The Health Benefits of Hemp
Hemp foods contain beneficial nutrients, like essential for our body fatty acids.
Hemp oils have a number of industrial applications like industrial lubricants, bio fuels, and soaps. We do not see any logical reason to ban industrial hemp. Still, governments continue their attempts to prevent us from using this valuable crop. Drug war rage is falsely used to avoid establishing a good policy to distinguish between marijuana, which has psychotropic properties, and hemp, which does not. It brought us to a situation, when our society is prevented from using environmentally friendly alternatives, saving money on higher quality, cheaper and more durable products.
Hemp is a tall, coarse plant, it is native to Asia and has been naturalised and cultivated in many parts of the world. It is also often called "Indian hemp" or Marijuana. Hemp has many qualities like it is a great source of a valuable fibre as well as well known drugs such as marijuana and hashish.
Hemp is not the same as marijuana. Although these plants are very closely related, the nowadays term "hemp" refers to the variety of the plant that does not contain high levels of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the psychoactive element in marijuana. It is also often called "industrial hemp".
The industrial hemp is a versatile crop, which can be used for many practical applications. Various hemp products present environmentally friendly alternatives for a many applications. For example hemp fibres can be (and were in the past) used to make very strong ropes, clothing, and paper. Hemp clothing is 4 times warmer than cotton, 4 times more water absorbent, has 3 times the tensile strength of cotton, many times more durable and is flame retardant.
The fibre is the most important component of the plant. It is also known as "bast" - fibres that grow on the outside of of the plant's stalk interior, and under the bark. It gives the plant strength. Hemp fibres can very long - up to 4.6 meters, across the length of the plant. Hemp may naturally be creamy white, brown, gray, black or green depending on the removing the fibre from the stem processes. Hemp was a popular fibre because it is strong and can grow very fast. It produces about 10% more fibre than cotton or flax.
The legalisation and re-integration of Hemp into our culture is one of the most vital priorities for our society. Hemp movement is one of the few that can effectively solve many of our problems.
