As you hunt around the Internet, it's not hard to find loads of people rallying for alternative energy sources. What is telling to me is not the questions thaat are asked, but the questions that remain unasked.

One of the most oft ignored replacement technologies for petroleum is biodiesel. Of all of the alternatives mentioned, biodiesel is unique in that it can be used in diesel engines currently in operation. This means an EXTREMELY reduced expense in trying to replace hundreds of millions of cars. While only a fraction run on diesel, it is a fraction that would not need to be replaced.

And in the biodiesel industry, one plant stands head and shoulders above the rest. Based on the title of the article, I'm sure you've guessed that plant is hemp. Hemp offers many other alternatives that I will not address in depth here, but most importantly, biodiesel fuel made from hemp provides the best of all worlds: a completely renewable fuel source that burns cleaner than petroleum and offers many industrial uses to boot.

As I looked around for this article, most of the key points were repeated enough that multiple sources would be redundant. The following is excerpted from one of those sources:

• Hemp grows like mad from border to border in America; so shortages are unlikely. And, unlike petrol, unless we run out of soil, hemp is renewable.
• Growing and harvesting the stuff has much less environmental impact than procuring oil.
• Hemp fuel is biodegradable; so oil spills become fertilizer not eco-catastrophes.
• Hemp fuel does not contribute to sulfur dioxide air poisoning.
• Other noxious emissions like carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons are radically slashed by using “biodiesel.”
• Hemp fuel is nontoxic and only a mild skin irritant; anybody who’s ever cleaned out an old carburetor with gasoline can confirm the same is not true for petrol.
• Growing hemp for fuel would be a tremendous boon for American farmers and the agricultural industry, as opposed to people like, say, the Bush family.

(source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MIL20050828&articleId=873)

The truth is, anyone dedicated to an eco-friendly lifestyle should at least explore the possibility of hemp legalization. Outside of fears of a "stoner nation" (would that REALLY be so bad?) I have heard no credible rebuttals to the hemp debate. And even the "stoner nation" argument can be rebutted by the proposal that hemp be randomly checked by the DEA for THC content and penalties inflicted for violations. For the educated, hemp and marijuana are not exactly the same plant, although they are cousins.

Maybe what's really holding hemp back is a good marketing campaign. I suggest one using the slogan: Hemp. It's not just for potheads anymore!