- Revitalise the rural economy due to downstream processing done locally.
- Remove dependence in some areas on illegal cannabis crops and transfer that dependence to legal industrial hemp crops.
- Create healthier citizens through the availability of nature’s most nutritionally complete source of easily digestible EFA’s. (Essential Fatty Acids – foodstuffs)
- Provide some inspiration and rotation options for hard pressed primary producers.
Industrial Hemp is currently being used to produce:
TEXTILES
- Apparel.
- Fabrics and soft furnishings.
- Handbags.
- Working clothes.
- Socks.
- Fine textiles (from cottonised fibres).
TECHNICAL TEXTILES
- Rope products.
- Canvas products.
- Carpet backing.
- Geo-textiles.
- Horticultural uses.
TECHNICAL PRODUCTS
- Oil paints.
- Varnishes.
- Printing inks.
- Fuel.
- Solvents.
- Putty.
PAPER
- Fine and specialty papers.
- Printing paper.
- Technical filter paper.
- Newsprint.
- Cardboard and packaging.
BUILDING MATERIALS
- Particle board.
- Cement blocks.
- Stucco and mortar.
FOODS
- Salad oil.
- Ice cream and milk.
- Pasta.
- Baking and breads.
HEMP OIL SEED CAKE
- Animal feed.
- Protein-rich flour.
- Birdseed.
PERSONAL HYGIENE
- Soap.
- Shampoo.
- Bath gels.
- Cosmetics.
OTHER INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS
- Agro-fibre composites.
- Compression moulded parts.
- Brake/Clutch linings.
- Caulking.
- Insulation.
- Fibreglass substitute.
VARIOUS
- Animal bedding.
- Mulch.
- Mushroom compost.
“Hemp will save the world!”
Some industrial hemp advocates righteously claim that hemp will save the world, they are well meaning but seriously misguided, no single person entity or plant in isolation can possibly rectify the damage that man has inflicted on his environment. The NZHIA believes this environmental damage to be an indisputable fact, supported by a myriad of scientific data.
In 150 or so, years since the Industrial Revolution, we have released carbon, carbon dioxide and many other nasties BACK into our atmosphere, these same took nature 100’s of millions of years to remove from the earth’s atmosphere and thus give us the climatic conditions we currently enjoy.
It was a long slow process. It is inconceivable that future generations, 20- 50- 5,000 years hence will not pay the price for that folly. Still we dither around bound by our personal life-cycle; our thinking seldom goes beyond our immediate surroundings and life span. Hemp itself may not ‘save’ the earth’s environment, as human beings ‘like’ it, but, the change in attitudes from a petrochemical (hydrocarbons) based world economy, to a closed, self perpetuating environmentally sensitive plant based (carbohydrate) economy such as Henry Ford envisioned whilst growing HEMP in 1941, quite probably will.
“Anything that can be made from hydrocarbons, can be made from carbohydrates.”
Henry Ford. 1941
1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
FINAL ACT OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE TO CONSIDER AMENDMENTS TO THE SINGLE CONVENTION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS 1961, the conference was held on 6-24 March 1972
Article 28 – CONTROL OF CANNABIS
- If a party permits the cultivation of the cannabis plant for the production of cannabis or cannabis resin, it shall apply thereto the system of production of controls as provided in article 23 respecting the control of the opium poppy.
- This convention shall not apply to the cultivation of the cannabis plant exclusively for industrial purposes (fibre and seed) or horticultural purposes.
- The parties shall adopt such measures as may be necessary to prevent the misuse of, and illicit traffic in, the leaves of the cannabis plant.
Article 49 TRANSITIONAL RESERVATIONS
- (f) The use of cannabis for other than medical and scientific purposes must be discontinued as soon as possible but in any case within twenty-five years from the coming into force of this Convention as provided in paragraph 1 of arctic 41.
New Zealand is a signatory to this convention, the first words of which are: “Concerned with the health and welfare of mankind”.