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An acre of hemp will produce from four to ten times as much paper pulp as will an acre of trees, over the period of time it takes pulp trees to grow to maturity, and hemp can be used to make paper more durable and environmentally friendly than wood. Changing to hemp-based paper could reduce deforestation by half. Hemp paper lasts hundreds of years longer than paper made from trees and doesn't require toxic bleaching chemicals.

While forty percent of all trees are cut down just to make paper, New Billion Dollar Crop, (Popular Mechanics, February 1938) stated that "Hemp is the standard fiber of the world. It has great tensile strength and durability. It is used to produce more than 5,000 textile products, ranging from rope to fine laces, and the woody "hurds" remaining after the fiber has been removed contain more than seventy-seven percent cellulose, and can be used to produce more than 25,000 products, ranging from dynamite to Cellophane."

Some studies indicate that an acre of hemp, in addition to its fiber production, will produce 300 gallons of oil that can be used for either food or fuel, plus more than three tons of residual presscake, (Notre Dame 1975) containing substantial nutritional value, including protein. The same acre of hemp will also produce bast fiber, for canvas, rope, lace and linen, and the hurd fiber for paper and building materials.

Marijuana is much safer, more effective and less costly than many alternatives currently in use. The Drug Enforcement Administration's own top administrative law judge, Francis L. Young, dismissed the drug warriors' untrue propaganda when he ruled in 1988 that, "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."

Beyond the grasp of the U.S. drug-abuse industrial complex and biased mass media, The Lancet, Britain's most widely respected, peer-reviewed medical journal, recently wrote that "The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health . . . Sooner or later politicians will have to stop running scared and address the evidence: cannabis per se is not a hazard to society but driving it further underground may well be." ("Deglamorising Cannabis," Volume 346, Number 8985, November 11, 1995.)

During a random survey of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 1990, 48 percent of the 1,035 respondents (about 10% of members) said they would prescribe smoking marijuana if it were legal. Another 30 percent said they would need more information. Only 22 percent said they would not prescribe it.

Forty-four percent of the respondents said they had already recommended marijuana to a patient to combat the nausea associated with chemotherapy. However, because a significant percentage of pot arrests are medical marijuana patients, doctors who make these recommendations do so at the risk of their medical licenses and livelihoods.

The video below explains the medical use and working of the Cannabis Sativa plant, also known as marijuana or hemp. Scientists, patients, a family doctor, a pharmacist, an anesthetist and a medicinal Cannabis producer, give their views on this versatile plant and its medicinal effects.

In the early 1990's, C & S Specialty Builder's Supply (namely Bill Conde, Dave Seber, Barry Davis, and Tim Pate) in Harrisburg, Oregon, imported regulated bales of hemp and began working on a medium density fiberboard (MDF). The evolution of hemp MDF as a viable building supply option began when Bill Conde of C & S took their hemp fiber research and ideas to Paul Maulberg, the head of Washington State University's Wood Engineering Laboratory.

Conde explains in a 2005 Mycotopia blog, "We asked if [Maulberg] would consider trying some hemp fiber to make some experimental hemp MDF, and his reply was, 'You bet, hemp is the King Cong of fiber. I would love a chance to work with some."

Excitedly, Conde and team began the process working with Maulberg on creation and testing of the hemp MDF. It was soon discovered how strong the hemp fiber truly was, as the full-length hemp fibers jammed both of the processing machines and brought things to a standstill. The process for breaking down the fibers was redesigned and restarted with ultimate success.

Explaining the process in his blog, Conde says, "The shortened fiber was worked through their two mills and was made ready to be pressed into MDF." After being fluffed hemp fibers are dropped into a spinning drum where glue is sprayed to mix with the fibers. Glue and fiber are then placed into a hot press under high pressure. According to Conde, within two attempts they had exceeded all world standards for other types of MDF that used tree fiber.