Pubdate: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 Source: Summit Daily News (CO) Copyright: 2008 Summit Daily News Contact: http://apps.summitdaily.com/forms/letter/index.php Website: http://www.summitdaily.com/home.php Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/587 Author: Stan White BRING BACK HEMP The United States uses corn for ethanol because hemp is illegal. Hemp was made illegal due to a greedy component of capitalism combined with ignorance. Hemp prohibition is grave and dysfunctional, affecting world improvement, as Dennis Newman (Letter: "Change needed on ethanol," Nov. 13, 2008), exposes. Instead of embracing hemp for what it is; a God-awesome creation, America's leaders strive to exterminate it. Before greedy ignoids conspired to prohibit hemp, it was referred to as the billion-dollar crop, when the B-word wasn't thrown around so loosely. America has had the technology to build and fuel cars using hemp since the 1930s. A sane argument to perpetuate prohibiting free American farmers from utilizing the plant doesn't exist. Some estimates indicate using 10 percent of America's farmland to cultivate hemp would eliminate any need for foreign petroleum. Discussion of alternative fuels without mentioning hemp is foolish and any and all research into hemp's history backs it up. And that's just for fuel; hemp is equally beneficial for feeding people who are starving to death. America's future political atmosphere may be more conducive to changing hemp's status as a Schedule I drug along side heroin and LSD. Americans must work hard the next few years to re-establish hemp as a component of American agriculture. In fact, environmentally conscientious Americans must fight harder than big oil and other mega corporations which profit immensely off hemp prohibition and spend huge fortunes to guarantee its existence. For decades, government deceived Americans into accepting hemp and cannabis prohibition, and it's destroying the entire world. Young people can Google and find enough information to make an intelligent person angry. It's time for people to use that anger to force political leaders to end a ridiculous prohibition that should have never been started. Because hemp prohibition is anti-American and it's shucking the country. Stan White Dillon Colorado - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin