In fact, hemp has been seen as so successful in removing radiation from the soil that it is even being considered for use in Fukushima for the purposes of drawing out radiation. the process by which hemp cleans polluted soil is called phytoremediation - a term given to the process of using green plants to clean up the environment or "remediate" soil or water that has been contaminated with heavy metals and excess minerals. Two plants that are members of the mustard family as well as sunflowers have been known to do the same for many years. And hemp is now finding itself in the same category.
As MintPress News wrote on October 6, 2015,
As cannabis journalist and researcher Seshata notes in her article "Hemp and the Decontamination of Radioactive Soil" - a number of studies that demonstrate hemp's durability in the face of pollutants as well as its ability to remove metals from the soil.A group of representatives of Consolidated Growers and Processors, PHYTOTECH, and Ukraine's Institute of Bast Crops experimented in the late 1990s with using industrial hemp, a form of the plant that's high in fiber but low in psychoactive or medical benefits, near the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, where a great deal of agricultural land is still unusable because of the presence of radiation and heavy metals still lingering from the 1986 meltdown."Hemp is proving to be one of the best phyto-remediative plants we have been able to find," said Slavik Dushenkov, a research scientist with PHYTOTECH.In 2009, scientists from Belarus also experimented with hemp in areas polluted by Chernobyl. The disaster contaminated nearly 20 miles around the site. The Belarusian scientists noted that one added benefit of industrial hemp over other phytoremediation plants is that it can also be used to produce biofuel, potentially adding a second use for the crop after it removes toxins from the soil."As with the Chernobyl incident, scientists are finding radioactive emissions and toxic metals - including iodine, cesium-137, strontium-90, and plutonium - concentrated in the soil, plants, and animals of Japan, but also now throughout the United States and all along the West Coast - from Canada to Mexico," Sarich wrote for Nation of Change.
She writes:
While some researchers such as the Belarusian researcher above suggest that the hemp plants that have been used for phytoremediation purposes could then be used as a biofuel - the truth is, we simply don't know if this is possible because the toxins may be once again released into the environment. Yet knowing that hemp can be used to extract the substances to begin with is itself an amazing discovery. Indeed, it seems we can chalk one more productive use for a plant that has been in the cross hairs of the law enforcement community, federal, state and local governments, corporations and other relevant monopoly interests. It is time the American people fully recognize benefits of hemp as a longterm solution to many issues and immediately demand that a senseless war on a plant be ended.Hemp's resilience to contaminants in soil is well-documented. Even as early as 1975, a studypublished in the Agronomy Journal described how soil characteristics influenced elemental uptake and could even affect final cannabinoid profile in psychoactive strains. To illustrate this, fifteen sites with varying soil profiles were planted with the same strain of Afghan cannabis, and their harvests tested for metal content. Researchers concluded that differences could be used to determine geographic origin of cannabis through foliar analysis.
In 1995, the Polish Institute of Natural Fibres released a study demonstrating that tested varieties were able to withstand high levels of heavy metals in soil without impacting plant growth, yield or fibre quality. However, little research has been done into the safety of using fibres in clothing or other forms of industry, and this issue must be investigated fully in order to establish the possible uses for hemp grown in such conditions.
As a proven, valuable tool in the fight to repair human-inflicted damage to our soils and ecosystems, hemp could potentially benefit hundreds of thousands of sites across the globe—it is estimated that in the USA alone there are 30,000 sites requiring remediation. As is so often the case, US restrictions on hemp cultivation preclude any large-scale operations from being implemented, and the contaminated sites are largely left unremediated, through lack of both funding and interest on the part of the government.
Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 600 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties.
We have an opportunity to create a new economic foundation based on renewable natural resources, yielding thousands of green jobs, producing a sustainable replacement for oil and the restoration of social consent and confidence in the body politic. All of that and more made manifest by a stroke of the pen, simply by properly classifying hemp as the medicine and beneficial resource that over 100,000,000 Americans already know it is. Hemp, cannabis is good.
The social benefit of a rational hemp policy would be to restore social consent and confidence in the body politic. Currently, over 100,000,000 Americans have used marijuana and have decided that it is a good thing, not dangerous and should be free, not used to ruin peoples lives by arrest, confiscation and disenfranchisement. Thinking people do their own research and many times conclude that the laws against marijuana are arbitrary, unjust, wrong and that the only people who support them are either uninformed or their jobs depend upon the mandatory acceptance of marijuana prohibition. This is the true silent majority, citizens who think that the marijuana laws are irrational and are afraid of persecution and discrimination if they express their opinions publicly.
Industrial hemp production could provide a domestic and renewable source of fuel, fiber and jobs. Hemp can be grown, produced and processed all across the land by thousands of urban farmers using land, lots, parks and public lands lying fallow and unused. These green jobs are about the growing, harvesting and processing of locally grown organics for food and fuel and could constitute the bedrock of a truly independent economy, intrinsically secure, renewable and stable, sustainable and most importantly doable.
The benefits of a rational hemp policy are financial, social and moral.
The economic impact of is three fold; first is the creation of Jobs based on a sustainable, clean source of fuel, fiber and medicine, estimated at over One Trillion dollars. Good jobs that produce energy and tax revenue that is
The second is the savings to taxpayers by eliminating the money spent on law enforcement, the courts and prisons, estimated at over 8 billion a year. The third is the cost to individuals and families who are criminalized by a system that encourages law enforcement to arrest people, fine them, confiscate their property, and disenfranchise them from the vote, healthcare, professional licenses and credit. This cost is measured in the billions of dollars. All totaled the war on marijuana and the lost opportunities to develop hemp; combined with the needless suffering of those persecuted is over 2 Trillion dollars a year.
The moral benefit is simple; the truth will set us free.
We need to decriminalize marijuana and repel the effects of the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act to restore the production, development and use of the most sustainable, renewable natural resource recorded in history. Hemp production can replace the use of oil as a fuel quickly, efficiently and at low cost. Hemp is a renewable crop that can be grown on land not used for food, improving the land and providing a carbon neutral source of fuel. Hemp production and processing will create jobs all across the land while providing a local and domestic source of energy.
The use of marijuana for medical purposes is the oldest and most universally documented use of any substance in medical history. 13 states have decided that marijuana is a beneficial plant and it is time allow and encourage the use and investigation of medical marijuana and industrial hemp.
Hemp production was the economic foundation of colonial America because it was readily grown and used for over 25,000 different purposes; Hemp was grown for sails, rope, oil for lamps, clothing and high quality paper. The Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper by Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of hemp for commerce, medicine and recreation. George Washington was one of the largest hemp growers in the colonies and the renewable income produced by this plant sustained our first president and his family before, during and after the revolution. It is fair to say that the spirit to be free and independent was made possible by the ability of our fore fathers to be economically independent and free. Hemp production was the backbone of liberty, freedom and economic independence for colonial America and could once again be the keystone of a renewable, sustainable and yes, Independent economy.