The hemp agenda - emerging documentary and bill pushing legalization.

Anyways......okay, you know the deal with these documentaries! I am trying to inform you guys so you can spread the word and help charge the base. For some reason all these documentaries can help emotionally charge people to make benefitial changes. Also I am proud to support a fellow North Carolinian, this state is a hotbed for this kind of stuff. Also, help by making a contribution to the film to make it mainstream.







LINK

http://www.bringingithomemovie.com/

Please donate if you can! Legislation for hemp legalization is HR 1831

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr1831

I'd support it right off as i dont feel its the governments business to tell me what crops i can or cant grow, and i was honestly expecting to find another 'legalization' bill that promotes mere demotion from prohibition to regulation but honestly it isnt another 500 page bill and it simply states that industrial hemp ought to be exempt from marijuana laws, simple and to the point... but what does one expect from the good doctor?

i didn't honestly know that hempcrete had that level of fire resistance but how strong is it compared to normal concrete?

Well, hempcrete is a composite material with fibers making much less susceptible to brittle fracture compared to concrete, however concrete can withstand far more compressive strength (I believe roughly 20 times hempcrete). On that same token, say I stack 5 concrete blocks and 5 hempcrete blocks seperately on one another. Concrete is very heavy, roughly 7 times as heavy compared to an equally sized hempcrete block so hempcrete does not need to have as much compressive resistance. Also because it is light and resistant to fracture it good potential for ceiling applications. Hempcrete is also an insulator so on traditional wood frame construction it can enhance stability while providing energy savings. It also absorbs acoustic noise for an added bonus. People really try to pitch the carbon negative stuff but honestly I could care less about that as I am more interested in its nontoxicity.

I googled some hemp construction video. I think there can be some improvements in their process but it can give you a visual idea of the process.

Hemp and lime/clay makes good insulation and also makes great plaster. As well as that, hemp is an amazing plant with a long historical precedent (in fact, it used to be illegal NOT to grow it in most of the sea-faring countries in Europe) and I think it's essential to reduce barriers for growing it, in light of peak oil, as a replacement for synthetic fibres and energy intensive materials such as cotton.

Quite a lot of research on hemp and lime/clay happens at my university - you can find various papers and thesis here. Indeed, the Wales Institute for Sustainable Education which is on site incorporates hemp and lime as one of the main building materials.

Thanks Sam, I really appreciate that link. Wow, this information is invaluable, we should keep in touch

now despite some construction experience, im not too savvy with the engineering terms and what not but the reason i asked about the strength is because i would like to have an underground house someday and it would need to be strong enough to drive heavy machinary on top of it if that were ever nessacary, concrete sure makes this possible as ive seen it done, but could hempcrete do it? and could it take being underground 24/7 for thousands of years?

also im with you on toxicity levels being more important than the carbon negative aspect

Hi,

Check out
www.hemparchitecture.com
for more cutting edge construction research involving hemp.
interesting stuff
matt

www.hemparchitecture.com
sorry I hope this link above works better

Wow, thanks for the link! Well, the good news lately here is that recently legalization of marijuana is pushing at the federal level. This will mean if all goes to plan that hemp will no longer be illegal to grow. I would love to see timber frame hemp create hybrid construction. You can bet I would be at the spearhead of its implementation in building codes here locally.

While there are laws that prevent the growing of hemp (simply because the US doesn't recognize the difference between high-THC hemp and negligible-THC industrial hemp), the DEA can issue grow permits. Instead of trying to change the law at a fundamental level, it would probably be easier to make a case to the DEA to allow the issuance of industrial hemp permits.

Note that this is ALREADY BEING DONE on experimental-level plots in the state of Hawaii.

On a large scale it probably won't happen, though. We buy most of our baled hemp from Canada and Mexico, and thus it is a big part of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement). Allowing the US to grow hemp on an industrial scale would probably cause severe problems in the economies of our neighbors.

Devon Olsen wrote:now despite some construction experience, im not too savvy with the engineering terms and what not but the reason i asked about the strength is because i would like to have an underground house someday and it would need to be strong enough to drive heavy machinary on top of it if that were ever nessacary, concrete sure makes this possible as ive seen it done, but could hempcrete do it? and could it take being underground 24/7 for thousands of years?

also im with you on toxicity levels being more important than the carbon negative aspect

Hempcrete would not be the ideal material for subterranean applications in my opinion. I suspect concrete is superior in that you can utilize the curved ceilings or arches to take advantage of its compressive strength. It is also not an insulator so this will not enable you to utilize geothermal heating into your design.