HEMP FOR VICTORY IN 2007

The New Year rolled in as usual, lots of fireworks and then off to bed... and we all lived happily ever after, except for those of us who didn't, i.e., Saddam Hussein. The last day of 2006 he made the front of all the papers, and with him, so did hemp...as it was pointed out in the Times hemp was his undoing, coils of it placed around his neck, and he will not be able to dictate anymore. In days of yore they referred to the gallows as the hemp horse, and SH rode his last on the back of this beast. At least he kept his poise, but don't expect Elton John to rewrite "Candle in the Wind" for him. Oh well, someone else will be able to collect a few sixpacks from the coalition-of-the-silly as they appoint someone to preside over the land of car bombings and no running water. It was bad under SH, but not that bad, and killing him in such a cold-blooded way, on the holiest day of the Moslem year, the feast of forgiveness, whose bright idea was that? The video of it is now top-of-the-charts in the snuff movie world.

So here we are in the brave new year, sans SH, and at least we got to see hemp used for something. 2006 was the year another intelligent initiative in the US got snuffed out by the son-of-a-Nazi in the US, so the hemp bought and sold there will be mostly Chinese or Canadian in origin; unless people get on the ball and make it happen.

Here in the UK hemp at least grows, much of it made into cigarette paper or hemp oil. The government does not seem to be behind it, even though the environment secretary David Miliband moans now that environmental issues are key in politics. Just how much experience does he have in anything green anyway? We'll soon see, as one of my goals for this year is to get on the government's case about hemp, and hopefully there will be biofuel plants and paper plants all over the UK. The Lib Dems are definitely behind me on this, Baroness Jenny Tonge spent part of last year in support of this issue, making the effort to attend the Medical Cannabis presentation in a committee room in the Parliament buillding in May and asking a question about hemp in the House of Lords later in the year.

Paper and ethanol are but two of the many uses to which we could put hemp here. There is insulation, textiles, MDF boards, sails, building material, and of course, rope...in case they bring back the hemp horse.