cannabisnews.com: Hemp Backers Can't Move Mayor





Hemp Backers Can't Move Mayor
Posted by FoM on October 26, 2000 at 08:00:04 PT
By S.J. Komarnitsky, Daily News Mat-Su Bureau
Source: Anchorage Daily News
 The white Dodge van that pulled in front of Wasilla City Hall on Wednesday afternoon was an eye-catcher: painted green leaves covered the sides and a bumper sticker slapped on the door read, "Bush and Gore make me want to Ralph." But the van's singular quality wasn't the paint job. This was a pot-powered vehicle -- a "Hempmobile." In the tank were four gallons of KeroGreen, a fuel made from hemp seed oil, donated by a man in Ohio. 
Organized by the Alaska Green Party and Hemp 2000, the trip in the alternatively powered van was aimed at bringing attention to an initiative to legalize marijuana in Alaska, and to the campaign of Anna Young, a Green party candidate running against U.S. Rep. Don Young. (The two are not related.) Anna Young donated the van, a 1985 Ford Econoline with 75,000 miles that she has used for her campaign. A former gillnetter, Young said she has crusaded for alternative fuels since the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill destroyed her commercial fishing business in Prince William Sound. "The spill ruined my family," she said. "I want options. If I have to go to Washington, D.C. to get those to happen, I will." She drove to Wasilla hoping to convince Mayor Sarah Palin that she was wrong to introduce a city council resolution opposing Proposition 5, which would legalize pot use in Alaska for adults in private places and also legalize growing industrial hemp for products such as fuel. Joining Young was her mother, two members of the Hemp 2000 campaign -- R.L Marcy and Don Hart -- and a man who would identify himself only as Rob, a biodiesel engineer and a biology student at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Of all people, Palin should know the difficulty of enforcing current pot laws, Young said. "I know where all the pot comes from," Young said. "I know where fishermen get their marijuana. They get it from Wasilla." The group spent nearly an hour with Palin in her office. They handed her brochures and pamphlets about hemp, and gave her gifts, including a pair of hemp gloves and a hemp necklace. They also handed out a box of hemp-flower candies made in Switzerland, which tasted about like one might expect a honey-flavored hemp lozenge to taste. Growing hemp in Alaska could bring in thousands of jobs, Hart told Palin. People could use it to make paper and clothes and fuel, even fish food. "It's a perfect food to feed fish fry," he said. Palin, who has admitted to inhaling as a young woman, said little. But she repeatedly asked why, if the goal was growing hemp for clothing, did the group write the initiative to make it legal to smoke marijuana to get high? They had to write it that way, Hart said. Otherwise farmers would be required to test their crops to prove it wasn't the type of marijuana people smoke for pleasure. The cost of testing would make industrial hemp unprofitable, he said. Palin remained unmoved. She said later she thought growing hemp for clothing and fuel were side issues. "Those don't really have anything to do with the foundation of what the initiative is," she said. But even if Young didn't convince Palin, she considered the trip a success. The van ran smoothly and appeared to get about 20 miles per gallon on the hemp fuel, which is about what it usually gets, she said. It smelled better too, she said. S.J. Komarnitsky can be reached at: skomarnitsky adn.com Phone: 907-352-6711Source: Anchorage Daily News (AK)Author: S.J. KomarnitskyPublished October 26, 2000Author: S.J. KomarnitskyCopyright: 2000 The Anchorage Daily News Contact: letters adn.com Website: http://www.adn.com/ Free Hemp in AlaskaAl Anders, Chair2603 Spenard RoadAnchorage, Alaska 99503 (907) 278-HEMP E-mail: freehempinak gci.netVisit their web site: http://www.freehempinak.orgHemp 2000R.L. Marcy, ChairP.O. Box 90055Anchorage, AK 99509907-376-2232 (p)Fax: 907-376-0530 (f)E-mail: marcy hemp2000.orgVisit their web site: http://www.hemp2000.org Alaska Voters To Consider Hemp Legalization http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7369.shtmlAlaska's Top Crophttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7344.shtmlImaginative Growers Strive To Be Stealthy http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7343.shtmlHemp Initiative is Foolish and Dangerous http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7317.shtml
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Comment #3 posted by kaptinemo on October 26, 2000 at 19:05:59 PT:
Rudolph Diesel's dream
Did you know that the inventor of the diesel engine intended his creation to run on hemp seed based fuels? Remember, Germany has no native oil deposits, but plenty of arable land. It's one vast alluvial plain. Perfect for growing hemp. Which would be strategically vital to a nation without oil deposits to fuel its' economy...or its' war machine. A fact not lost on the Mainland Chinese: much of the fuel for their military vehicles is bio-based.How to make Hemp based diesel fuels:http://www.westhemp.com/fuels.htmSome more interesting comments about BioDiesel:http://www.hemp-cyberfarm.com/htms/articles/economistbio.htmland,http://www.hemp.net/hughdowns.htmlKind of makes you wonder what the *true* reason behind cannabis's becoming illegal was really all about, doesn't it...narks?
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Comment #2 posted by mungojelly on October 26, 2000 at 10:38:02 PT:
if you factor in all the costs
If you factor in all of the costs, there is no doubt that hempseed oil is cheaper than petroleum. Hemp will keep growing out of the ground for as long as their sun continues to shine; the oil wells can be run dry exactly once. As far as pot smokers using industrial hemp as a trick to get marijuana legalized -- come on, one has to appreciate the irony: marijuana was originally used as a trick to get industrial hemp illegalized! They're just angry that we would dare to hit them back with their own dirty illogic. They were sure after all of these years that we had really let them get away with it! 
mungojelly
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Comment #1 posted by Dr. Ganj on October 26, 2000 at 08:51:48 PT
KeroGreen!
Now that's progress! I'm in the Bay area, and gas is 2.00 a gallon, and I'll bet KeroGreen can be made for less than that. This is what scares the petroleum companies-cheap alternative fuel. Let's see how long Americans can take spending this much on gas when they learn there are other cheaper alternatives out there, such as hempseed oil motor fuel.See you all at the pot pumps!Dr. Ganj 
http://www.hempstores.com/hempstores/about_hemp.html
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