The Good side of Hemp

Think about what you did this morning, put on some clothes and received the newspaper, a typical routine for many Americans. Although, these items are not made of the typical cotton and wood, they are made from another raw material known as hemp. This plant is very fast at growing and can be very inexpensive. Many people argue over this because of many reasons. As for me, I believe we should use this raw material in our favor.

Many positive things come with hemp, but with all good things, some bad things also tag along. As stated above, it can be used as a raw material on clothing and paper. It can also be used in farming, jewelry, and medicine. There is the bad side to hemp. This is when it is used in the addicting drug known as marijuana. Another down side would be that many industries would be put out of business.

There are many examples of what hemp can actually be used for, so I will only list a few. As I said before, Hemp can be used in farming and jewelry. For the farming use of hemp, it is
Used to purify soil and water, as well as keeping weeds under control. The jewelry isn’t very fancy, just bracelets necklaces, and rings. Along with those uses, Hemp can also be used for food and medicine. As food, hemp has a very good nutritional value including it’s the “vegetable oil which contains the highest amount of essential fatty acids”, and can be used as a dietary supplement. In medicine, hemp can be used as a pain killer towards many diseases.
“The evidence is overwhelming that marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS -- or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day."


- Joycelyn Elders, MD
As for clothing, a clothing company named “WiseUp!” already produces many hemp clothing products. Also for paper, hemp paper would be made by waste and byproducts of other items. Hemp can also help in the reduction of our very large carbon foot print that we have left on this planet.
“Hemp can be used to produce 4.1 times more paper per acre than trees.”

-US Dept. of Agriculture bulletin 404


There are only a few bad things against hemp, but even so, they keep it from becoming the number one raw material in use. The main topic against hemp is the creation of marijuana from it. This drug is very addicting and does damage to your body. Another bad thing that marijuana causes is to put industries out of business. The main industry it would put out of business would be the paper making business. Even though this happens the industries can just switch to hemp as their material.

As you can see Hemp is very helpful to the world and can still be further developed. I believe that if we give it a chance, we will save many trees and may even save many lives. I hope you will over look the good for the bad, and will support hemp for a raw material. The question still remains, would you use hemp in your everyday life?