Hemp, Why Not? Hemp Creates Green Jobs

BY: Andrew L. Ziegler, May 1, 2009

With all the talk of our green economy fueled by green jobs, isn't it time for a mature debate and policy regarding hemp?

To start, one must shed oneself of 50-plus years of misinformation and propaganda. Hemp is not marijuana. You wouldn't serve field corn to your guests, you can't make heroin from the poppies in your flower bed, and pot smokers don't smoke hemp.

It's plant genetics, which any grain farmer knows all about. The more one reads about hemp research that has and is being done around the world, one must ask: "Why not America. Why not South Dakota?"

You can't get much greener than hemp. It needs less water to grow than other crops, requires no pesticides or herbicides and replaces vital nutrients to the soil while at the same time it removes cancer-causing heavy metals from the ground.

Hemp can produce four times more paper than trees per acre, which can be recycled up to 50 times as opposed to wood pulp's five.

Hemp also absorbs carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and as a food source, hemp seed meal and oil are almost unmatched. Hemp also can be made into more than 25,000 products from fuel to ice cream.

We elect leaders to not only take care of running our state but to have the vision to lead us into the future.

Envision a South Dakota that converts marginal river-area grain crops to hemp production, which, when harvested and brought to a modern green-processing plant in Redfield or Chamberlain, produces high-end products, providing jobs that finally might end the cycle of poverty that plagues the region. Hemp production also could spur research grants to our universities to develop new products, bringing more money and jobs.

The truth is just a few clicks of a mouse away. Inform yourself, then ask your leaders, "Why not hemp? "

Why must we continue the tired drumbeat of the past when we can tap the cymbals of change? I voted for a change last November, for a nation that makes policy based on facts and science - not fears, rhetoric or special interests. We all could be greener if our government would let us.

[ Argus Leader ]