Pubdate: Sat, 21 Sep 2000
Source: Big Issue in Scotland. The (UK)
Copyright: 2000 The Big Issue Company Limited
Contact:  14 Albany Street Edinburgh EH1 3QB Scotland
Fax: 0141 552 3200
Website: http://www.bigissue.com/scotland/
Author: Alun Buffry

IT'S TIME TO WEED OUT GREEDY FUEL COMPANIES

People are so dissatisfied with the price of fuel they are blocking 
progress on the roads and at oil terminals.  For many year we have been at 
the mercy of suppliers of dangerous and environmentally polluting fuel, 
coal, gas and oil and nuclear power. The supply of these fuels is in the 
hands of rich people who ensure high prices and provide the Government in 
revenue through taxation.  But it is we, the people, who pay through the 
nose in more ways than one.

However, plants are an excellent alternative fuel source that can be 
converted into alcohol and used to provide fuel for our vehicles.

A woody plant that can be grown quickly and easily without the necessity of 
fertilisers or pesticides would be ideal.  Even better if the plant 
produced a commercially viable fruit that had other usages so that the 
plant material used to make the fuel could be produced virtually free.

When burned, that fuel would release almost the same amounts of carbon 
dioxide and water as are absorbed during the growing season, but not 
dangerous pollutants.  And if it could be produced at a local level it 
would grant us independence from the petrochemical industries.

There is an ideal plant.  It has been calculated that it could be grown in 
the UK and elsewhere to produce vast amounts of fuel. Unfortunately it is 
illegal, because the Government has deemed it undesirable that people 
should get "high".

The plant is cannabis.

So long as cannabis remains illegal the ideal source of fuel is unusable 
and economically unviable.  If it becomes legal, the parts people smoke 
will generate enough income to enable us to have virtually cost-free and 
pollution-free fuel.

That is the demand that we should now be making.  It is based upon 
scientific facts and sound economics, not political bias or false morality, 
and it would favour the people, not the Government and industry.

Alun Buffry
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