Hemp

 Phhh…Phhh…I smoked but I didn’t inhale. We’ll be talking hemp next…but it’s not what you think. Hemp will always carry that you-know-what connotation. Let’s put all the cliché jokes away and get to the root of the matter, industrial hemp.  You know the kind they make rope out of, it is an excellent source for alternative fuels…so much so that a Kentucky lawmaker has introduced legislation to legalize industrial hemp as a cash crop. Hemp is used in alternative automobile fuels and in such products as paper, cloths, cosmetics, and carpet.  Currently, all hemp included in products sold in the United States must be imported.

 Here’s John Crocket, State of Idaho’s Department of Energy Development. “They want to legalize hemp. I don’t know if that’s gonna do you any good David. When I took a bio-diesel class up at the university 2 years ago, there was a guy from Canada there, he was a hemp grower and had brought some oil to make into bio-diesel. I guess it works pretty good for bio-diesel.”