Hemp vs. Big Oil: The solution to our addiction

Try to imagine a world without oil. (and without hemp for a matter of fact as well) Look around the room and count how many things need oil in order for it to be created. The computer you're reading this on, the paint on your walls, and even possibly the clothes you're wearing are made out of oil. Oil is the staple product in today's society and there is no denying that. We use it for travel, plastics, lubricants, and even in the pesticides we spray on our crops use oil. Oil is such a useful product that we use it in our day to day activities without even realizing it. However, even with all the things oil can create there is one problem with it, there is only a limited supply of it. Currently, if all the oil in the world disappeared everything would collapse. We wouldn't be able to transport crops across the country, drive ourselves to work, or even transport products such as coal to produce electricity. There is a whole list of things that could go wrong. We're pretty much back to where we were without oil.

Here's where hemp comes to save the day. Almost every single product that you can make out of oil, you can make out of hemp. From plastics, paints, to even gasoline hemp can be used to help sustain our economy. Ironically, one of the main reasons that hemp is illegal is because big oil lobbied congress to make hemp illegal along with marijuana. The oil companies were so afraid of the capabilities of this plant that they needed to have it illegal in order to control the market. Instead of having landfills filled with non-biodegradable plastics, we could of possibly had hemp plastics instead, which to degrade and are also great for recycling. Just to think that the entire course of history could of been possibly changed because of this plant. Sadly, history is the way it is and we cannot change the past. However, we can learn from the past and try to fix our mistakes. Fixing the past isn't going to be easy, actually it's going to be extremely hard.

The first obstacle that we have to overcome is the law. Technically, it's not illegal to grow hemp, however, you need to have a special permit from the DEA which is nearly impossible to get. The DEA doesn't want to see hemp grown because of the slippery slope theory. If you start growing hemp people will start to think it's okay to grow marijuana. Since they don't want to lose their funding from the Federal Government the DEA is going to oppose any easy access to the production of hemp. In the past two decades the DEA has spent $175 million to eradicate ditch weeds. Basically, Hemp that went feral after the "Hemp for Victory" campaign during World War II. If people try to change the laws and make hemp easy to grow, the DEA is only going to come up with some excuses to why we shouldn't grow hemp. An example would be people could hide marijuana plants in the field. Ironically, this would ruin the hemp crop and wouldn't even be that good as marijuana. Theoretically, you might be able to charge someone with destruction of property if they tried to grow marijuana in a hemp field.

Another obstacle is the oil companies. I'd be willing to bet that the oil companies would lobby congress if we tried to use congress to change the hemp laws. The good news is the people can change the law themselves on the state level. They don't have to go through legislative bodies and worry about lobbyists corrupting the system. Even after succeeding in changing the law there will still be plenty of obstacles. The oil companies might do one of two things, invest heavily into the hemp industry or try to kill it by out competing it. In order to change the supply we must change the demand. Try to boycott oil based products and replace it with hemp based products. Boycotts have always been a great way to grab the attention of companies. Even with the massive power the oil companies have, other companies have to listen to our basic economic principles of supply and demand. An example would be Wal-mart and the whole organic food movement. Wal-mart has started to sell organic foods at their stores because they listened to the basic principle of demand and the supplier should listen to the demand. While I'm not a huge fan of Wal-mart personally, it's still a good example of how people can change things by just changing the products they consume.

Since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, I'm sure many people want to other alternatives. Liberal, conservative, or independent there is disdain for oil companies. Even if we can't agree on other issues many of us can agree that hemp is a useful product. We can all agree that oil will eventually run out and we'll need to find something to replace it. Economically, we can't just cut off our supply of oil and immediately go to hemp. We'll have to transition into it in a sustainable manner that won't cause chaos. As most of history has shown, immediate transition usually ends in disaster. Hemp and other sustainable options can help ensure that we don't reach chaos by doing nothing about the problem as well.