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A Dark Harvest

Usually around harvest time, the Indiana State Police claim to cut down somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 million Marijuana plants, mostly in northern Indiana. Their stated goal is to remove Marijuana from the underground market. But the vast majority of what they cut down isn’t psychoactive Marijuana; it’s the world’s oldest cultivated plant
designed to feed us, clothe us, house us, heal us and power us: HEMP.
Further, this is feral, or wild Hemp, much of which was planted between 1911 and 1945. You probably couldn’t get high from it if you smoked all of what grows there.
In 1911 the State of Indiana planted several thousand acres of Indian Hemp in northwestern Indiana to combat bullgrass. Knowing WWI was coming, the State replanted in 1916 and generally left it to individual farmers to grow it in 1942 for the WWII effort. After the war, Hemp was once again ostracized, and was forbidden to be grown.
Generally speaking, Hemp is planted 200-400 plants per square yard. Marijuana, a related but different plant, must be grown between two and four feet apart.
Hemp grows tall and spindly, while Marijuana grows shorter and bushier, usually having somewhat broader leaves than Hemp. Growers of Marijuana and of Hemp do not want their crops anywhere close to each other because cross pollination would ruin both, under normal field conditions, therefore no Marijuana grower would use a Hemp crop to disguise their product.
Since Indiana insists that science be damned and there’s no difference between Hemp and Marijuana, they continue to waste their time and our money in cutting it down and claim they’re stopping children from getting Marijuana. Let’s look at what they’re really destroying. 28 million Hemp plants would cover approximately 62 acres.
This would produce about 10 million pounds of pulp, called Hurds. Were we to make this into paper, the yield would be about 251.16 reams of paper per acre, or 15,432 reams over the 62 acres. This would amount to approximately $1,000,000 dollars worth of paper, with a 90 percent reduction in hazardous chemicals needed to process that paper.
Let’s say we want to make ethanol biofuel from those hurds.
By using essentially the same production methods to make gasoline from petroleum, 100 gallons of methanol can be obtained per ton of hurds. The State Police destroy 61,180 gallons of methanol from cutting those 62 acres. That’s the equivalent of 1,456 barrels of petroleum oil equivalent.  Hempoline, as it has come to be called, is an annually renewable resource and virtually eliminates sulfur compounds when burned. Hydrocarbon emissions would be reduced to about 10 parts per million.
Regardless of whether we make paper, plastic, fuel or building materials from the hurds, we still have fiber and seeds. Four separate product classes can be produced from each Hemp plant. Clothing made from Hemp lasts 26 times longer than cotton, is four times more absorbent and warmer than cotton.
Hemp rope has been known and used for centuries because it’s more durable, stronger and more rot resistant than any other fiber. A yield of 850 pounds of fiber per acre is average. The Indiana State Police destroys 52, 530 pounds of the finest natural fiber the Earth has to offer. Hemp seeds have multiple uses. For centuries Hemp seed oil has produced oil for lamps and machinery, cooking, paints and varnishes, soap and body oils and lotions.
It also makes a far better biodiesel fuel. The seed cake, left over after oil extraction, is a highly nutritious food source, leading all other plants in essential fatty acids as well as Omega 3’s and 6’s. It is also a superior animal feed, not requiring steroids or harmful chemicals. An acre of Hemp yields about 15 bushels, or 660 pounds of seed. That breaks down to 180 pounds of oil and 450 pounds of cake per acre.
Over the 62 acres here, the State Police destroy 11,124 pounds of oil and 25,956 pounds of food in the form of seed cake. Every year the State Police spend an ever increasing amount of tax dollars eradicating Hemp, and lying to Hoosiers by calling it Marijuana.
We may never know how many crimes are committed against persons and property while State Troopers were harvesting and destroying Hemp, wasting a lot of natural resources, violating the civil rights of its citizens then claiming they were doing something good.. This is far too high a price to pay for a misguided social policy that hurts the people of Indiana far more than it helps.
In other words, the Indiana State Police ruined several million dollars worth of natural, helpful products and didn’t even accomplish their equally misguided goal of keeping Marijuana away from adult citizens. Usually around harvest time, the Indiana State Police claim to cut down somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 million Marijuana plants, mostly in northern Indiana.
Their stated goal is to remove Marijuana from the underground market. But the vast majority of what they cut down isn’t psychoactive Marijuana; it’s the world’s oldest cultivated plantdesigned to feed us, clothe us, house us, heal us and power us: HEMP. Further, this is feral, or wild Hemp, much of which was planted between 1911 and 1945. You probably couldn’t get high from it if you smoked all of what grows there.

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2 Responses to A Dark Harvest

  1. mr merro March 7, 2020 at 7:11 pm #

    Mate thanks for this website. I do agree with you

  2. skywolf January 15, 2020 at 11:12 pm #

    Thank you! Yes, you may quote from my post, not a problem!