Fuel:

• Planting 6% of the continental U.S. with biomass crops would satisfy all America’s energy needs.
• Hemp is Earth’s number-one biomass resource; it is capable of producing 10 tons per acre in four months.
• Biomass can be converted to methane, methanol, or gasoline at a cost comparable to petroleum, and hemp is much better for the environment.
• Hemp can produce 10 times more methanol than corn.
• Hemp fuel burns clean. Petroleum causes acid rain due to sulfur pollution.
• The use of hemp fuel does not contribute to global warming.

Food:

• Hemp seed can be pressed into a nutritious oil, which contains the highest amount of fatty acids in the plant kingdom. Essential oils are responsible for our immune system responses, and clear the arteries of cholesterol and plaque.
• The byproduct of pressing the oil from hemp seed is high quality protein seed cake. It can be sprouted (malted) or ground and baked into cakes, breads, and casseroles. Hemp seed protein is one of mankind’s finest, most complete and available-to-the-body vegetable proteins.
• Hemp seed was the world’s number one wild and domestic bird seed until the 1937 Marijuana prohibition law. Four million pounds of hemp seed for songbirds were sold at retail in the U.S. in 1937. Birds will pick hemp seeds out and eat them first from a pile of mixed seed. Birds in the wild live longer and breed more with hemp seed in their diet, using the oil for the feathers and their overall health.

Fiber:

• Hemp is the oldest cultivated fiber plant in the world.
• Low-THC fiber hemp varieties developed by the French and others have been available for over 20 years. It is impossible to get high from fiber hemp. Over 600,000 acres of hemp is grown worldwide with no drug misuse problem.
• One acre of hemp can produce as much usable fiber as 4 acres of trees or two acres of cotton.
• Trees cut down to make paper take 50 to 500 years to grow, while hemp can be cultivated in as little as 100 days and can yield 4 times more paper over a 20 year period.
• Until 1883, from 75-90% of all paper in the world was made with cannabis hemp fiber including that for books, Bibles, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, newspapers, etc.
• Hemp paper is longer lasting than wood pulp, stronger, acid-free, and chlorine free. (Chlorine is estimated to cause up to 10% of all Cancers.)
• Hemp paper can be recycled 7 times, wood pulp 4 times.
• If the hemp pulp paper process reported by the USDA in 1916, were legal today it would soon replace 70% of all wood paper products.
• Rag paper containing hemp fiber is the highest quality and longest lasting paper ever made. It can be torn when wet, but returns to its full strength when dry. Barring extreme conditions, rag paper remains stable for centuries.
• Hemp particle board may be up to 2 times stronger than wood particleboard and holds nails better.
• Hemp is softer, warmer, more water absorbent, has three times the tensile strength, and is many times more durable than cotton. Hemp production uses less chemicals than cotton.
• From 70-90% of all rope, twine, and cordage was made from hemp until 1937.
• A strong lustrous fiber; hemp withstands heat, mildew, insects, and is not damaged by light. Oil paintings on hemp and/or flax canvas have stayed in fine condition for centuries.

Medicine:

• Deaths from marijuana use: 0
• From 1842 through the 1880s, extremely strong marijuana (then known as cannabis extractums), hashish extracts, tinctures, and elixirs were routinely the second and third most-used medicines in America for humans (from birth through old age). These extracts were also used in veterinary medicine until the 1920s and longer.
• For at least 3,000 years prior to 1842 widely varying marijuana extracts (bud, leaves, roots, etc.) were the most commonly used real medicines in the world for the majority of mankind’s illnesses.
• The U.S. Pharmacopoeia indicated cannabis should be used for treating such ailments as fatigue, fits of coughing, rheumatism, asthma, delirium tremens, migraine headaches, and the cramps and depressions associated with menstruation.
• In this century, cannabis research has demonstrated therapeutic value and complete safety in the treatment of many health problems including asthma, glaucoma, nausea, tumors, epilepsy, infection, stress, migraines, anorexia, depression, rheumatism, arthritis, and possibly herpes.
• Deaths from aspirin (U.S. per year): 180 – 1,000 +
• Deaths from legal drugs (U.S. per year) at doses used for prevention, diagnosis, or therapy: 106,000

Industry:

• Almost any product that can be made from wood, cotton, or petroleum (including plastics) can be made from hemp. There are more than 25,000 known uses for hemp.
• For thousands of years virtually all good paints and varnishes were made with hemp seed oil and/or linseed oil.
• Hemp stems are 80% hurds (pulp by-product after the hemp fiber is removed from the plant). Hemp hurds are 77% cellulose – a primary chemical feed stock (industrial raw material) used in the production of chemicals, plastics, and fibers. Depending on which U.S. agricultural report is correct, an acre of full grown hemp plants can sustainably provide from four to 50 or even 100 times the cellulose found in cornstalks, kenaf, or sugar cane (the planet’s next highest annual cellulose plants).
• One acre of hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as 4.1 acres of trees, making hemp a perfect material to replace trees for pressed board, particle board, and concrete construction molds.
• Heating and compressing plant fibers can create practical, inexpensive, fire-resistant construction materials with excellent thermal and sound-insulating qualities. These strong plant fiber construction materials could replace dry wall and wood paneling. William B. Conde of Conde’s Redwood Lumber, Inc. near Eugene, Oregon, in conjunction with Washington State University (1991-1993), has demonstrated the superior strength, flexibility, and economy of hemp composite building materials compared to wood fiber, even as beams.
• Isochanvre, a rediscovered French building material made from hemp hurds mixed with lime petrifies into a mineral state and lasts for many centuries. Archeologists have found a bridge in the south of France from the Merovingian period (500-751 A.D.), built with this process.
• Hemp has been used throughout history for carpet backing. Hemp fiber has potential in the manufacture of strong, rot resistant carpeting – eliminating the poisonous fumes of burning synthetic materials in a house or commercial fire, along with allergic reactions associated with new synthetic carpeting.
• Plastic plumbing pipe (PVC pipes) can be manufactured using renewable hemp cellulose as the chemical feed stocks, replacing non-renewable coal or petroleum based chemical feed stocks.
• In 1941 Henry Ford built a plastic car made of fiber from hemp and wheat straw. Hemp plastic is biodegradable, synthetic plastic is not.

Thanks to http://www.hempcar.org/hempfacts.shtml
for all these nicely compiled facts!

Other Hemp Resources on the ‘net:

• Hemp Industries Association
• HempStores.com
• VoteHemp.org
• HempEmbargo.com
• North American Industrial Hemp Council

FACT: The first Levi jeans were NOT made from hemp, as is often reported.

FACT: The original drafts of the Declaration of Independence were printed on hemp paper.

FACT: For the first 162 years of America’s existence, marijuana was totally legal and hemp was a common crop. But during the 1930s, the U.S. government and the media began spreading outrageous lies about marijuana, which led to its prohibition.

Consumer Reports and the government’s Environment Protection Agency, have tested dozens of these products finding that none of them offer any significant improvement in fuel economy.

“With all the pressure car companies are under, if one of these inexpensive devices dramatically did improve fuel economy, they (automakers) would be all over it,” said Paul.

Windows, air conditioning – who cares?

There’s the old saw that leaving your windows rolled down creates an aerodynamic drag on your car, cutting down on fuel efficiency. And there’s the notion that the fastest way to drain your gas tank is by running your air conditioning.

Don’t believe either one.

In two separate studies conducted in 2005, the automotive Web site Edmunds.com and Consumer Reports compared the fuel economy of both a sedan and an SUV at highway speeds with and without air conditioning and how open windows affected gas usage.

What they found was no significant difference in fuel economy in either sedan or SUV under either condition.

Don’t wait until Wednesday

Some drivers insist the best time to buy gasoline is on a Wednesday, when pump prices have cooled from the weekend run-up when oil companies typically raise prices.

That’s true to a point, says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. Gas prices tend to be higher on the weekend, but there’s no ideal day of the week to purchase your gas.

Geoff Sundstrom of the motorist organization AAA notes that gas prices fluctuate from day to day and are determined by gas station owners who look at a variety of factors including wholesale gasoline prices, competitors’ prices and food and drink sales if they have an attached convenience store.

Drivers who want to bargain-hunt for inexpensive gas should instead check out Web sites like Gasbuddy.com, which allows consumers to find the cheapest gas in their area simply by entering their zip code.

Restart your engines

It’s probably a myth that goes back to the days when cars were equipped with carburetors, but many drivers believe that starting up and turning off your car repeatedly is a fast way to drain your gas tank.

But because of modern fuel-injection technology, drivers actually save gas by turning off their engine than letting their car needlessly idle, says Consumer Reports’ Paul.

Granted it’s probably not sensible shutting down the engine every time you get stuck in traffic, but if it looks like you might be at the drive-thru for more than 30 seconds to a minute, it’s worth turning off your car, says Paul.

Tips you can use

So what are some fuel-savings tips you can trust?

• Make sure your tires are properly inflated for starters. Besides posing a safety hazard, underinflated tires can reduce your fuel economy slightly, based on Edmunds.com’s 2005 study.

• Removing excess weight from your car can also help save you gas. The Department of Energy estimates that drivers can save anywhere between 3 and 6 cents a gallon (assuming gas prices of $2.97 a gallon) just by removing those golf clubs and other unnecessary weight from your trunk.

• If your car comes equipped with cruise control, make sure you use it, especially on long trips. Edmunds.com’s study revealed that using cruise control at highway speeds offered an average fuel economy savings of 7 percent.

• But the biggest fuel saver is driving the speed limit and driving sensibly. Rapid starts and stops and exceeding the speed limit will dent your pocketbook. Just by adhering to one of those, the Department of Energy estimates that drivers can save anywhere between 15 and 98 cents a gallon, again assuming pump prices are at $2.97 a gallon.

Hope some of this info will help

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