GREEN Party president Peter Sinkamba has said Marijuana is a high value crop which could earn the country more than US$ 15 billion per year.
Mr Sinkamba said when he featured on a live “Big Issue’ programme on Feel Free FM in Chipata yesterday that Zambia had the potential of growing its economy by $15 billion pear in the cultivation of marijuana.
He said it was sad that Zambia had continued to earn its foreign exchange through the exporting of copper which had fallen on international market.
Mr Sinkamba recalled that Zambia between 1964 to 1970, was doing fine in the copper export to the international market but this time around things had changed due to the falling of copper prices.
He said Zambia’s economy on those days was twice more than Kenya adding that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was also more than Egypt.
Mr Sinkamba said this time around Zambia which was doing fine more than Kenya and Egypt was not because of being dependent on one export product.
He claimed that Brazil, Turkey, South Korea and Malaysia were doing fine in economy because of thinking outside the box.
He charged that due to the falling of copper on international market, the inflation rate for the country was also not doing fine.
“Currently, the inflation has risen due to the falling of copper prices on international market and let us start thinking outside the box,” he said.
He said the cultivation of marijuana could be more beneficial to the country because marijuana was regarded as high value crop which was being used to manufacture anti-retroviral drugs, cosmetic, fibre glass for cars and fuel.
Mr Sinkamba said Eastern Province was an agriculture place which could assist the growth of the economy through growing of marijuana.
this guy also, when every jim and jack is busy racking his/ her head, trying to see a way on how to stop the escalation of violence in the country, on how to preserve our peace, on how to see to it that we hold a peaceful and transparent election, on how to co-exist, he comes with this rhetoric.
tell your rubbish story to the birds……
In 1619, America’s first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia, “ordering” all farmers to “make tryal of “(grow) Indian hempseed. More mandatory (must-grow) hemp cultivation laws were enacted in Massachusetts in 1631, in Connecticut in 1632 and in the Chesapeake Colonies into the mid-1700s.
Even in England, the much-sought-after prize of full British citizenship was bestowed by a decree of the crown on foreigners who would grow cannabis, and fines were often levied against those who refused.
Cannabis hemp was legal tender (money) in most of the Americas from 1631 until the early 1800s. Why? To encourage American farmers to grow more.
You could pay your taxes with cannabis hemp throughout America for over 200 years.
You could even be jailed in America for not growing cannabis during several periods of shortage, e.g., in Virginia between 1763 and 1767.
(Herndon, G.M., Hemp in Colonial Virginia, 1963; The Chesapeake Colonies, 1954; L.A. Times, August 12, 1981; et al.)
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew cannabis on their plantations. Jefferson,3 while envoy to France, went to great expense, and even considerable risk to himself and his secret agents, to procure particularly good hempseeds smuggled illegally into Turkey from China. The Chinese Mandarins (political rulers) so valued their hemp seed that they made its exportation a capital offense.
The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp “plantations”* (minimum 2,000-acre farms) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton. Most of these plantations were located in the South or in the Border States, primarily because of the cheap slave labor available prior to 1865 for the labor-intensive hemp industry.
(U.S. Census, 1850; Allen, James Lane, The Reign of Law, A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields, MacMillan Co., NY, 1900; Roffman, Roger. Ph.D., Marijuana as Medicine, Mendrone Books, WA, 1982.)
*This figure does not include the tens of thousands of smaller farms growing cannabis, nor the hundreds of thousands if not millions of family hemp patches in America; nor does it take into account that well into this century 80% of America’s hemp consumption for 200 years still had to be imported from Russia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, etc..
Benjamin Franklin started one of America’s first paper mills with cannabis. This allowed America to have a free colonial press without having to beg or justify the need for paper and books from England.
In addition, various marijuana and hashish extracts were the first, second or third most-prescribed medicines in the United States from 1842 until the 1890s. Its medicinal use continued legally through the 1930s for humans and figured…
Cannabis extract medicines were produced by Eli Lilly, Parke-Davis, Tildens, Brothers Smith (Smith Brothers), Squibb and many other American and European companies and apothecaries. During all this time there was not one reported death from cannabis extract medicines, and virtually no abuse or mental disorders reported, except for first-time or novice-users occasionally becoming disoriented or overly introverted.
(Mikuriya, Tod, M.D., Marijuana Medical Papers, Medi-Comp Press, CA, 1973; Cohen, Sidney & Stillman, Richard, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, Plenum Press, NY, 1976.)
“The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp, which began to be worked in the eighth millennium (8,000-7,000 B.C.).” (The Columbia History of the World, 1981, page 54.)
From more than 1,000 years before the time of Christ until 1883 A.D., cannabis hemp, indeed, marijuana was our planet’s largest agricultural crop and most important industry, involving thousands of products and enterprises; producing the overall majority of Earth’s fiber, fabric, lighting oil, paper, incense and medicines. In addition, it was a primary source of essential food oil and protein for humans and animals.
GREAT WARS WERE FOUGHT TO ENSURE THE AVAILABILITY OF HEMP
For example, the primary reason for the War of 1812 (fought by America against Great Britain) was access to Russian cannabis hemp. Russian hemp was also the principal reason that Napoleon (our 1812 ally) and his “Continental Systems” allies invaded Russia in 1812. (See Chapter 11, “The (Hemp) War of 1812 and Napoleon Invades Russia.”)
In 1942, after the Japanese invasion of the Philippines cut off the supply of Manila (Abaca) hemp, the U.S. government distributed 400,000 pounds of cannabis seeds to American farmers from Wisconsin to Kentucky, who produced 42,000 tons of hemp fiber annually until 1946 when the war ended.
WHY HAS CANNABIS HEMP BEEN SO IMPORTANT IN HISTORY?
Because cannabis hemp is, overall, the strongest, most-durable, longest-lasting natural soft-fiber on the planet. Its leaves and flower tops (marijuana) were, depending on the culture, the first, second or third most-important and most-used medicines for two-thirds of the world’s people for at least 3,000 years, until the turn of the 20th century.
Botanically, hemp is a member of the most advanced plant family on Earth. It is a dioecious (having male, female and sometimes hermaphroditic, male and female on same plant), woody, herbaceous annual that uses the sun more efficiently than virtually any other plant on our planet, reaching a robust 12 to 20 feet or more in one short growing season. It can be grown in virtually any climate…
@Zed way, are you smoking the same stuff as your president? Take it easy with the essay. And Why do we even give this president coverage, anyway?
TRY TO PROVE ME WRONG
If all fossil fuels and their derivatives, as well as trees for paper and construction were banned in order to save the planet, reverse the Greenhouse Effect and stop deforestation…
Then there is only one known annually renewable natural resource that is capable of providing the overall majority of the world’s paper and textiles; meeting all of the world’s transportation, industrial and home energy needs; simultaneously reducing pollution, rebuilding the soil, and cleaning the atmosphere all at the same time…
And that substance is—the same one that did it all before—Cannabis Hemp…Marijuana!
But can we have adequate control to stop illegal trafficking? Can we control the supply to those purposes only?
Ninety percent* of all ships’ sails (since before the Phoenicians, from at least the 5th century B.C. until long after the invention and commercialization of steam ships, mid-to late-19th century) were made from hemp.
*The other 10% were usually flax or minor fibers like ramie, sisal, jute, abaca, etc.
(Abel, Ernest, Marijuana: The First 12,000 Years, Plenum Press, 1980; Herodotus, Histories, 5th century B.C.; Frazier, Jack, The Marijuana Farmers, 1972; U.S. Agricultural Index, 1916-1982; USDA film, Hemp for Victory, 1942.)
The word “canvas”1 is the Dutch pronunciation (twice removed, from French and Latin) of the Greek word “Kannabis.”*
1. Oxford English Dictionary; Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, 1910; U.S.D.A. film, Hemp for Victory, 1942.
*Kannabis, of the (Hellenized) Mediterranean Basin Greek language, derived from the Persian and earlier Northern Semitics (Quanuba, Kanabosm, Cana?, Kanah?) which scholars have now traced back to the dawn of the 6,000-year-old Indo-Semitic European language family base of the Sumerians and Acadians. The early Sumerian/Babylonian word K(a)N(a)B(a), or Q(a)N(a)B(a) is one of man’s longest surviving root words.1 (KN means cane and B means two, two reeds or two sexes.)
In addition to canvas sails, until this century virtually all of the rigging, anchor ropes, cargo nets, fishing nets, flags, shrouds, and oakum (the main protection for ships against salt water, used as a sealant between the outer and inner hull of ships) were made from the stalk of the marijuana plant. Even the sailors’…
Additionally, the ships’ charts, maps, logs, and Bibles were made from paper containing hemp fiber from the time of Columbus (15th century) until the early 1900s in the Western European/American World, and by the Chinese from the 1st century A.D. on. Hemp paper lasted 50 to 100 times longer than most preparations of papyrus, and was a hundred times easier and cheaper to make.
Incredibly, it cost more for a ship’s hempen sails, ropes, etc. than it did to build the wooden parts.
Nor was hemp use restricted to the briny deep…
TEXTILES & FABRICS
Until the 1880s in America (and until the 20th century in most of the rest of the world), 80% of all textiles and fabrics used for clothing, tents, bed sheets and linens,* rugs, drapes, quilts, towels, diapers, etc., and even our flag, “Old Glory,” were principally made from fibers of cannabis. For hundreds, if not thousands of years (until the 1830s), Ireland made the finest linens and Italy made the world’s finest cloth for clothing with hemp.
*The 1893-1910 editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica indicate, and in 1938, Popular Mechanics estimated, that at least half of all the material that has been called linen was not made from flax, but from cannabis. Herodotus (c. 450 B.C.) describes the hempen garments made by the Thracians as equal to linen in fineness and…
FIBER & PULP PAPER
Until 1883, from 75-90% of all paper in the world was made with cannabis hemp fiber including that for books, Bibles, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, newspapers, etc. The Gutenberg Bible (in the 15th century); Pantagruel and the Herb pantagruelion, Rabelais (16th century); King James Bible (17th century); Thomas Paine’s pamphlets, The Rights of Man, Common Sense, The Age of Reason (18th century); the works of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas; Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (19th century); and just about everything else was printed on hemp paper.
The first draft of the Declaration of Independence (June 28, 1776) was written on Dutch (hemp) paper, as was the second draft completed on July 2, 1776. This was the document actually…
ROPE, TWINE & CORDAGE
Virtually every city and town (from time out of mind) in the world had an industry making hemp rope.6 Russia, however, was the world’s largest producer and best-quality manufacturer, supplying 80% of the Western world’s hemp from 1640 until 1940.
Thomas Paine outlined four essential natural resources for the new nation in Common Sense (1776): “cordage, iron, timber and tar.”
From 70-90% of all rope, twine, and cordage was made from hemp until 1937. It was then replaced mostly by petrochemical fibers (owned principally by DuPont under license from Germany’s I.G. Farben Corporation patents) and by Manila (Abaca) Hemp, with steel cables often intertwined for strength, brought in from our “new” far-western Pacific Philippines possession, seized from Spain as reparation for the Spanish American War in 1898.
BIOMASS ENERGY
In the early 1900s, Henry Ford and other futuristic, organic, engineering geniuses recognized (as their intellectual, scientific heirs still do today) an important point, that up to 90% of all fossil fuel used in the world today (coal, oil, natural gas, etc.) should long ago have been replaced with biomass such as: cornstalks, cannabis, waste paper and the like.
Biomass can be converted to methane, methanol or gasoline at a fraction of the current cost of oil, coal, or nuclear energy, especially when environmental costs are factored in, and its mandated use would end acid rain, end sulfur-based smog, and reverse the Greenhouse Effect on our planet, right now!*
*Governments and oil and coal companies, etc., will insist that burning biomass fuel is no better than…
LIGHTING OIL
Hempseed oil lit the lamps of the legendary Aladdin, Abraham the prophet, and in real life, Abraham Lincoln.
It was the brightest lamp oil. Hempseed oil for lamps was replaced by petroleum, kerosene, etc., after the 1859 Pennsylvania oil discovery and John D. Rockefeller’s 1870-on national petroleum stewardship. In fact, the celebrated botanist Luther Burbank stated, “The seed [of cannabis] is prized in other countries for its oil, and its neglect here illustrates the same wasteful use of our agricultural resources.”
(Burbank, Luther, How Plants Are Trained To Work for Man, Useful Plants, P. F. Collier & Son Co., NY, Vol. 6, pg. 48.)
PAINTS & VARNISHES
For instance, in 1935 alone, 116 million pounds (58,000 tons*) of hempseed were used in America just for paint and varnish. The hemp drying oil business went principally to DuPont petro-chemicals.
MEDICINE
From 1842 through the 1890s, extremely strong marijuana (then known as cannabis extractums) and hashish extracts, tinctures and elixirs were routinely the second and third most-used medicines in America for humans (from birth, through childhood, to old age) and in veterinary medicine until the 1920s and longer. Queen Victoria used cannabis resins for her menstrual cramps and PMS. Her reign (1837- 1901) paralleled the enormous growth of the use of Indian cannabis medicine in the English-speaking world.
As stated earlier, for at least 3,000 years, prior to 1842, widely varying marijuana extracts (buds, leaves, roots, etc.) were the most commonly used and widely accepted medicines in the world for the majority of mankind’s illnesses.
The U.S. Pharmacopoeia indicated that…
FOOD OILS & PROTEIN
Hempseed was regularly used in porridge, soups, and gruels by virtually all the people of the world up until this century. Monks were required to eat hempseed dishes three times a day, to weave their clothes with it and to print their Bibles on paper made with its fiber.
(See Rubin, Dr. Vera, “Research Institute for the Study Of Man;” Eastern Orthodox Church; Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana, Plenum Press, 1976; Abel, Ernest, Marijuana, The First 12,000 Years, Plenum Press, NY, 1980; Encyclopedia Britannica.)
Hempseed can be pressed for its highly nutritious vegetable oil, which contains the highest amount of essential fatty acids in the plant kingdom. These essential oils are responsible for our immune responses and clear the arteries of…
BUILDING MATERIALS & HOUSING
Because one acre of hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as 4.1 acres of trees,* hemp is the perfect material to replace trees for pressed board, particle board and for concrete construction molds.
*Dewey & Merrill, Bulletin #404, United States Dept. of Agricultural., 1916.
Practical, inexpensive fire-resistant construction material, with excellent thermal and sound-insulating qualities, is made by heating and compressing plant fibers to create strong construction paneling, replacing dry wall and plywood. William B. Conde of Conde’s Redwood Lumber, Inc. near Eugene, OR, in conjunction with Washington State University (1991–1993), has demonstrated the superior strength, flexibility, and economy of hemp composite building materials compared to…
WHEN HEMP SAVED GEORGE BUSH’S LIFE
One more example of the importance of hemp: Five years after cannabis hemp was outlawed in 1937, it was promptly reintroduced for the World War II effort in 1942.
So, when the young pilot, George Bush, baled out of his burning airplane after a battle over the Pacific, little did he know:
– Parts of his aircraft engine were lubricated with cannabis hempseed oil;
– 100% of his life-saving parachute webbing was made from U.S. grown cannabis hemp;
– Virtually all the rigging and ropes of the ship that pulled him in were made of cannabis hemp.
– The fire hoses on the ship (as were those in the schools he had attended) were woven from cannabis hemp; and,
– Finally, as young George Bush stood safely on the deck, his shoes’ durable stitching was…
@One Zed I do not smoke neither have I encouraged anyone to smoke. I’m just shedding more light on Sinkamba’s words.
On a global scale, the plant that produces the most net biomass is hemp. It’s the only annually renewable plant on Earth able to replace all fossil fuels.
In the 1920s, the early oil barons such as Rockefeller of Standard Oil, Rothschild of Shell, etc., became paranoically aware of the possibilities of Henry Ford’s vision of cheap methanol fuel, * and they kept oil prices incredibly low – between $1 and $4 per barrel (there are 42 gallons in an oil barrel) until 1970 – almost 50 years! Then, once they were finally sure of the lack of competition, the price of oil jumped to almost $60+ per barrel over the next 30 years.
* Henry Ford grew cannabis/hemp/marijuana on his estate after 1937, possibly to prove the cheapness of methanol production at Iron Mountain. He made plastic cars with…
Thousands of tons of hemp hurds are used every year by one large powder company for the manufacturer of dynamite and TNT. A large paper company, which has been paying more than a million dollars a year in duties on foreign-made cigarette papers, now is manufacturing these papers from American hemp grown in Minnesota. A new factory in Illinois is producing fine bond papers from hemp. The natural materials in hemp make it an economical source of pulp for any grade of paper manufactured, and the high percentage of alpha cellulose promises an unlimited supply of raw material for the thousands of cellulose products our chemists have developed.
The paper industry offers even greater possibilities. As an industry it amounts to over $1,000,000,000 a year imported. But hemp will produce every grade of paper, and US government figures estimate that 10,000 acres devoted to hemp will produce as much paper as 40,000 acres of average pulp land.
THE PRESIDENT HIS EXCELLENCE MR EDGAR CHAGWA LUNGU, HONOURABLE MEMBERS OF PALIAMENT, MINISTRY OF COMMERCE & INDUSTRY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, POLICY MAKERS, EAZ, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, WELL MEANING ZAMBIANS. LET US CONSIDER THE ISSUE WITHOUT ANY PREJUDICE.
ARREST ANYONE FOUND TRAFFICKING/ SMOKING CAGE THEM FOR 10YRS.
Zambian are so docile that the don’t see opportunity here…they will soon be importing products and wont even know it…dont you know that the juice from the herb is very effective in curing cancer!!
It’s processed to remove the narcotic effect @Jay Jay! Here we don’t have the technology and poor will grow it to traffic as way to make money.
We already have religion as opium of the people, now you urge us to have actual drugs to Dudley people’s brains for real!
The facts I have cited above are generally verifiable in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which was printed primarily on paper produced with cannabis hemp for over 150 years. However, any encyclopedia (no matter how old) or good dictionary will do for general verification purposes.
Even hemp protein is now sold in shops and websites as a high priced superfood. …we are doing what we do best sleeping.
It’s processed to remove the narcotic effect @Jay Jay! Here we don’t have the technology and poor will grow it to traffic as way to make money.
We already have religion as opium of the people, now you urge us to have actual drugs to Dudley people’s brains for real!
It’s nonsense. Where would export enough of it to make a difference? USA have their own growers for the legitimate suppliers in those states authorised to sell medicinal marijuana.
We can’t let our citizens to loosen morals by openly encouraging this type of drug openly available. Crimes will rise especially GBH to women by psychotic men. Look at the effects of Mosi on Zambian men, car accidents and destruction of family lives from anti-social misconduct.
In Zambia allowing multi wives led to men spreading AIDS. Poverty and these types of freedoms do not mix, people use them to escape mentally and it causes social ills.
All this man knows is marijuana as though he was conceived under the influence of the herb. We all know the debate going on regarding the medicinal properties of this plant, but can you really make it the center of your socio-economic and political philosophy. Lets get serious for once.
I think the primary aim for Zambian agriculture must always be to ensure the people are well fed. If Zambia grows cash crops, it must surely ensure that the profits are invested in strengthening capacity for that primary aim. Once the people are well fed, then looking at diversification and novel approaches makes sense, but we must keep our eye on the ball!
Zed, hats off to you – the knowledge you’ve imparted above should be made available to ignorant governments seeking economic boost within their farming, textile and so many other industry sectors. If only all good people knew the disgusting reasons why it was outlawed, and what a phenomenal solution the plant offers for so many problems faced by humanity.