|
The Erroneous Hoodlum
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: West Side Phoenix
Posts: 2,057
|
Im a member of NORML (the national organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws)
theres plenty of reasons why marijuana should be legalized, ill give some of my personal favorites:
1. the potential to be manufactured into more than 25,000 environmentally friendly products
2.Hemp produces a much higher yield per acre than do common substitutes such as cotton and requires few pesticides. In addition, hemp has an average growing cycle of only 100 days and leaves the soil virtually weed-free for the next planting.
3.hemp seeds' nutritional value, noting that it's second only to soy in protein and contains the highest concentration of essential amino and fatty acids found in any food
4.pain relief -- particularly of neuropathic pain (pain from nerve damage) -- nausea, spasticity, glaucoma, and movement disorders. Also a powerful appetite stimulant, specifically for patients suffering from HIV, the AIDS wasting syndrome, or dementia.
5.Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers an estimated $10 billion annually and results in the arrest of more than 734,000 individuals per year -- far more than the total number of arrestees for all violent crimes combined, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
6.Marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Around 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning. Similarly, more than 400,000 deaths each year are attributed to tobacco smoking. By comparison, marijuana is nontoxic and cannot cause death by overdose.
7.Ethanol, methanol, methane gas, and gasoline can be derived from biomass at a fraction of the cost of the current cost of oil, coal, or nuclear energy, especially when environmental costs are factored in. Each acre of hemp could yield about 1000 gallons of methanol, when an energy crop is growing, it takes carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, and releases an equal amount when it is burned, creating a balanced system, unlike petroleum fuels, which only release CO2. When an energy crop like hemp is grown on a massive scale, it will initially lower the CO2 in the air, and then stabilize it at a level lower than before the planting of the energy crop.(Petroleum fuel increases carbon monoxide in the atmosphere and contributes heavily to global warming and the greenhouse effect, which, the EPA has warned, will lead to global catastrophe in the next 50 years if these trends continue) Use of biomass would end acid rain, end sulfer-based smog, and reverse the greenhouse effect.
8.Hemp can be made into any building material, including fiberboard, roofing, flooring, wallboard, caulking, cement, paint, paneling, particleboard, plaster, plywood, reinforced concrete, insulation, insulation panels, spray-on insulation, concrete pipes, bricks, and biodegradable plastic composites which are tougher than steel.
Henry Ford used hemp-and-sisal cellulose plastic to build car doors and fenders in 1941. On video Henry Ford demonstrated that his hemp cars were more resistant to blows from a sledgehammer than steel-bodied cars were and not as heavy.
9.One acre of hemp can produce as much paper as 4 to 10 acres of trees over a 20-year cycle, but hemp stalks only take four months to mature, whereas trees take 20 to 80 years.
10.Hemp plants can even pull nuclear toxins from the soil. In fact hemp was planted near and around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site to pull radioactive elements from the ground. The process is called phyto-remediation, which means using plants (phyto) to clean up polluted sites.
(i could go on forever, but that should give everyone something to chew for awhile)
__________________
|
Linear Mode
