HEMP CAN DRIVE OUR WORLD

Editor:

If people would just Google the words "industrial hemp," they would
find there is a simple answer to all of our energy and gasoline problems.

Making car fuel from corn is good, but hemp can produce more fuel per
acre than corn, and at a much lower cost.

Hemp doesn't need the expensive and damaging chemicals we use with
corn - and unlike corn, we don't need prime land to grow hemp. It will
grow big on even marginal soil.

It's really quite simple if we follow these steps:

1. Get our long-suffering Canadian farmers to grow lots of
hemp.

This will save many of them from bankruptcy without having to dip into
public coffers.

2. Process that hemp into biomass fuel for cars.

3. Add this fuel to gasoline at an increase of five per cent per year
for 20 years, until we are no longer using crude oil for car fuel.

This slow shift will keep our oil-based economy from suddenly
"sloshing to one side," so to speak.

Many people seem to think that cars can only run on gasoline, when the
truth is they actually run better on cleaner fuel.

But Big Oil doesn't want us to know that.

Hemp is clean and endlessly renewable, while gasoline is the devil's
urine.

The only good thing about gasoline is that it is finite.

The next step is to grow even more hemp and throw it into the
coal-fired power plants that feed our mind-boggling electricity demands.

We add the hemp to the coal at five per cent per year so the coal
industry won't collapse and cause sudden unemployment.

We also wouldn't need to spend more money building nuclear power
plants.

So why are we not using hemp?

The only thing lacking is political will.

Apparently, using hemp for fuel would "send the wrong message to
youth" about marijuana.

Russell Barth

Ottawa