Marijuana advocates gather today, Saturday September 18, 2010 for an event popularly known as Hempfest Boston. The event held at the Boston Commons, features music, discussion and a whole lot of smoking. Massachusetts decriminalized the possession of an ounce or less of pot in 2009. Anyone caught with that amount only gets a $100 ticket (minors must also perform community service). The contrast between this law and the state’s blue laws has been the subject of much debate because it’s such a contrast. Gambling is also illegal in Massachusetts, and most people simply cannot reconcile the relaxed attitude toward a mood-altering street drug with the laws restricting alcohol and gambling. Be that as it may, the MassCan Organization’s yearly rally (which is what Hempfest Boston 2010 really is) seems to have worked in their favor, as they can now carry small amounts of cannabis on their persons anytime, anywhere in the state without fear of jail.
Image courtesy of bostonhempfest.com

by Bryce Wolfe
While the United States continues to ban the cultivation of industrial hemp because of its relationship to marijuana, other countries recognize the plant’s considerable economic and environmental benefits. The soft, hardy fiber can be found in paper, clothing and, increasingly, in houses. In the United Kingdom, Bath University researchers have constructed a building dubbed the “HemPod” in order to test the suitability of hemp as a building material.
The walls of the one-story HemPod consist of a hemp-lime mixture, made from the chopped core of the industrial hemp plant and a lime-based binder. The lime-based binder sticks to and protects the hemp fibers, making the material resistant to fire. Besides being drought- and pest-resistant, industrial hemp absorbs carbon dioxide as it grows and can be sustainably harvested. According to researchers, a soccer field-sized area can grow enough hemp in three months to build a typical three-bedroom house. The rest of the plant, like its seeds, can then be used for food or oil.
Hemp houses already exist in countries like Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, but the HemPod will be used purely for scientific testing. Researchers plan to monitor the house for 18 months using temperature and humidity sensors within its walls, to determine how quickly heat and water vapor pass through the material.
Ashville, North Carolina residents Russ Martin and Karon Korp can vouch for its insulating power. Last month CNN interviewed the couple, who own the first house in America constructed mainly from hemp materials, and Martin reported that the monthly cooling bill for the 3400 sq. ft. building was only $100. In appearance, the Ashville building is sleek and modern, dispelling the tie-dye stereotypes that surround hemp.

Used to make paper, clothing and car body panels, hemp could also be used to build environmentally-friendly homes of the future say researchers at the University of Bath.

A consortium, led by the BRE (Building Research Establishment) Centre for Innovative Construction Materials based at the University, has constructed a small building on the Claverton campus out of hemp-lime to test its properties as a building material.
Called the “HemPod,” this one-storey building has highly insulating walls made from the chopped woody core, or shiv, of the industrial hemp plant mixed with a specially developed lime-based binder.
The hemp shiv traps air in the walls, and the hemp itself is porous, making the walls incredibly well insulated. The lime-based binder sticks together and protects the hemp and makes the building material highly fire resistant.
The industrial hemp plant takes in carbon dioxide as it grows, and the lime render absorbs even more of the climate change gas, effectively giving the building an extremely low carbon footprint.
Dr Mike Lawrence, Research Officer from the University’s Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering, explained: “Whilst there are already some houses in the UK built using hemp and lime, the HemPod will be the first hemp-lime building to be constructed purely for scientific testing.
“We will be closely monitoring the house for 18 months using temperature and humidity sensors buried in the walls, measuring how quickly heat and water vapour travels through them.
“The walls are breathable and act as a sort of passive air-conditioning system, meaning that the internal humidity is kept constant and the quality of the air within the house is very good. The walls also have a ‘virtual thermal mass’ because of the remarkable pore structure of hemp shiv combined with the properties of the lime binder, which means the building is much more thermally efficient and the temperature inside the house stays fairly constant.”
Professor Pete Walker, Director of the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials, added: “The aim of the project is to provide some robust data to persuade the mainstream building industry to use this building material more widely.
“Hemp grows really quickly; it only takes the area the size of a rugby pitch to grow enough hemp in three months to build a typical three-bedroom house.
“Using renewable crops to build houses can also provide economic benefits to rural areas by opening up new agricultural markets. Farmers can grow hemp during the summer as a break crop between their main food crops, it doesn’t need much water and can be grown organically.
“Every part of the plant can be used, so there’s no waste — the shiv is used for building, the fibres can make car panels, clothing or paper, and the seeds can be used for food or oil. So it’s a very efficient, renewable material.
“Lime has been used in construction for millennia, and combining it with industrial hemp is a significant development in the effort to make construction more sustainable.”
Environmentally-friendly building materials are often more expensive than traditional materials, but the Renewable House project (www.renewable-house.co.uk) funded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the National Non-Food Crops Centre (NNFCC) demonstrated a cost of around £75,000 (excluding foundations) to build a three-bedroom Code 4 house from hemp-lime making it competitive with conventional bricks and mortar.
The project is sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) under the Renewable Materials LINK Programme, and brings together a team of nine partners comprising: University of Bath, BRE Ltd, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Hanson UK, Hemp Technology, Lhoist Group, Lime Technology, the NNFCC and Wates Living Space.

ST. CHARLES COUNTY • Prosecutors have dismissed felony drug charges against a man who said he was growing marijuana for medical reasons.
Kenneth R. Wells, 57, of St. Charles County, was charged in 2008 after a house fire led investigators to find plants that added up to 1.4 pounds of marijuana in his basement. He said he used the marijuana to deal with chronic epilepsy. His attorney, Wayne Schoeneberg, said he received a letter this week from Prosecutor Jack Banas’ office saying Wells will not be prosecuted if he does not have any new violations during the next two years.
“I think that’s a good resolution all around,” Schoeneberg said.
Banas said the case dragged on for two years, and he was concerned about how a jury would view the facts. Wells had no prior convictions, and there was no evidence he tried to sell or give the marijuana to anyone else, Banas said.
Wells said he was glad the charges were dropped. “I’ve been confident all along that there was something wrong with the search procedures, and I always had hopes that we could get that exposed,” he said.
Wells could have been sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if he were found guilty.
Circuit Judge Nancy Schneider had ruled against allowing Wells to use medical necessity as a defense. But Banas said keeping Wells’ medical issues out of the case would have been difficult. Had jurors not found him guilty, it could have “muddied the waters” regarding the local legal system’s approach to medicinal marijuana.
Both Banas and Schoeneberg said Wells’ case is not a sign that prosecutors will turn a blind eye to those looking to grow the plant for their own use.
“Missouri is not one of those states that’s going to run to the legalization side any time soon,” Banas said. “It is still illegal to grow marijuana.”
Said Schoeneberg: “I think it’s a situation that applies specifically to the facts of this case. I would caution anybody who is getting involved with marijuana to not think that this is going to be the norm under any circumstances.”
Wells said he no longer has any marijuana plants. He said he takes a variety of prescription drugs to help with pain and seizures. He said he had used marijuana as an “adjunct therapy.”
“It’s just something that helped more,” he said.

Fresno County Supervisors passed a temporary ordinance Tuesday morning to stop medical marijuana users from growing plants outside.
Under the new rules, outdoor marijuana grows are now illegal in unincorporated parts of Fresno County but there are many questions about how the temporary ordinance will be enforced.
The ordinance basically says the cultivation of medical marijuana is still legal in these areas as long as it’s moved in doors and out of view.