4 ~ Wednesday, Nov. 11, 1992 - North Shore News

Who knows, hemp may have its heyday yet

THE SOMEWHAT rejuvenated legalize-pot movement has
been getting a fair amount of ink lately for its claim: te be
the answer to the eco-crisis, rather than just being a way to

get zonked.

I take this to be some sort of
sociological trend.

I may be wrong. This has been
known to happen.

But I’ve noticed the business
argument for legalizing dope pro-
duction has been brought into
play, and surely this must signal
something.

Prior to now it’s been strictly a
question of individual rights, or
taking the profit out of the drug
trade, or conforming to some-
body’s value system. This business
angle sounds much grittier, frank-
ly.

By ail accounts, tough times lie
ahead for the foreseeable future.

Tough times call for tough
measures.

If we are really going to avoid
wide-spread, perhaps even univer-
sal degradation of our environ-
ment, and the subsequent collapse
of economies that depend upon its
exploitation, we’re going to have
to make some major changes.

It isn't enough to legislate an
end to pollution. You have to
come up with solutions probably
as drastic as the problem itself.

So, in the drastic solution
department, why not consider the
“hemp option’ along with
everything else?

This was the thinking in
Tasmania, where a consortium
came close to winning approval
from the state governinent fast
year to plant 15,000 hectares of
marijuana to produce 100,000
tonnes of pulp for making paper.

In California, where pot is
reportedly the largest cash crop,
despite the fact that it remains i!-
fegal, efforts this summer to get a
hemp initiative on the ballot came
closer to getting the required
number of signatures than ever.

li might sound like somebody’s
Seen smoking something funny,
but the case for using hemp both
as a non-polluting fuel and as a
substitute for paper rests on
reasonably scientific grounds, with

A

THE FOLLOWING people ap-
peared in North and West Van-
couver provincial courts recently
to face various charges:

Before Judge Bill Rodgers in
North Vancouver provincial court
on Nov. 3:

Michael Ray Gelling, 21, of
North Vancouver, was fined $100
after being found guilty of theft
under $1,000 from Sears Canada
on May 5, 1992 in the city of
North Vancouver. :

Before Judge Reginald D. Gran-
dison in West Vancouver provin-
ciai court on Oct. 28:

Samuel Daviau, 23, of West
Vancouver, was fined $150 after
he pleaded guilty to misleading a
peace officer on March 20, 1992
in West Vancouver.

Bob
Hunter

y

STRICTLY PERSONAL
some OK-sounding economic ra-
tionalizations thrown in.

The fact is, this column could
be printed on hemp instead of
wood pulp, and there would be
several ecological advantages to
the arrangement.

First, of course, entire forest
eco-systems wouldn’t have to be
destroyed.

Hemp paper has a lifespan of

“hundreds of years compared with

between 25 and 80 for most
grades of regular wood paper.

Because of its high-cellulose
fibre, it can be recycled seven
times instead of just three.

The legalization of hemp is
gencrally so far from people’s
minds that it is no wonder
mainstream pelitical parties won’t
even look sidewise at the issue.

Yet beseiged farmers could the-
oretically be making fortunes
growing the stuff as an alternative
energy source.

Hey, it might get some of them
off the habit of growing killer
tobacco, and others away from
ruinous wheat fosses.

it has been estimated that if 6%
of the U.S. contiguous land areca
was to be used for the cultivation

AY IN COURT

Toan Van Vu, 33, of Van-
couver, was fined $200 after he
was found guilty of theft of mer-
chandise valued at under $1,000
from Woodward's in Park Royal
shopping mall on April 2, 1992.

Yen Thi Vu, 23, of Vancouver,
was fined $200 after he was found
guilty of theft of merchandise
valued at under $1,000 from
Woodward’s in Park Royal shop-
ping mall on April 2, 1992.

Before Judge Reginald D. Gran-
dison in West Vancouver provin-
cial court on Oct. 26:

Daniel Jason Graham, 22, of
Vancouver, was sentenced to 14
days in jail, fined $300, and had
his driver’s licence suspended for
one year after he was found guilty
of driving without a licence on
Oct. 26, 1991 in West Vancouver.

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North Vancouver

of hemp as a crop to be converted
into fuels like methanol, Ameri-
cans could supply ail their current
demands for gas and oil.

At the same time, they would
be reducing their CO2 burden on
the atmosphere by a tremendous
margin.

We’re coming into an era in
which carbon taxes and regulated
reduction of greenhouse gas emis-
sions are going to force dramatic
changes in our choice of fuels.

The option of atomic-powered
family helicopters seems not to
have panned out; magnetic levita-
tion devices are energy pigs; fu-
sion technology is spinning its
wheels; and natural gas, while an
improvement over petroleum, is
unfertunately not the panacea it
was once deemed to be due to the
release of methane during produc-
tion.

As the options narrow, hemp
begins to look better and better as
an energy crop.

I know it’s hard to imagine
acres of pot plants growing openly
in Langley, say, or around Mis-
sion.

For one thing, wouldn't stoned
weirdos from the city flock to the
countryside to run through the
fields, ripping plants up by the
roots and trying to light them
right there on the spot?

Not likely, actually, because
hemp grown for biomass conver-
sion to fuels makes for a very
poor grades of marijuana.

You'd probably have to smoke
106 kilos of it to get high, I’m
told.

A farmer’s hemp biomass crop
would be safe from all but a few
desperate mutants from Granville
Street ~- and those would be easy
enough to scare off with fake

pesticide spray warning signs.

Hemp is quite drought resistant,
by the way, which is going to be a
big factor in any crop’s success in
the coming years, as global warm-
ing kicks in, which it most cer-
tainly is going to do once the ash
from Mount Pinatubo disperses.

Advocates of the ‘‘burn pot,
not oil’ school of thought insist
that the planetary warming trend
is in itself absolutely the main
reason for considering the
legalization of hemp at this stage,
the proclivity of pot aficionados
to find any old excuse to hype
their favorite weed not being a
consideration whatsoever. Honest!
That’s what they say!

As you might expect, not
everyone accepts the economic
arguments for using the stuff as
fuel or fibre.

Some experts say hemp costs
three times as much as wood pulp
for paper production, and the
feasibility of biomass conversion
to fuel vehicles on a nation- or
continent- or planet-wide basis
has not, of course, had a chance
to be tested.

But then who can you believe?

One popular conspiracy theory
holds that the real reason hemp
was criminalized in the United
States in 1932 was because a new
hemp harvesting machine so
enhanced the plant’s commercial
possibilities that the wood pulp
industry pulled political strings to
eliminate the competition.

Paranoia, eh? Maybe there’s
just too much of it all around.

Purloined pizzas retrieved

TWO HUNGRY thieves had
their dinner spoiled thanks to
an attentive student at Argyle
Secondary on Friday.

T*: Argyle Drama Club was
ho wing a pizza sale in the
Argyle cafeteria to raise money
for the production of plays.

Two youths — not Argyle
students — approached a tabie
where a box of !2, 12°’ pizzas
was sitting. They picked the
box up and started for the
door.

An attentive student noticed
the slice scam and called out to
Canasafund owner Graham
Adams to stop them.

The thieves quickened their

pace, then sprinted out the
door — pizzas in hand — into
the pouring rain, followed
closely by former professional
soccer player Adams.

Adams lost track of the
thieves on a side street, but a
concerned neighbor poinied out
that a cardboard box was sit-
ting behind her backyard fence. |

**The box was a little soggy
but the deluxe pizzas inside
were unharmed,”’ said Adams.
He also commended the taste
of the pie pilferers. .

Adams, whose company runs
fundraising sales for organiza-
tions, presented the student
who noticed the theft with a
“hero pizza. ’*

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