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.

By James L. Klahr
The Citizens’ Initiative Review recently spent a week hearing from proponents and opponents of Measure 74, which would allow for the establishment of licensed and regulated medical cannabis dispensaries. After a week of examining the measure, the panel of randomly selected, unbiased voters from all across Oregon endorsed the proposal, writing that “Measure 74 creates a safe, compassionate and prompt access program for Oregon medical marijuana patients, introduces regulation, and is financially sound.” Patient advocates are confident that voters who thoroughly study the measure will come to the same conclusion.

Citizens’ Initiative Review members heard from law enforcement officers and from Andrea Barhwell, deputy drug czar under President George W. Bush (and currently a consultant for GW Pharmaceuticals working toward FDA approval for its cannabis-based medicine, Sativex), who contended that marijuana is not a medicine and that Measure 74 leaves too many decisions up to the Oregon Health Authority. The intiative review panelists even read a recent editorial in The Oregonian that criticized the measure as “nothing more or less than a backdoor effort to expand marijuana use” and that questioned why supporters were continuing “the medical marijuana charade.” In the end, the panel did just what Measure 74 advocates have done: They placed the needs of patients first.
While most activists who support medical marijuana also support its legalization for all adults (it should be noted that most herbal remedies are available over the counter), there’s no charade: Those who worked hard to qualify Measure 74 for the ballot and are now working for its passage this November believe that sick and disabled patients who wish to utilize a nontoxic herbal medicine to improve their quality of life should have safe access to cannabis. And since legalization is not on the ballot, Measure 74 should be debated on its own merits.
The Citizens’ Initiative Review panel also heard from several patients, including Measure 74’s co-chief petitioner Alice Ivany, a grandmother who lost an arm in an industrial accident. After registering with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, Ivany went 17 months without any medical cannabis because of a lack of safe access. She became involved with Measure 74 because she doesn’t want any other patient to go through the same painful wait.
Advocates of Measure 74 believe in the establishment of a nonprofit dispensary program because of patients such as Ivany. They don’t want to see patients denied access to a medicine that provides recognized benefits for many serious conditions, some of which may not respond to other treatments.
Greg Barton, a former Oregon assistant attorney general and current legal counsel for Oregon Green Free, finished the closing argument for Measure 74 proponents at the Citizens’ Initiative Review. Barton, with his experience reviewing state administrative rules and working for Oregon’s chief law enforcement officer, was scheduled to reiterate the regulations established by Measure 74 and the Oregon Health Authority’s ability to competently regulate dispensaries. But instead of sticking to the script, Barton shared his personal story, describing how medical cannabis had improved the health and quality of life for his wife, who has been ill for the past five years. In the end, Barton did the right thing and brought the focus back to the patients.
As we debate Measure 74 and marijuana law reform in general, we need to do the same: Always remember the patients.

The state has added chronic kidney failure to the list of conditions for which medical marijuana is permitted under state law but has rejected petitions to add Alzheimer’s and neuropathic pain.
By Carol M. Ostrom
Seattle Times health reporter
The state has added chronic kidney failure to the list of conditions for which medical marijuana is permitted under state law but has rejected petitions to add Alzheimer’s and neuropathic pain.
In approving chronic kidney failure, the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission said it was convinced that nausea caused by dialysis could be helped by marijuana. But it noted that using marijuana could also jeopardize a renal-failure patient’s eligibility for transplant or have other adverse effects and that patients need to be informed of that when a provider authorizes them to use marijuana legally.
That petition was brought by Kenneth Lachman, a dialysis patient.
For neuropathic pain, the commission concluded that the term is so broad it might include some disorders that would already qualify, and others that don’t. The request to include it was made by Dr. Sunil Aggarwal on behalf of the Cannabis Defense Coalition.
For Alzheimer’s disease, the commission said there was insufficient scientific or anecdotal evidence to support the contention of Kemp LaMunyon Sr., an Eastern Washington medical-marijuana advocate, that it could help prevent the disease in humans.

(NaturalNews) The use of hemp seeds in modern foods is relatively commonplace now, but this amazing healthy food has been the source of heated debate in the US since before World War II. Currently many food manufactures are looking for more healthy and wholesome options. Hemp is proving to be a wonderful addition to many different types of foods because both the seed oil and nut are extremely dense with nutrients.
Vegetable oil manufacturers have been lobbying for the inclusion of unhealthy polyunsaturated oils in mainstream foods successfully for the last 70 years. Unfortunately modern civilization has seen an increase of diseases related to the use of these “bad” oils in our foods since then – like diabetes, cardiovascular disease and many metabolic syndromes. Introducing hemp seeds and hemp oil to your diet can only benefit your health in the long run since it is one of the most compact sources of vital nutrients available.
Hemp Hype
Competing for the edge in any market usually includes misinformation and confusion tactics, and in the case of hemp, it has worked. Any hype associated with hemp seeds can also be attributed to the fact that cannabis, a relative of industrial hemp, is on the US Drug Enforcement Agency`s top 10 list of drugs they oversee. They have, and have had, many campaigns against the use of cannabis, so it is understandable that our society is confused on this issue.
Notably, there is an insignificant amount of THC in industrial hemp (the source of drug-related compounds found in cannabis) so using hemp seeds or hemp seed oil in food is technically considered safe by the industrial hemp industry, and has proven to not affect drug tests.
Currently the United States doesn`t allow the growing of industrial hemp, but Canada and many European and Asian countries (China since 1500 AD) have been producing it for commercial use consistently. At this point, importing hemp seeds for use as food and fiber has not been banned in US.
Health Benefits of Hemp
“Overall, hemp`s main nutritional advantage over other seeds lies in the composition of its oil,” according to Gero Leson, D.Env., an environmental scientist and consultant with extensive experience in the food and fiber uses of hemp and other renewable resources.
Hemp seeds have a high quality of protein with a nutritionally complex composition containing 10 essential amino acids in nutritionally significant amounts, making it a complete protein. This protein also has a similar cellular structure to a protein manufactured in human blood, making it easily digestible.
The hemp nut is also rich in the vitamin E complex of tocopherols and tocotrienols and contains many trace minerals. This nutritional profile is significant in the fact that per pound, no other nut or seed provides such a density of beneficial nutrients.
Essential Fatty Acids
The essential fatty acid (EFA) make-up of hemp seed oil is like no other on the market today. No other vegetable or nut oil contains EFAs in this concentration or ratio – high in both omega 6, linoleic acid (LA), and omega 3, alpha-linolenic acids (ALA) specifically.
Because of the wide spread use of processed poly-unsaturated vegetable oils in cooking and frying, foods consumed in the typical western diet contain too much LA and not enough ALA essential fats. According to National Institute of Health studies and reports on the subject, this has been found to be an unhealthy balance, and the addition of good EFAs has proven to help with many modern ailments such as diabetes, heart disease and metabolic syndromes.

Hemp is turning a new leaf. The plant fiber, used to make the sails that took Christopher Columbus’ ships to the New World, is now a building material.

The hemp home was built for $133 per square foot, not including land and excavation costs, at the top of a mountain.

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In Asheville, N.C., a home built with thick hemp walls was completed this summer and two more are in the works.
Dozens of hemp homes have been built in Europe in the past two decades, but they’re new to the United States, says David Madera, co-founder of Hemp Technologies, a company that supplied the mixture of ground-up hemp stalks, lime and water.

The kitchen has clerestory windows for natural daylighting and Energy Star appliances.

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The industrial hemp is imported because it cannot be grown legally in this country — it comes from the same plant as marijuana.
Its new use reflects an increasing effort to make U.S. homes not only energy-efficient but also healthier. Madera and other proponents say hemp-filled walls are non-toxic, mildew-resistant, pest-free and flame-resistant.

The home’s bathroom has efficient lighting and water-conserving plumbing fixtures

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“There is a growing interest in less toxic building materials, says Peter Ashley, director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control.
“The potential health benefits are significant,” he says, citing a recent study of a Seattle public housing complex that saw residents’ health improve after their homes got a green makeover.

A 3,000 square-foot home with thick hemp walls was completed this summer in Asheville, N.C.

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The U.S. government has not taken a “systemic approach” to studying chemicals in homes and instead addresses problems such as asbestos, lead, arsenic and formaldehyde only after people get sick, says Rebecca Morley, executive director of the National Center for Healthy Housing, a private research group.
She says green building so far has focused mostly on the environment, not the health of the people inside.
Ashley agrees that federal attention has been “sporadic,” but says an interagency group began meeting last year to tackle the issue more broadly. He says HUD is funding more research on the health and environmental benefits of eco-friendly homes.
Some green-rating programs, such as the one run by the private U.S. Green Building Council, give points for indoor air quality.
“We are taking the next step in green building,” says Anthony Brenner, a home designer with Push Design who created Asheville’s first hemp home. “We’re trying to develop a system that’s more health-based.”
Brenner says he’s been searching for non-toxic materials because he wants to build a home for his 9-year-old daughter, Bailey, who has a rare genetic disorder that makes her extremely sensitive to chemicals. “We have to keep her away from anything synthetic,” he says, or she’ll have seizures.

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He says a hemp home can be affordable, even though importing hemp makes it more expensive than other building materials, because skilled labor is unnecessary and hemp is so strong that less lumber is needed.
The hemp mixture — typically four parts ground-up hemp to one part lime and one part water — is placed inside 2-foot-by-4-foot wall forms. Once it sets, the forms are removed. Although it hardens to a concrete-like form, wood framing is used for structural support.
“This is like a living, breathing wall,” Madera says. Hemp absorbs carbon dioxide and puts nitrogen into the soil, so it’s good for the environment, he says.
Alex Wilson, executive editor of Environmental Building News, says hemp can be grown with minimal use of chemicals and water. He says it has a midlevel insulating value (R-2 per inch) but is usually installed in a thick enough wall system to make it appropriate for all but the most severe climates.
The mixture, “Tradical Hemcrete,” has not previously been used in U.S. homes, but in 2008 it went into a community center on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Badlands, S.D., as well as a small chapel and pottery studio near Houston, says Mario Machnicki, managing director of American Lime Technology, a Chicago company that imports hemp from the United Kingdom.
Asheville’s second hemp home will be finished in about six weeks, says builder Clarke Snell of the Nauhaus Institute, a non-profit group of designers, engineers, developers and others interested in sustainable urban living.
Snell says the home, which has 16-inch-thick walls, is airtight and energy-efficient. He expects it to meet rigorous Passive House Institute standards, which call for homes to use up to 90% less energy than regular ones.
“On the coldest day in winter, the body heat of 10 people should heat the home,” he says. “We’re basically building a European home.”
Snell says his group will own the 1,750-square-foot house, and its engineer will live there for a couple of years to monitor energy use.
He doesn’t know how much it will cost because, as a prototype, it was built with donations and volunteer labor.
The owners of the first hemp home say it cost $133 a square foot to build, not including land and excavation.
“That’s pretty remarkable” for a custom home in Asheville, which is a pricey area, says Karon Korp, a writer who moved into the house in July.
Korp says she and her husband, Russ Martin wanted primarily an energy-efficient home. They’re not particularly sensitive to chemicals, but they were drawn to Brenner because of his modern aesthetic and green building enthusiasm. She says they’re thrilled their house is made of a renewable, toxic-free material and hope it sets an example for the nation.
“Hemp could replace tobacco if it were legalized,” says Martin, Asheville’s GOP mayor from 1993 to 1997. He says some area tobacco farms have gone bust.
Martin says they have spent less than $100 a month so far to cool the home, which has 3,000 square feet plus a garage. It has 12″ thick walls, Energy Star appliances, dual-flush toilets, high-performance windows and LED lights. Korp says they might add a windmill, because the house sits atop a mountain.
They say they have fantastic views. “We seen the sun rise,” he says. She adds, “and the sun set.”