Industrial hemp and marijuana law reform
When
the RI General Assembly passed a law prohibiting smoking in public places, it
made our restaurants and bars healthier places for their patrons and employees.
Sure was a step in the right direction, but what was not a widely publicized
fact after the law passed was that the following year, organizations like Save
the Bay and Keep America Beautiful noticed a distinct uptick in the amount of
cigarette butts cleaned up from our beaches and waterways.
As it happens, when
you make people smoke outside, they tend to throw their cigarette butts on the
ground.
Anyone
with a basic understanding of, well, life in general, is familiar with
unintended consequences. They are the unforeseen hiccups and downright
disasters that accompany all decisions made. Most of the time, they are quite
bad, but sometimes they can be good. The law of unintended consequences
certainly rears it’s head when laws get passed without adequate scrutiny, but
there is a very serious positive aspect to legalizing, taxing, and regulating
marijuana use that no one has mentioned in the debate.
What
if RI’s farmers could legally plant, as a cover crop or for use in crop
rotation and soil remediation, a plant that grows tall and quickly – which
prevents the need for herbicides – and that has an abundance of uses and
high market value? How about a plant that can break disease cycles and
blights in other plants? I’d imagine that most farmers would jump at the
chance.
Imagine
the potential economic impacts to our all-but-dead manufacturing sector if we
could provide a local, sustainable raw material for use in creating
ultra-durable cloths and yarns. Industrial hemp is a fast growing plant whose
oil can be used in biofuel production and as a feedstock for plastics. It is
well known that acre-for-acre, industrial hemp vastly outperforms timber in
paper production.
Hemp
has a place in the building trades as well. It’s fibers can be used to make
insulation, pressed into fiberboard, and even used as an additive in concrete
to make it lighter, stronger, and lessen the environmental impact of concrete
production.
Hemp
could also play a part in reclaiming contaminated lands. Though the practice is
still in it’s infancy, hemp shows good potential as a phytoremediator. In
fact, hemp was and has been used to remediate contamination of fly ash, sewage
sludge, and heavy metals. It was even used to remediate radioactive soil in and around the site of the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The
only thing stopping industrial hemp production in the United States is the fact
that drug laws make no distinction between
won’t-get-you-high-but-has-a-bajillion-other-benefits hemp, and the other
I’m-not-as-think-as-you-stoned-I am strains of the cannabis plant. I think it’s
time to make that distinction.
Throwing
hemp into the same drug schedule as its more potent cousins is like saying
there is no difference between a bottle of water and a fine Belgian tripel. One
of them is extremely useful, can be consumed, and won’t degrade your faculties.
The other has been known to throw even the most seasoned beer drinker for a
loop after just one glass. The beer nerd in me finds this insulting.
(Note:
As per federal law, it is currently LEGAL to grow industrial hemp in the U.S.
You just need a permit from the DEA. Good luck with that.)