Let’s save the planet
We can. We just need to fully legalise hemp.
Here’s the thing, hemp is a sustainable green gold that can feed us, clothe us, shelter us, heal us and more. Wild caught salmon is not as good, in fact...
Hemp massively outperforms wild salmon as a food for health. It’s richer in essential fatty acids, aminos, minerals, protein and more. Forget dairy foods! Who needs cows when there’s 11.5mg of calcium in every gram of hemp seed, and essential fats to beat the band? No one, that’s who.
Our farmers should be growing hemp, because food is only one of its gifts.
Hemp yields four times more cellulose than timber per acre on an annual basis. We can save lives from forestry deaths and improve things, too. It’s a no brainer; but wait, there’s more...
Hemp’s the strongest natural fibre in the world, able to provide fine linen, tough fabrics, engineered timber, cellophane, graphene, dynamite, and most things petro chemicals can!
Hemp heals. I know people who are treating themselves with hemp for Crohn’s disease, eczema, pain, arthritis, anxiety, insomnia, fibromyalgia and cancer.
Some use the roots, some use the flowers and leaves. All of them claim benefit. The reasons for this success are fascinating. A friend of mine has even saved lives that ‘medicine’ had given up on.
So come talk to me at the Grey Lynn Farmers Market or The Hemp Foundation’s pop-up shop (at the Grey Lynn end of Richmond Road). We should all learn how this vegetable supports our body’s natural function. It’s a plant that is sympathetic to our biology. It’s easy to grow too. Hippocrates was right, we should let food be our medicine.
Natural medicine has its opponents. There is never enough evidence for them. Not in history, not in science, nor in patient reports. Sometimes people just can’t see the wood for the trees, (theres nowt so queer as folk!). Are we just the consumer ‘mushrooms’ of industry? (ie, kept in the dark and fed on….?)
You decide. Here’s some fun facts about industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa), and its cousin the electric puha (Cannabis indica)
1. Cannabis is c.27,800,000 years older than humanity.
2. It’s our single most valuable crop (top quality food, top quality fibre, top quality medicine)
3. China is growing 1,968,590 acres, and wants 4,921,475 acres within five years.
4. In 1937 the US government removed hemp and ‘cannabis’ from the market by putting a $75,000 tax on all who ‘touched the plant’ (farmers and doctors).
5. On the false grounds they were dangerous narcotics; aka ‘the handmaidens of heroin, crime and insanity’.
6. The American Medical Association fought this for five years. “Your evidence is newspaper clippings.”
7. Peter Dunne, Conor English, the British
PM’s husband (Philip May) and the UK Drugs Minister’s
husband (Paul Kenward) are all in the cannabis growing
business.
As are many other politicians.
8. Between 26-35% of all human-targeting drugs, target our cannabinoid system.
9. Our cannabinoid system protects us, and maintains normal function.
10. $360,000,000,000+ of Big Pharma’s revenues are up for grabs. (360bn+)
11. Treasury says our current health system costs ensure a ‘debt based future’.
12. Cannabis should be legal, and understood, if we want to save ourselves.