industrial hemp is not a drug, so regardless of what your opinion on the drug war is, this is a separate issue entirely. Growing industrial hemp is better, faster, and cheaper than using timber for paper.
>> Anonymous
>>268704
losses are acceptable
>> Anonymous
one single law to curb the fight against smoking marijuana ,has in effect deforested our planet to the extent of species extinction and global warming.
and it is still illegal to grow hemp in the USA.
>> Anonymous
>>268715
you sir, win the award for most overgeneralized completely misinformed and unabashedly wrong post ever seen on 4chan
>> Anonymous
>>268717
im honored
>> Anonymous
>>268699

Hemp plants are harder to cut down than trees, mainly because you can't enter into a field full of hemp to START cutting it down. It's known to damage combined harvesters used for gathering its seeds.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15239501/

And my bad, it was the Canuckistanis who tried burning them, the poor fuckers.
>> Anonymous
>>268699

Do you...honestly think you can cut up a hemp plant by going schwick, schwick, all done?
>> Anonymous
>>268736
they cultivate hemp in many countries now,using equipment that may not have been perfected ,but they are still working on it.im sure cotton harvesting also went through an infant stage.
>> Anonymous
Look, don't tell us this, invest in hemp productions and companies and publicize it more than through 4chan. We can't do shit.
>> Anonymous
>>268736

Of course not, but you can't do that to a tree either!

Use your brains, people: A hemp stalk is woody growth, just like a tree trunk is. What is easier to cut? A 2-foot diameter trunk, or multiple small (less than 1") stalks? If nothing else, you can think of a bunch of hemp plants as a a tree trunk that has already been split into smaller bits before you even got there.

Cutting trees requires a saw or a very large hydraulic shear (felling head). Hemp stalks can be cut the same way, or with a rotary mower, or a flail mower. People do this every day in nearly every country of the world to clear brush or to cut down stalks of other agricultural plants (such as corn). You don't have to be selective when harvesting hemp for fiber. You just drive your tractor right into the field.

>>268735

I think you may be confusing agricultural production rather than "drug control". A bunch of soldiers aren't going to have the proper equipment to cut down a "weed field"--especially if it's out in the middle of nowhere, which is typical for illict growth of marijuana. But, a farmer with a TRACTOR and a nearby ROAD would have no problem doing this.

There isn't really an arugment here. You simply cannot claim that hemp can't be cut down effectively becasue it has already been empirically proven as not only possible, but highly productive. Remember people have been cultivating hemp for thousands of years. It is grown all over the world right now for industrial purposes (and for drugs) and nobody seems to have any trouble cutting it down. If stone age man can do it, we certainly can. We have machines that can cut down 3-foot diameter trees in a matter of seconds. We can certainly cut down 1" diameter hemp stalks.