1. No Drug Potential

Industrial hemp was once widely grown throughout the Midwestern United States, and today is still utilized as an industrial resource in many countries around the world. In fact, feral descendants of the finest quality industrial hemp still thrive in scattered pockets throughout the Midwestern United States. Industrial hemp is known to produce exceedingly low amounts of THC (drug), and extremely high amounts of CBD (non-drug). For example, the industrial hemp currently growing wild (feral) throughout the Midwestern United States has a THC 'concentration that is less than 0. 10 %, and a CBD concentration greater than 2.5 %. Thus. industrial hemp has no drug potential.

2. No Camouflage Issue

Industrial hemp is not medical marijuana, it's very easy to tell the two apart. Medical marijuana plants have (1) a wide leaflet width, and, because they produce so much THC And so little CBD, when crushed yield (2) a sticky vegetable material. Industrial hemp plants on the other hand are easy to distinguish from medical marijuana by virtue of their (1) extremely thin leaflet width and (2) non-sticky vegetable material (see *). Industrial hemp completely overgrows medical marijuana. The genetics of industrial hemp are dominant over that of medical marijuana. Medical marijuana plants grown anywhere within miles of a field of industrial hemp transform into material consisting primarily of seeds. (Which-yield non-medical" plants) and stems. I have been told that the last thing an illicit grower would want to do is try to grow medical marijuana anywhere near industrial hemp, Thus, the utilization of industrial hermp will actually decrease the cultivation of medical marijuana in the same area.

3. Nothing Else To Grow That Yields So Much (Greater Than 50,000 Different Uses) For New Mexico Farmers

Industrial hemp represents a multi-billion dollar crop. New Mexico farmers deserve access to this crop. Industrial hemp produces 4 times more pulp, and therefore paper, per acre, per unit time, than one acre of wood. Industrial hemp needs no fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Industrial hemp is drought resistant; can reverse erosion; enrich soils, and take toxic chemicals and metals out of the soil, water. and air. Industrial hemp, when grown as a living wall grown around fields of different (non-hemp) crops, is also an effective pollen-barrier for those crops which need to be kept genetically separate from each other.

4. Upon Activation of Executive Order 12919, New Mexico Farmers Could Supply The National Defense Stockpile With Industrial Hemp

During a National Emergency, if Executive Order 12919 titled "National Defense Industrial Resources Preparedness," which defines hemp to be "critical" to the National Security of the United States, is activated, it will become the mandate of the United, States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to oversee the United States Department of Defense (DOD) and the United States Department of Energy (DOE), to produce hemp for the National Defense Stockpile (NDS); i.e., as excerpted from E.O. 12919:

"(e) "Food resources" means all commodities and products, simple, mixed, or compound, or complements to such commodities or products, that are capable of being ingested by either human beings or animals, irrespective of other uses to which such commodities or products may be put, at all stages of processing from the raw commodity to the products thereof in vendible form for human or animal consumption. "Food resources" also means all starches, sugars, vegetable and animal or
marine fats and oils, cotton, tobacco, wool, mohair, hemp. flax fiber and naval store, but does not mean any such material after it loses its identity as an agricultural commodity or agricultural product."

The infrastructure needed to produce industrial hemp for the NDS upon activation of E.O.12919 is lacking. New Mexico farmers could have the satisfaction of helping promote United States National Security by providing this infrastructure, and industrial hemp, to the NDS.

5. In 90 To 100 Days, One Acre of Industrial Hemp Grown In New Mexico May Produce (some conservative back-of-the-envelope estimates):

10 to 20 tons of Hemp Stalk
Equivalent to ~ 1000 gal of gasoline (biomass conversion @15 lbs stalk/hr into producer gas to generate 1OkW), or
10 tons of animal bedding, or
10 tons of artificial wood- (for cooking and heating), or
5 tons of purified alpha-cellulose, or
5 tons of cellulose acetate plastic (for rayon "synthetic silk"), or
5 tons of cellulose butyrate plastic (for 1-beams, fuel tanks, and car bodies), or
2 tons of lignin (for hard plastics), or
12,000 gal of pulp for paper making.

3 to 8 tons of high-grade Fiber
Enough for thousands of pairs of shirts and or pants.

1 to 4 tons of Hemp Seed (as per E.O.12919)
160 gal of seed oil (high in essential fatty acids), or
150 gal of bio-diesel fuel, or
3000 lbs seed meal (high in essential amino acids, and essential fatty acids), or
3000 gal milk (ice cream and tofu).

by: Brooks I Kelly, Ph.D.
Molecular and Cell Biologist
Advisor to the Oglala Lakota Industrial Hemp Project
Advisor to the New Mexico Industrial Hemp Growers Association, Inc.
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"hemp is the healing of the nations"