Look closely into hemp as a real fuel. It can be used as a bio-fuel in diesel engines with little modification, but like most vegetable-based biofuels, it requires something else to keep it from gelling. It CANNOT be used to fuel gasoline engines except as an ethanol-style ADDITIVE.

Do some research. Hemp is great for many things, I'm not arguing that. I'm just telling you hemp-a-holics that it's not the wonder plant that will save the world from all of its problems. It will make great ropes, awesome food additives, and more, but it WILL NOT MAKE GASOLINE.

Since the vast majority of our vehicles run on gasoline, hemp is not an alternative to powering them. Unless you want some kind of government-sponsored DHTV-box-style "coupon" or incentive to come into play to convert all these vehicles to "hemp" power. Ya, that's likely and won't break any budgets...

I also stated that crude oil is broken into parts to make things. ****80% OF CRUDE OIL IS USED TO MAKE PLASTICS AND HEAVY LUBRICANS**** You can't replace those plastics with hemp with the exception of a very few, lighter-use ones and you definitely can't use hemp oil to make tar or heavy greases of any use.

Since we're talking about fuel and oil replacements, I'll ignore your food commentary. I would suggest that you look closer, though, at the ingredients for many of your foods. You'll see that algae (usually in the form of mushrooms) is in a lot of foods, especially vegetarian alternatives.

--Aaron
The Militant Libertarian
http://www.MilitantLibertarian.org

I have never said hemp is NOT useful, but it's not useful for every damn thing under the sun either. I say the same sorts of things (on different subjects) to people who believe: that Ron Paul will save us all, that the Civil War was fought over slavery, that electric cars will save us, that global warming is all that Al Gore says it is, that we have to vote for McCain or the LIBERALS will win, that .... you get the idea.

If hemp can be used to make viable fuels, hard plastics, etc., then go to town with it. I also think that, since we're the only nation outlawing it, it would seem that OTHER first world countries would be utilizing it and experimenting with it to do these things.

I've known a research scientist who, until his retirement a couple of years ago, was experimenting with marijuana on government grants to do things like: coat aspirin and other drugs for ulcer patients, create capsules and liquid ingestibles for eating disorders and related cases (cancer patients) to restore appetite and reduce pain, and several other pharmaceutical uses. He loved his work, but also knew that it was being largely ignored because he was not allowed to publish anything on it.

I also know that, given our fuel and petroleum-based needs, one solution is not likely to be able to replace all or even most of it and multiple solutions will be better suited to the task as well as to creating market forces towards self-regulation.

My entire point in making that post was to make it clear that algae is a great solution and, in many respects, better than hemp for this one particular purpose (and a couple of related ones). I also wanted to make sure that the hemp-a-holics got angry enough to post something in response so that they and others would see that creating a religion out of something (in this case hemp or algae) potentially blinds you to reality.

--Aaron
The Militant Libertarian
http://www.MilitantLibertarian.org