Nader Supports Industrial Hemp as a Renewable Resource

Ralph Nader supports industrial hemp as a renewable resource with many important fuel, fiber, food, paper and other uses.

Industrial hemp is a commercial crop grown for its seed and fiber and the products made from them such as oil, seed cake, and hurds (stalk cores). Industrial hemp is one of the longest and strongest fibers in the plant kingdom, and it has thousands of potential uses. In need of alternative crops and aware of the growing market for industrial hemp - particularly for biocomposite products such as automobile parts, farmers in the United States are forced to watch from the sidelines while Canadian, French and Chinese farmers grow the crop and American manufacturers import it from them. Federal legislators, meanwhile, continue to ignore the issue. They have failed to hold a hearing or introduce a bill that would remove industrial hemp from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration list of illicit substances. The United States should implement a licensing system, similar to the one that Canada has in place, that ensures only legitimate farmers are allowed to grow industrial hemp from seeds certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The certified seeds would guarantee that the psychoactive substance in the plant is so low that it has no effect (analogous to the negligible amount of psychoactive material in poppy seeds).

Grown in rotation, industrial hemp increases the yields of future crops grown on the same field. Because it is weed resistant, hemp production is less reliant on herbicides, and because it is naturally bright, paper made from hemp requires no chlorine bleach, which produces environmental toxins, in addition to its rail transportation risks.