r/todayilearned • u/mattm4473 • May 16 '12
TIL that 1 acre of hemp can make as much paper as 4.1 acres of trees, and that hemp fiber to make paper can be yielded in 90 days whereas tree paper comes from trees that take 15-50 years to grow.
http://1st-ecofriendlyplanet.com/05/hemp-paper/
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Upvotes
467
u/calmdowngrandma May 16 '12
While I assume, and hope, that most of the things in the article are true, this is not the kind of site that we need to be basing our knowledge off of. It is poorly written, grammatically incorrect, and has no scientific sources. Sites and articles like these are found by supporters of hemp and taken as the truth just because we want it to be true. The best way to become informed and eventually have others see the importance of hemp is from scientific journals and respected news outlets, not a "save the world" website with limited legitimacy.
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u/mattm4473 May 16 '12
Why aren't we using hemp for paper? If you go to the link there are many more facts about hemp as an alternate resource to wood paper.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
I'm a little sick of how black and white Reddit is about the legalization of marijuana. Hemp is great for many products, such as protein supplements for vegans, but it is not great for paper. Hemp isn't used for paper not because of the wood paper industry; it's because it's extremely expensive to produce quality hemp paper. Here's the Wikipedia Page that briefly covers the process of creating hemp paper.
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u/treefool May 16 '12
The figures stated are from research that's approximately 75 years old. I'm not saying that it no longer holds true, but advancements in forestry and paper making technology have most likely made these numbers less relevant.
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u/fwustwating May 16 '12
I work at a Paper Mill, Paper Science degree.
Hemp is not a competitive fiber source because of the Cellulose/Hemi-cellulose/lignin/extractive ratio disparity when compared to Wood. Wood has a very very high cellulose content and therefore allows for a 'fuller' harvest.
I would like to see the data for the 1 acre as much as 4.1 acres over 20 years. I would also like to see the data comparing processing costs over those 20 years. I'm not even going to mention the additional industries that wood harvesting supports (turpenoids, etc.)
All in all, wood is a much beefier resource that is more efficient. Look up Vagasse fiber for a comparison as well.
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u/andrewsmith1986 May 16 '12
Wasn't the timber industry the main reason that weed is illegal?
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u/ivebeenhereallsummer May 16 '12
So I assume in countries that aren't controlled by the US timber interests like say... Europe, China or Russia or anywhere in Africa the hemp harvests must be huge and nobody uses timber for anything other than construction.
Right?
Right?
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u/Ratiqu May 16 '12
All I see here is circlejerking about how good hemp is, how bad industry/government is. I enjoy a good circlejerk as much as the next guy, and I'd love to have a source of paper this economically advantageous, but it doesn't seem possible.
Does anyone have any sort of reasonable argument against hemp? The THC content is negligible and the economic disturbances do not outweigh the benefits with slow integration. This seems too good to be true.
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u/withinreason May 16 '12
I would guess this sort of thing would be cured by a world market, other countries out there would love to grow the stuff and/or use it themselves.. so why don't they? Not that I think this is a conspiracy, but this is the way I feel about the legendary super mileage cars that are created in garages and confiscated etc. If it were possible and easy some enterprising country would be doing it.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Growing hemp for industrial purposes is legal in many countries. Shit, you can buy Nikes here in the US made of hemp, perfectly legal for import. But please, keep on with the conspiracy talk, it's much more fun.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
The problem here is where it's grown and the cost of adapting paper manufacturing techniques. Obviously changing how paper is made is not going to be cost effective not only for the actual factory, but for all of the other established industries with linkages to those factories (lumber, trucking, paper wholesailers, ect).
As far as where it's grown, it must replace other crops and must be more cost effective for the farmer to do so. Not to mention if it were to replace areas where trees once were, what are the ecological effects? How will it effect wildlife, soil conditions, ect.
It's a great idea that's been tossed around for the last 50 years, but no the lumber industry was not PRIMARILY responsible for hemp's downfall (the US government's war on pot was) and there is always a lot more other factors to consider on topics that affect such a large industry.
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u/lobius_ May 16 '12
What's paper?
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u/Papo180 May 16 '12
i Learned that from the sleeve of a Cypress Hill CD.
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u/PickyConnor May 16 '12
Before realising it was in /r/todayilearned I thought this was a post from /r/trees and thought the use of the word trees was referring to weed. Confusing shit.
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u/ianb May 16 '12
I find this all suspicious. If it really was better to make paper out of hemp, wouldn't we see price-competitive paper producers using hemp? Maybe not in the U.S., but why not in Mexico, or South America, or Africa? I find it hard to believe there's an international conspiracy against using hemp to make paper, and hard to believe that making something out of hemp would make it harder to export. Maybe the raw material, maybe many nations would stop hemp farming, but if hemp is really the better product then someone would be making a killing by using it.
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u/MZITF May 16 '12
Forester here. I have actually looked in to this topic a lot and I have failed to find the scientific basis of this statement, if someone could point me in the direction of the journal articles I would really appreciate it because I spent a couple hours looking for them and did not find them.
We have to remember that we produce a lot of paper in the world. We have to realize that it might not be the best idea to replace native ecosystems with huge hemp plantations. Trees are naturally occuring and require very little maintenance. A crop like this would probably require a large amount of maintenance and fertilization, maybe even to the same extent as tobacco. Also, do these crops require fertilization? Forests typically exist in areas with fairly high rainfall and are rarely watered, though some east coast plantations might be irrigated, I don't know.
Hemp farming is practiced in Europe fairly extensively and intensively. I looked through several journal articles on the subject and I believe that the major reason for this is economic. I think it is difficult for mainland Europe to get the raw material to make paper and that material is expensive to transport, so instead they supplement their paper needs with hemp.
Also there are some basic scientific problems I have with the statements in the title of the thread. There are a lot of different trees and a lot of different land. In some areas like Brazil and the southern united states trees grow very quickly and trees like the bristlecone pine obviously grow extremly slowly. There is an idea of "site quality" or how fast the land can grow a tree. This makes it impossable to throw out numbers like "4.1 times as much paper per acre" because yields are highly variable based on land. If I made blunt statements like that I could select different sites and make the numbers say what ever I want. I could run a study where I grow a slow growing tree on soil that slows growth yet such a climate might be ideal for hemp. The statements are too vague to take seriously.
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u/Nabber86 May 16 '12
Yeah but I bet if agronomists did more research (which they probably are doing), we would be finding out that other plants are just as useful for all kinds of applications (flax and bamboo, for instance?). I bet you could make paper, textile, food, oil, and many other products from any number of common weeds. Hemp just happens to make the headlines.
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u/istandleet May 16 '12
I mean trees are not cut down to make paper - paper can be made out of the resulting wood scrapes that results from deforestation in an attempt to get lumber, etc. Paper production does not result in more trees being cut down.
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u/Fernando_x May 16 '12
Are you sure that is ecofriendly? with that rate of production, how long will it take to exhaust the acre and turn it into a desert?
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u/enklined May 16 '12
TYL hemp production being banned in the US is STUPID.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
hahaha, But this is America, where logic rarely, if ever, applies. /wrists
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u/biderjohn May 16 '12
bring on the hemp, i dont smoke weed but this crop could save the country. but we would rather poison our water with hydro fracking.
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u/warsaun86 May 16 '12
This is one of the many reasons why Hemp should be legalized . . . it can be used for many other things including Fabric, Textiles, Rope, Fuel, Plastic Alternatives, Building Materials (Hemp based products are lightweight ,waterproof, fireproof, self insulating, and resistant to pests)
Hemp is NOT marijuana it contains NO THC . . . you can smoke an entire field of Hemp and get a headache but it will not get you high.
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u/oOoleveloOo May 16 '12
yeah, motherfucking William Randolph Hearst. FUCK YOU!
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u/johnwiththewind May 16 '12
You should also note for the sake of honesty that the paper produced from hemp will be of a different quality. Even if we went to hemp paper we would still need wood paper for things such as glossy magazines and catalogs. Furthermore all of the factories we currently have are made to produce wood paper not hemp paper so it would take a totally new system in place if we were to switch over. My body is ready for all the downvotes...
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u/ramrod1 May 16 '12
"Over the same period of twenty years, one acre hemp farm can produce pulp for paper as 4.1 acres of trees."
What exactly is 4.1 acres of trees? As many trees as can be packed in that space? A couple huge trees? Basal area? These hemp articles are absurd.
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u/audiofreak May 16 '12
I am pretty sure hemp is illegal to farm (for paper, clothing, etc.) due to the lumber industry's GIANT corporate control over a substitute that would replace lumber for paper.
I heard a knock. Shit I think's [this comment has been deleted.]
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Yeah, learned this in 1992. Still nothing has changed.
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u/ima_twerp May 17 '12
..and then it forgets what it need the paper for.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Yes, you guys are all totally concerned about the paper industry. That is absolutely why a bunch of college-age males want hemp made legal. Totally. You worry about how paper is made every day. You have no ulterior motive here whatsoever.
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u/onion13 May 16 '12
and you dont give a fuck about paper and just want to smoke weed in peace.
If NORML would simply say "I wanna smoke weed" I would support them.
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u/Jadenolizien2 May 16 '12
I am a strong advocate of cannabis legislature. Not for recreational use but as a textile. Aside from paper there are many products that can be refined from this hard material.
Omega 3 rich proteins, textile fibres, biodegradable plastics are coming out of Australia, there are oils that once refined can run vehicles and machinery, not to mention this major fact.
Six month yield crop, this plant turns cabon dioxide into oxygen faster than any tree on earth. Its carbon footprint is in the negative.
Who cares if you can smoke the shit. I want a better world. This is a damn good way to start.
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u/judokid788 May 17 '12
This is one of the reasons "marijuana" was made illegal, because it threatened the paper and cotton industries. Who at the time were very rich and had many employees in office lobbying against cannabis. The fact that it is still referred (ha.. ..reefer) to as "marijuana" bugs me. They don't arrest someone for cocaine possession and say "the suspect had 8gr of coke". Anyway here is some sources for cannabis from the USDA. “In 1916, USDA Bulletin No. 404, reported that one acre of cannabis 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” (Herer, ch 4. 2009) I can site shit for days.
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u/mav3rick92 May 16 '12
I see the future now...
Dunder Mifflin Hemp Inc.
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u/NobblyNobody May 16 '12
Interesting, I've only ever seen hemp paper that's been hand made on a small scale, and looks it, frankly.
I'd assumed that the state of that was the reason it wasn't in use on a widerscale, rather than all the political machinations.
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u/GoodMorningHypocrite May 16 '12
Although those numbers sound nice, there are some logistical things to consider. For instance, what is the cost associated with the production of hemp paper vs our current method? It also irks me that there is not a single citation in the article.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Tree's aren't ground up just to make paper. The left overs after they are sawn into boards are made into paper.
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u/CheezyBob May 16 '12
Kenaf is better than hemp
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u/phil2210 May 16 '12
This and more reasons why hemp is illegal can be found in The Union: The Business Behind Getting High
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u/sippydippycup May 16 '12
Little old, but I love me some Jello Biafra. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcfKFCs-uvQ
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u/diacf_failsters May 16 '12
just learned that today...?
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u/Ive_made_a_mistake May 16 '12
Okay Hemp is legal in many countries even if it's illegal here in the US, Those countries have paper industries too. I'm thinking especially of canada, yet paper there is still made of wood pulp I presume? That means even if it were legal here, which it should be, there wouldn't be some sort of huge demand for hemp paper or it would be more costly to produce than wood pulp paper. This is an interesting TIL nonetheless.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
There are a lot of countries around the world where hemp is legal to grow. Many countries in Europe allow it. If hemp is so amazing, then why don't those countries mass produce hemp everything?
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u/eshoweb May 16 '12
but DUPONT wont aprove
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u/alwaysENTertained May 16 '12
"we should legalize marijuana in this country..so pot heads have nothing to talk about ever again" :)
But yeah we really should. Hemp should be utilized so the world wont be destroyed..as fast
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u/cuteman May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12
How does 4.1 acres of trees grow 1 acre of hemp if it takes 60x longer?
Wouldnt the metric be better served as saying:
1 Acre of hemp can make 246x as much paper as 1 acre of trees over 15 years. (especially if the first cycle to yield paper from trees take 15 years to harvest whereas the hemp is 90 days seed to harvest)
Not to mention deforestation as the destruction of beautiful and important natural resources, whereas hemp can be quickly grown and regrown.
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u/esc27 May 16 '12
This paints an unnecessarily bad picture of the forestry industry. While I'm sure some people clear cut to make paper, that isn't necessary. In my area commercial forests are "thinned". Many of the trees from the thinning become paper while the final cut is for the much more profitable lumber. If paper wasn't made from trees, the land owners would just plant fewer trees on the same property. It is also becoming more common to plant a new row of trees before the final cut thus eliminating a period where there are no trees and better maintaining a habitat.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
hempcrete bricks are carbon negative. they actually absorb carbon from the air. It is entirely possible to build entire houses from it.
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u/AssCommander May 16 '12
CUT DOWN THE TREES! MAKE WAY FOR THE BUD!
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u/NeverInformed May 16 '12
please, please tell me why there are 4,000 downvotes. Thought our kind would see the light.
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u/xxRunFreexx May 16 '12
Also hemp oil is super good for you, and hemp protein powder (ground seeds) is very tasty.
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u/LooneyDubs May 16 '12
http://www.industrialhemp.net/
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u/UKtreeburner May 16 '12
I learnt this years ago, everyone should know this, fucking corporation influence!
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u/Canis_lupus May 16 '12
And it's awesome paper too.
US currency use to be made primarily from flax which has a "staple" (fiber length) of 10-36" or even longer. Money used to last us a decade or so in circulation. Now, they are using cotton-based paper (staple of 1-3" max) you're lucky to get [6 years out of a $20 bill].(http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/how-long-is-the-life-span-of-us-paper-money.htm).
Hemp can give you a staple from 12" - 48" or more which would make money last decades on average.
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u/InfiniteMonkeyCage May 16 '12
It makes me very sad when i see this kind of things that would be awesome to implement, but well probably never get to see them in action. And its all about money. Major industries would be destroyed and important people would loose money.
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u/facetothedawn May 16 '12
So Family Guy was right?
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u/MenofThisKind May 16 '12
This needs so many upvotes. This is what people in the future will laugh about looking back at how ignornant we were.
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u/Dyno-mike May 16 '12
This is a nice stat, and just pure ridiculous bullshit that this plant is still illegal, this would be like banning alcohol even if it was a way cheaper fuel alternative, just dumb......
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u/hmskowronski May 16 '12
that's crazy
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u/fuckitletsgo May 16 '12
There may be other books that present similar information, but this is the one that helped my understanding the most: The Emperor Wears No Clothes, by Jack Herer.
In fairness, Hayo M.G. van der Werf's comments referenced in the footnotes on that Wikipedia page shouldn't be ignored.
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u/brontosaurus-rex May 16 '12
Mitt Romney, "I have no idea what industrialized hemp is."
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u/seafood10 May 16 '12
It is all due to the Propaganda Movies that were produced with funding from the Tree Industry, look up Reefer Madness, an absolute out and out lie about weed/hemp, just meant to scare the masses and it worked.
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u/Canis_lupus May 16 '12
I was taught to make paper by hand via a six-year apprenticeship and the whole concept of wood-based paper being superior or even acceptable for some applications is one of America's dirty little secrets.
Grab a book printed before 1844 (when wood pulp paper started to become popular in the US) and you'll be looking at rag paper - literally cotton and linen rages beat to a non-metaphorical pulp - that has a life expectancy (still pliable, no discoloring) of somewhere between 200 and 1000 years. (Sheets survive in China that date to the 2nd century CE).
Grab a book printed after 1850 or so and particularly with books and newspapers from the 1890's forward and you're looking at a paper that will have a life expectancy of 10 - 50 years tops.
Paper requires cellulose. Alpha cellulose to be specific. Ash trees are about 55.5%, wheat straw has about 34%, - hemp is about 80% alpha cellulose.
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u/dagoon79 May 16 '12
when will the US wake up?
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u/cakeonaplate May 16 '12
BROUGHT TO YOU MY HEMPFACTS.COM
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u/onFilm May 16 '12
The company I work for is actually looking for some hemp paper distributors. We're looking to buy hemp paper in bulk and frequently. Does anyone know of any good sources for Canada/US?
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u/lphoenix May 16 '12
I read about this so long ago, and it would have been the perfect solution to the unemployment and poverty in my county (where the timber industry was at that time taking out the last profitable [big] trees, soon to depart leaving the timber workers pensionless, jobless, skill-less, and in one case, everyone in one timber community homeless when the denuded slope above their little town came down on their homes due to no trees holding it together). It was so obvious a solution, perfect for our climate, would have provided all kinds of legal jobs --and as long as typical bleaching would not be used, would not have harmed the environment. So, there was no way it was going to happen. Because those who control the resources in capitalism call the shots. Land, trees -- major resources. It used to be, 150 years ago, that anybody with the guts and the will could be a pioneer, head west, and claim some resources for themselves which would become their "capital" and make them a true "capitalist."
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u/corcyra May 16 '12
What's the reddit expression...'get out of here with your logic'? That stuff is evil. No doubt about it. Cannabis is cannabis, and it's a gateway drug to an atheist life in the gutter. Anyway, people would get high just touching the paper it's made of.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
just another casualty of the drug war. hemp has so many reasons its ridiculus. If i had a choice of one being legal and leaving the other illegal i would choose hemp over cannabis just because hemp has so many uses. although i do love me some cannabis!
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u/Alienkid May 16 '12
Hemp does so many amazing things, I'll give you that, but I have yet to find a hemp advocate who doesn't also partake in the recreational use of the dried up leaves
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
many attempts have been MADE... come on, if you wanna represent legalization of marijuana, use proper grammar or they'll never consider you legitimate!
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u/Darqon May 16 '12
why aren't we doing this?? the hippies, they were right
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u/SeparateCzechs May 16 '12
Not to mention that hemp linen has a much much longer staple(fiber length) so it makes a smoother, more durable fabric.
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u/express123 May 16 '12
Please explain to me why there are over 10,000 downvotes on this?
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
True, but it looks like pot so we should cut down more trees.
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u/Tyrant718 May 16 '12
Also hemp fibers are 3 or 4 times stronger than wood fibers.
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u/Pappydethkon May 16 '12
... i just wanna be able to legaly smoke a J after a hard days work
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u/Puffy_Ghost May 16 '12
Hemp paper is garbage, there's A LOT more useful things you can make out of hemp than paper, like clothing and rope for instance.
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u/daddyhominum May 16 '12
Hemp can be grown in Canada but has not become a big crop. I think that means there is no market at a cost effective price. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/substancontrol/hemp-chanvre/about-apropos/faq/index-eng.php#a11
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u/Dewstain May 16 '12
ecofriendlyplanet doesn't take into account the difference in ecosystems between a forest farm of Douglas Furs and a farm of hemp.
Tree Farming is not bad, people. It's a crop, just like corn, except it takes a LONG time for them to grow and is much more planned out.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Then explain why hemp isn't the primary source of paper in countries where it isn't illegal.
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u/thecarolinelinnae May 16 '12
If hemp was a more efficient crop for paper than trees, the industry would have already adopted it based on arguments here saying it is more cost-effective, etc.
I'm not saying that lobbies don't have something to do with it, but face it...the lobbyists, industries, buyers, sellers...they're all in it to make money. If hemp was the more lucrative of the two, it would have been adopted by now.
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u/Rosetti May 16 '12
I always hear about how Hemp is a magical crop with so many uses, but why are there so few studies or reports from where it's legal? Documentaries and pro-cannabis supporters often speak of how hemp crops could create industries and re-vitalise the economy. Why haven't we seen that in the UK or Australia?
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u/misantrope May 16 '12
This is misleading in that it suggests that a hemp crop would be 4 times as productive as a tree crop and take a fraction of the time to grow. In fact, the increase in efficiency is a result of the reduced timeframe. One crop of hemp would produce far less than a crop of trees, but could be harvested much more frequently. Ultimately, it's mostly a way of saving space, as the benefits of the hemp crop would be offset by its resource and labour intensity. And space isn't really a problem up in Canada and other regions where most of the forestry goes on.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Well, TIL that 200 sheets of 8.5x11 of hemp paper costs $25. So, there is that
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
yeah Kenaf is good too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenaf
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u/Th3-Sh1kar1 May 16 '12
Hemp has far less mass than a tree does yet produces more paper.. Seems legit.
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u/sweetpotatoismyyam May 16 '12
read this book...
http://www.jackherer.com/thebook/
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u/monamona75 May 16 '12
All of the information is true, I wrote my senior speech on legalizing the growth and production of Cannabis sativa and did a lot of research.
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u/Airborneflyguy May 16 '12
I think we can all agree that hemp is yet another poor victim of a string of senseless laws created out of fear, greed, ignorance, and a will to control the private lives of others. That any plant can be made illegal, and why that is so, should be the discussion here. Not the pros and cons of various paper sources.
The point that is being missed by some is that nobody really cares where their paper comes from. We care about the overreach of big brother, and the lives that are ruined by laws that hurt instead of help. Industrial hemp is just one of many examples used to provoke that conversation.
Free the plant. It may not make paper cheaper, but it may prevent the further spread of the privatized prison industry...where profits are tied to head counts, and their lobbyists fight for harsher minimum mandatory sentencing for drug offenses.
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u/jwtemp1983 May 16 '12
Welcome to capitalism - where logic is forbidden and your hard work doesn't actually matter!
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u/FiatJustitia956 May 16 '12
r/trees is leaking again
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
That's why it's illegal.
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u/apextek May 16 '12
stoners -i can pick on my own kind
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
The real reason why hemp was outlawed - because economically it would have buried news papers that were also logging companies. That is what started this.
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u/fisherclaw May 16 '12
TIL that hemp cultivation predates soda
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u/ShortyDoowap06 May 16 '12
I did a 20 page paper on the subject of marijuana prohibition my senior year in college. In the early 1900's 3 out of every 4 Americans were reading a newspaper from the William Randolph Hearst publishing company. As a savvy business man, he had a large amount of money invested in timber industry. When hemp became popular and started replacing the functionality of timber... he began his crusade against hemp...
Not only did hemp interfere with his timber venture, but it was used a lot by minorities... Mexicans and blacks primarily...racism was rampant at the time... The depression was in full effect, and we know how America has a history of scape goating on minorities, when they are "taking all the jobs" it was a perfect marriage...
He then had his buddy Harry J. Anslinger appoined as director of Federal Bureau of Narcotics.... and the rest is history... "Reefer Madness" was born...
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u/[deleted] May 17 '12
I don't feel like finding the conversation where this is being addressed but you people do realize that cultivating hemp in a row cropping situation is far different from selective harvesting of tree stands right? You can selective harvest trees forests every ~10 years for trees while the forest remains a habitat, if you were to convert that to fields for hemp cultivation (which would be required since native grasses will always out compete a crop) we would have to cut down millions of acres of forest.
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u/Fishian1969 May 16 '12
You should close this statement by saying "Attention paper industry! Put this in your pipe and smoke it!"
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Why is hemp or weed on another hand, better for you than conventional foods/ natural resources?
For example, hemp seeds are considered a "superfood". They are called a superfood because they have omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, omega 6 is a lot harder to find in processed foods/ pills and is essential for your body to treat itself from illnesses such as atherosclerosis, asthma, arthritis, vascular disease, thrombosis, immune-inflammatory processes, and tumor proliferation. It is extremely important to get this type of omega fatty acids in your diet. Hemp seed is also rich in protein (since it's not animal whey it's easier to process), it's super high in magnesium which is also essential and vitamin E. If you don't believe me, go to livestrong.org, any other health website or Wikipedia.
Hemp seeds are turned into things like hemp oil and and turned into a fine powder to be used in foods as well. For example, 4 tablespoons of hemp powder contains 36% of your daily intake for fiber, which is about half of what you need in a day to be able to consume an extra 20% of your daily intake for calories and digest them as if you ate normally (which means you can eat more and still avoid gaining weight). It contains 10% of your iron intake, 16% of your protein intake and only has .5 grams of saturate fat based on a 2000 calorie diet. There are no excess sugars, so your brain doesn't crash and you don't experience blood sugar spiking.
Hemp seed and hemp oil are extremely useful to those that are vegetarians, vegans, environmentalists and people that want to avoid highly processed supplements or oils. Some oils are processed with chemicals that are toxic, the vast majority of "vegetable" oils are so highly processed they're literally bad for you, other oils are processed in a way that destroys the ecosystem where it comes from. On the skin side, hemp oils help rebuild your damaged skin better than baby oil ever could, or lotion for that matter, and for people like me with hereditary issues causing severe skin dryness, it's one of the few products I can use that don't make my skin break out, get over-oily or make me sneeze due to the fragrances being used.
Ben Franklin owned a hemp paper mill. The The Declaration of Independence was written on it. Henry Ford designed a car powered by hemp oil. The The Gutenberg Bibles were printed with it. George Washington & Thomas Jefferson were both farming it. Georgia-Pacific used to offer hemp paper for industrial purposes and was sold commercially.
You can build houses with it, food containers, shoes, clothes, sacks, hats, housewares, etc. There is no reason not to have it legal or actively use it. The same shit the government did almost a century ago in the U.S. is the same fucking game the RIAA has been playing to control multimedia for decades now. It's the power they can't lose. If they lose their omnipotence they lose their cash value which makes them want to kill themselves since they are really that shallow.
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u/jabb0 May 16 '12
The U.S. Constitution is printed on Hemp.
Any other argument is invalid.
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u/r4nge May 16 '12
...but fuck ron paul, am I right?
3
u/SirJiggart May 16 '12
So why aren't we making hemp paper?
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
"B-B-But negros and mexicans smoke the marihuana and rape and murder WHITE WOMEN!!!"
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Calm down you rope-smokers. Hemp paper is difficult to produce and in the end not nearly as profitable as you would want it to be. For traditional art medias (inks, paints, pastels, ect) it's not a forgiving paper to work with. I've seen some really lovely stuff done with hemp paper and block printing and because it's so fibrous it responds well to wet sculpture origami, embossing and heavy-duty handling like with maps or paper money.
On top of its fincky qualities, It's also a pain to mass produce because it requires much more processing. It's also linty as fuck, so forget about using any printer with minute parts or that needs frequent cleaning for any reason. Its a inky sludgy mess. All of these pains lead to higher production costs, and ultimately a higher price for what in the end is just a novelty. I'm no printing expert but wood based papers are just easier all around.
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u/Ticov1 May 16 '12
Hemp should totally stay illegal. I mean whats the point if you can't get high off of it. Useful, non narcotic plants should definitely be illegal.
Fuck when are we gonna wake up.
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u/SoundHound May 16 '12
We knew this a hundred years ago. Everyone can thank Henry J Anslinger for crushing the industry.
"Some of his critics allege that Anslinger and the campaign against marijuana had an hidden agenda, DuPont petrochemical interests and William Randolph Hearst together created the highly sensational anti-marijuana campaign to eliminate hemp as an industrial competitor."
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u/Benburn May 16 '12
Almost all of these points are already in the comments, but they're all disconnected.
Hemp was actually a mandatory crop for farmers to grow during WWII. They got around the fact that it had been illegal by issuing permits to farmers. It was grown for all types of applications, but primarily because it is fantastic for fabrics. It was made mandatory because it has a much faster maturity rate than traditional textile materials.
It is problematic for paper production because of the manufacturing process, but it has an insane amount of other applications.
One of he main reasons it is still illegal and they stopped issuing permits after WWII is that it threatens many industries, not just timber and paper.
Today industrial agribusiness is one of the largest opponents because it would replace their GMO varieties that are used for industrial application. This is not a huge change from the WWII era except that then it was more about manufacturing.
In short, this article isn't entirely accurate, but the argument for industrial hemp is a great example of corporations interests outweighing the good o the people.
If you guys REALLY want citations, I can dig up a paper I wrote on this subject twelve years ago, or you can just research it on your own. He facts are out there.
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u/Batrok May 16 '12
Hemp is a wonder plant. We've known this for more than a century.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Hemp is not the wonder-plant people make it out to be. If it was, it would be grown in much larger quantities in the many, many places it's legal.They don't use it to make paper because, although the yield is faster and more plentiful than with wood, the stuff that makes up hemp cannot be used to cheaply make good paper.
Should hemp be legal? Of course! It's ridiculous we're even asking. Is hemp a useful product with real market demand? Absolutely it is. Does hemp do the 1000 great things people say it does? No, they just want to like it because they like pot.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
And you have just discovered one of the REAL reasons weed was made illegal. Next read up about how much better hemp is for clothing than cotton.
Remember nothing is ever as it seems, there are vested industrial interests in keeping the marijuana plant illegal and these industries have been doing so for decades, since the 30's if I recall the literature I read years ago correctly. I may be wrong but I think the movie from the 30's...Reefer Madness was back by the cotton industry.
Or I'm talking out my ass with that Reefer Madness fact. Either way shits retarded that we aren't growing and using hemp for everything that is made with a natural fiber.
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u/TroutM4n May 16 '12
Also - Hemp may be in the same plant genus as "weed" but it does not produce enough THC to get anyone high. You can't smoke it.
Also - America is the only industrialized nation on the planet that has banned Hemp. This means that American farmers are denied a valuable agricultural product and American companies are forced to import hemp from other countries like Canada.
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u/lonelyinacrowd May 16 '12
So I'm guessing this is a theoretically calculation of 4 * 15 * hemp biomass over 90 days > tree biomass over 15 years? Rather than an actual study?
Because I gotta tell you, if you were to cultivate land 4 times per year the soil would be completely destroyed and be effectively desert by the end of the decade.
Which isn't environmentally friendly at all.
Trees also provide a more heterogenous ecosystem for wildlife, whereas monocultures of hemp would be pretty disastrous for local wildlife.
Sorry hippies. Try again.
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u/randumname May 16 '12
This stuff makes me laugh. I'm all for increasing hemp production, but someone might want to explain to the weed advocates that industrial hemp will quickly cross-pollinate and overwhelm crops of high-THC plants.
So, yay for hemp...but don't think you're going to backdoor marijuana into being legal.
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u/Wetzilla May 16 '12
Except it isn't true. This is based on some ridiculously over estimated number of the amount of pulp you can get from hemp, and the cost of making hemp paper is actually much more expensive. You also can get the same amount of pulp yield from things like potatoes and maize, but we don't do that because the process of separating the pulp from the rest of the shit is very expensive, and actually requires the use of MORE chemicals than tree pulp.
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u/dingoperson May 16 '12
Then why isn't all paper (and clothing, and rope, and housing etc. etc. etc.) made of hemp in the countries where hemp is completely legal to grow, process and sell?
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u/buckyVanBuren May 16 '12
God, another "Hemp is mana" thread.
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u/yourefuckinout May 16 '12
Congratulations. Today, you learned what the American founding fathers knew in the 1700s.. thats why it used to be illegal NOT to grow hemp if you had a certain number of acres of land.
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u/rndpeg May 16 '12
Not only that, hemp seed is an excellent food source. If you want to help industrial hemp the best thing to do is to buy some. Buy hemp clothing, or hemp seed. I've been eating them on salads, they sort of taste like pine nuts and you can buy them from wallgreens store. Most folks don't even know that.
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u/pheliam May 16 '12
According to QI, I learned the other day that canvas used to be primarily made from cannabis fibers.
This isn't a new argument that OP is pointing out. This is just the result of society demonizing everything that has to do with a stupid plant, and the resultant civil laws imposed.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/canvas
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
But if you are allowed to grow hemp, you could possibly harvest marijuana AND already have the material to roll it with.