By Amy Hamilton

Samantha McClellan has epilepsy but has been seizure-free for two-and-a-half years with no thanks to prescription medications.
By medicating with cannabis-infused foods, the single mother of four children also is pain-free and feels empowered about the future for the first time she can remember.
“Without having to look like I’m on drugs, I can go to my daughter’s plays. I can drive a car,” she said. “I can’t express enough how amazing it is not to have seizures.”
For 14 years, from her late teens through her 20s, McClellan, now 33, took medication her doctor prescribed, Dilantin and phenobarbital.
An allergic reaction to Dilantin caused her temperature to spike to 108.7 degrees Fahrenheit, boiling her skin and put her in a coma for three months. The straight-A student, who was captain of her cheerleading team, missed her high school graduation by a month. Family, friends and her pastor were gathered around her hospital bed saying their good-byes when she woke up. The former model’s skin was scarred with black blotches at that time.
“That drug took my life away,” she said.
A subsequent prescription of 500 milligrams a day of phenobarbital reduced McClellan’s seizures from about 15 to three a day, but the drug left her feeling like a zombie, she said. That was daily life while she raised two children and took on two more children.
Tired of feeling absent in front of her children, she moved to Colorado as the state legalized medical marijuana. In about a year, McClellan weaned herself off phenobarbital. With her aunt as her caretaker supplying her with medical marijuana, McClellan now turns the marijuana into a hash oil to cook pasta, bread and other food, which she keeps labeled in a separate freezer. Her medication is kept at home in a locked box.
“Not that I think my children would break into it,” she said. “I don’t let the opportunity occur.”
At first, McClellan said, her now 13-year-old daughter was skeptical of her mother using marijuana.
The two had a system down, McClellan telling her daughter when she was about to have another seizure. Her daughter rounded up the other children, sending them to their rooms, and consoled her mother as best she could, even putting a towel under her as she often wet herself.
But McClellan explained to her children that the drug could be used for getting high, which is wrong, or it could be used as medication.
McClellan works full time at Mesa Alternative Health & Wellness, a dispensary at 605 Grand Ave. She also is starting a cleaning business that uses only organic and environmentally friendly cleaning supplies.
As the city of Grand Junction considers what it should do about allowing and regulating medical marijuana dispensaries, McClellan said shutting down dispensaries would not be good. That would force her to get medication at a stranger’s home, if her aunt moved away, she said.
Some dispensary opponents argue dispensaries allow easier access to marijuana to people who are not in legitimate pain, but just want to get high. McClellan counters by asking about people who regularly get high on prescription medications “available at Walgreens on every corner.”
And, like other medical marijuana proponents, McClellan said allowing voters to decide whether Grand Junction should allow the dispensaries would have equated to a death sentence for the shops. The commonly held belief among proponents was that a majority of local voters would have agreed to shutter medical pot shops.
City Council members unanimously decided Wednesday they would not put the issue on the November ballot.
“It’s not that I’m campaigning for dispensaries,” McClellan said. “The dispensary thing is a stepping stone to taking my (medical marijuana) license away. If they take away marijuana, I won’t drive a car. I won’t work. I won’t go on their medication.”
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/free_from_seizures_pain_and_pr/

KEVIN R.WEXLER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

John Ammirati of Lyndhurst, was diagnosed with bone cancer six years ago and has lost 50 pounds. He says the best thing to stimulate his appetite and suppress his pain is marijuana.

Health officials must complete a multistep process before the controversial law can be implemented and aren’t committing to any deadline. They have less than five months to get a system up and running that will allow marijuana use for medicinal purposes, yet two definitive questions loom: Who will grow the marijuana? And where will it be dispensed?
Ammirati, who is battling Ewing’s sarcoma and is distraught over the initial plan for legalized medical marijuana being postponed from October to January, said he can’t imagine what will happen to him and others if the drug isn’t available at the start of 2011. He’s lost 50 pounds to the rare bone cancer that attacks his face.
“This delay is killing me,” said Ammirati, of Lyndhurst. “I need pot so I can eat and I’m broke and can’t afford to buy it on the streets.”

But state Department of Health and Senior Services must set up regulations that include designating a marijuana supplier, authorizing places to dispense it and creating a system for patient registry. Once the plan is crafted, it must be made available for public input before being finalized.
No timeline has been established yet, said Donna Leusner, director of communications for the state Health Department.
“We’re working diligently to create regulations that will spell out how the process will work and then present it to the public for comment,” Leusner said.
The legislation, signed by Gov. Jon Corzine in January, called for at least six non-profit alternative treatment centers to dispense the cannabis. Though the law is more restrictive than the 13 other states that allow marijuana use for medical purposes, Governor Christie requested an extension on the implementation date in the spring so authorities could have more control over the distribution process.
Christie supported a proposal by the New Jersey Council of Teaching Hospitals that Rutgers University grow the marijuana and that the 16 largest of the state’s 40 teaching hospitals dispense it.
Rutgers, however, dropped out of the proposal, citing the possibility of losing federal funding since growing, possessing and using marijuana is against federal law.
One of the sponsors of the law, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, D-Princeton, said he was surprised and disappointed in Rutgers’ decision.
“This is a missed opportunity for Rutgers,” Gusciora said. “Teachers and students could have been involved in studies of pain management and other issues. As for federal funding, Rutgers could have just applied for a waiver. The U.S. attorney general has said he will take a hands-off approach and veterans will now be able to get marijuana.”
Opponents of the plan note, however, that no university or other supplier has received a waiver from the federal government.
Despite Rutgers’ position, the hospitals council still wants the hospitals to hand out the drug, spokesman Don Sico said.
“We’re researching the notion of liability and what would have to happen so the hospitals can dispense it,” Sico said. “We have secure facilities, pharmacies to study the issues and look at outcomes, and are able to do this. We’re still in conversation with the governor’s office and administration.”
Leusner declined to say what facilities or non-profits are being considered as dispensaries.
Once the program is in place, patients with a physician-signed certificate will be able to get up to 2 ounces a month to alleviate symptoms from a number of illnesses including cancer, HIV, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease), multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, inflammatory bowel disease, seizure disorder, glaucoma and intractable skeletal muscular spasticity. They will be able to use the drug to offset symptoms such as severe pain, vomiting, nausea and wasting syndrome.
“For some people, marijuana is really the best medicine to relieve suffering and improve the quality of life, especially if they don’t have a long time left with their family,” said Roseanne Scotti, executive director of the New Jersey Drug Policy Alliance. “We know it’s not going to be available on Jan. 1 — it might even take another year before patients will actually have it in hand, but I believe the Health Department is making a good-faith effort to put the best plan in place.”
For Ammirati, 52, that day can’t come fast enough. Diagnosed six years ago with the cancer that forms tumors on his face, he has endured 28 hours of reconstructive surgery and five rounds of chemotherapy. Just as he did when he was receiving chemo treatments, Ammirati said he needs marijuana to help stoke his hunger and quash his constant nausea.
“I know if I could eat I would feel stronger,” Ammirati said. “The marijuana also takes away a lot of my pain — these tumors under my skin are the size of jawbreakers and my stomach lining was ripped during chemo, so I have a lot of pain. This is not for my amusement — when I inhale it eases my pain immediately.”
http://www.northjersey.com/news/health/100961804_Wait_for_medical_marijuana_continues.html

Made in 1936, Reefer Madness owes much of its current fame to its rediscovery in the 1960s. That’s because Louis J. Gasnier’s film (properly titled Tell Your Children) is so incredibly, laughably wrong about the effects of marijuana. The movie shows us wholesome, soda-sipping American kids turning into demented, suicidal nymphomaniacs after just one hit of the weed. No wonder the flower children of the ’60s held up the movie as Exhibit A of how stupid and wrong The Man was about marijuana.
Actually, the origins of the movie are far more cynical. Most Hollywood films of the time obeyed the Hays Production Code, which enforced a strict set of rules on elements that movies could not show. However, movies that were supposedly made for public service were allowed to show much more violence, sex, and drug use. Reefer Madness made a pile of cash because ticket-buyers could see all this stuff that they couldn’t see in Hollywood movies and then pretend that they were attending for educational purposes. Good old-fashioned hypocrisy in action!
The original film spawned a stage musical, which then became an enjoyable made-for-TV production on Showtime four years ago. However, Mystery Science Theater’s creators are screening the original film with their own inimitable commentary. It will screen widely this Thursday, with an encore presentation at two theaters on Tuesday.

Reefer Madness screens at various locations. See Calendar for details. Tickets are $12.50. Call 213-639-6166.

http://www.fwweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4017:smoke-screen&catid=86:big-ticket&Itemid=530

David Downs —

California’s $14 billion a year cannabis economy has created all-star marijuana strains with as much cachet as marquee athletes. A combination of genetics, local variation, effects in the field, and marketing have promoted ten such California hits to such great heights, they have their own baseball cards.
Technically they’re Berkeley Patients Care Center Collective “trading cards”: a shimmering, 10-piece set spanning OG Kush to Blue Dream, featuring luscious close-ups, and an intercontinental tale of a flowering industry.

• Not scratch and sniff – yet.

Cannabis breaks down into two, broad species, sativa and indica, says dispensary general manager of eight years David Bowers, but growers seek maximum power, and inimitable style through a mind-boggling array of strains.
“It’s survival of the fittest, really,” he says.
The reigning Southern and Northern California all-star and #1 trading card ‘OG Kush’ came from a powerful Colorado varietal called ‘chemdawg’ several years ago, says Bowers. Strains emerge through deliberate and accidental genetic variation. Hit strains are then cloned and sold from seed at international seed banks.
When plants travel, genetic expression can vary. On the East Coast, chemdawg became Diesel, while on the West Coast, starting in Los Angeles, it became OG Kush. Bowers says OG Kush can be grown inside or outside, but it’s finicky like Barry Bonds, requiring precise moisture, temperature, and nutrients. Pound for pound and in its prime, though, OG Kush is some of the strongest on the market. Those seeking pain or nausea relief, or even multiple sclerosis suffers have benefited from OG Kush, he says.

• Care of CO.

“Extremely psychoactive … can be almost too strong for some patients,” notes the trading card. “Very distinctive tangy lemon with a pine forest aroma that sticks to back of your nose. Extremely skunky and pungent. Long lasting after taste.”
The nine year-old BPCC is known for its elitism. It doesn’t dispense mid-grade or low-grade product and rigorously id’s product. The card line began in Spring 2010 as a way to educate forgetful patients on what they had just bought.
“Consumers want to get rid of physical pain, restore appetite, or find mental relaxation and different strains help,” Bowers says.
Identification is a dark art at best, though. Half“Quite a bit” of the growers for BPCC incorrectly identify the strain they’ve grown. To date, no California dispensaries perform expensive, time-consuming genetic analysis on medicine. Dispensary buyers don’t necessarily get a degree. Bowers read up on the popular literature and web sites, like the Cannabible and Sensi Seeds, and relies on experience.
“A lot of the literature is conflicting,” he says. “It’s more an art than a science.”

• Complicated pasts.

The industry is heading toward more empiricism, though. Harborside Health Center in Oakland determines potency at the molecular level with flame ionization. Medical Marijuana Inc. vice president David Tobias in Orange County says medical cannabis will get to the point where people can take exactly what’s right for them, instead of something that leaves them either zonked out, or unable to sleep.
“I know a lot of dispensary owners and they’ll suggest different things that are not good for me,” Tobias says.
Strains also rise and fall over years, Bowers recalls. Recently, Oakland’s Grand Daddy Purple took over the market until “everyone was growing the same strain at the same time”, gridlocking the supply chain.

• Oakland got grapes.

What was once the reign of Champagne and Old Blueberry has become the market of Blue Dream and Romulan. Blue Dream is a hybrid that smells “sweet and refreshing like fresh baked blueberry doughnuts.” It’s “strong and long lasting medication for day or night”.

• A close encounter with Romulan

If BPCC can educate people just a little, the cards are worth it, Bowers says. A second line of ten is underway and Bowers intimates a breakthrough in weed technology on the horizon.
“We’re trying to make them scratch and sniff.”
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/LegalizationNation/archives/2010/08/17/california-cannabis-goes-pro-with-baseball-cards

Veterans Medical Marijuana

– Hemp for Victory and Veterans. Here is my thought; if we as disabled vets formed a consortium to investigate and report on the medical value of the by-products of Hemp and the industrial production of “usable products” we could get a ground floor hold on a contract to supply the entire VA system with medical high-grade marijuana (when the Federal Laws that inhibit are changed). –
My name is Richard Fournier; I am rated by VA at 100% T & P.  My award came after battling the adjudication system since first filing of 1967 with the award granted in April – 2000 {retro back to 1980].
Today I serve my fellow Veteran as Founder/Chairman of the Board for the 501 (c) 3 “H.I.S. of America Inc [Head Injured Survivor’s].
With the current controversy over Medical Marijuana; I have come up with a marvelous idea which could produce a Veteran Operated $multi-million operation in this Field . I’m sure you are aware their is conflict between the Fed’s (DEA) and the VA and of the horror stories of Vets whose pain meds were cut off because of the T.H.C. found in their blood.
Here is my thought; if we as disabled vets formed a consortium to investigate and report on the medical value of the by-products of Hemp and the industrial production of “usable products” we could get a ground floor hold on a contract to supply the entire VA system with medical high grade marijuana (when the Federal Laws that inhibit are changed).
First off we would get rid of the use of the words “Medical Marijuana” replace it with “Medical Hemp” with a full report generated by our own Laboratory in conjunction with the benefits of  Hemp Seed Oil {essential fatty acids) which research has shown can prevent and reverse type II Diabetes … this is but an “overview” of what I know can be accomplished … it takes money, double blind studies, a research lab & a Bakery to produce an alternative method of delivery of the THC over smoking {which I believe is dangerous to the aging population of Veteran’s.
Please give me a call at 313 969-9786 to discuss future develops of this Plan.
My home state of Michigan passed a Medical Marijuana Law … I have a Link to the Ford Land Development Co to resurrect the George Washington Carver Nutrition Laboratory in the City of Dearborn.  The Nutrition Lab was given to Mr. Carver in 1942 by Henry Ford.  Currently a Local Hospital is occupying the site of the old Nutrition Center.  This is Good Press and if properly developed can set the Stage for a Government contract to provide the entire Nations Veterans Administration HealthCare System not only with High Quality Marijuana but also alternative methods of delivery to the system through ingestion of cookies cakes, sucker’s & teas all tested at our lab and given a stamp of approval from the FDA.
PS:  I entered into the Political scene in 1994 when as a disgruntled Veteran; I challenged (as a Republican) for the 14th Congressional Seat held by the Incumbent…the Honorable John Conyers…as soon as this current election year is over; my affidavits are ready to file for the 2012 Election where I will enter to win that seat for “We the People.”
“Service to America’s Veteran’s is the best work of life”
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/17/change-law-to-allow-vets-to-form-org-supplying-va-system-with-medical-hemp/

The political atmosphere around marijuana has changed. It used to be a slam dunk to make fun of marijuana users — even medical marijuana patients — but a recent drama which played out in Washington state showed how much that has changed. A Republican candidate for U.S. Senate has been forced to “clarify” a series of tasteless jokes he made at the expense of medical marijuana research and patients.

Dispensaries here will be modeled after California’s finest, but with tighter regulations to avoid excess and abuse.

By John Richardson
Staff Writer
BERKELEY, Calif. – It’s 9 a.m. and as soon as the uniformed guard pulls open the black iron gate in front of the Berkeley Patients Group, a small line forms inside the city’s oldest and busiest marijuana dispensary.

Emily Scarbrough smokes a joint at the Berkeley Patients Group clinic in Berkeley, Calif.
John Patriquin/Staff Photographer
Grey, a clerk who asked that her last name not be used, helps patient Sara Romano select some marijuana at the Berkeley Patients Group clinic in Berkeley, Calif.
John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Sara Romano leans over a glass case and checks out the day’s selection. She lifts a couple of samples to her nose and sniffs before handing over $300 cash for an ounce of Space Queen, a favorite remedy for anxiety and depression, she says.
The 39-year-old software saleswoman tucks the marijuana buds into a small brown paper bag, along with $60 worth of “baking marijuana” to put in brownies and crisped rice treats for some older women she cares for.
“Edibles are kind of a lot less scary for people who are just getting introduced to the weed world,” she said.
Maine is about to get its own introduction to world of medical marijuana, California-style.
Approved by voters last fall, eight medical marijuana dispensaries are due to open around the state over the next six months. Portland, Bangor, Augusta and Thomaston could have theirs by the end of the year.
Maine has some of the nation’s tightest rules about who can operate dispensaries and who can buy the marijuana, a clear attempt to avoid excesses and abuses that earned California a reputation as the Wild West of cannabis.
California has an estimated 400 dispensaries, but no one keeps count. There are said to be more dispensaries than Starbucks in Los Angeles.
Maine’s dispensaries, however, will be modeled after what are considered northern California’s largest and most well-run dispensaries, including the Berkeley Patients Group here and Harborside Treatment Center in nearby Oakland, Calif..
Rebecca DeKeuster, the chief executive officer of the group that will operate four Maine dispensaries, is the former general manager for the Berkeley Patients Group.
PART PHARMACY, PART BOUTIQUE
A look inside the bustling storefronts in California reveals an operation that’s part pharmacy, part boutique, part social club, and entirely unlike anything Maine has seen before.
“The best business in town. They’re busy from the time they open until the time they close,” said Roger Ramirez, owner of the Berkeley Auto Service a few doors down San Pablo Avenue.
About 700 or more people each day file into the Berkeley Patients Group, which is open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., every day of the week. It’s been in operation since 1999.
Some visit weekly or monthly to stock up. Others come back every day to relax, socialize and smoke their medicine. In California, patients can buy as much as 2 ounces per week. (Maine plans to limit purchases to 2.5 ounces every two weeks.)
Brad Senesac, marketing director for Berkeley Patients Group, would not say how much the dispensary generates in sales, although it is clearly many millions a year. Most of that is paid to growers, who effectively get wholesale prices.
But, Senesac said, Berkeley operates as a not-for-profit, which means its net revenues go into services for patients and donations to community organizations. It donated about $250,000 last year to organizations such as a nearby pre-school and health clinic, he said.
California does not require dispensaries to file any accounting of their revenue, expenses or charitable donations. Maine is requiring dispensaries to incorporate as non-profits, but there are no rules — so far — that require them to report revenues and expenses. Financial reporting rules may be added to Maine’s annual licensing standards, officials say.
The Berkeley dispensary employs 65 people. Entry-level workers earn $15 an hour, along with health and dental coverage, Senesac said. He would not say what the top officers and directors earn, except that it’s consistent with other non-profits.
SECURITY IS HEAVY
The first thing a newcomer sees is the security outside the building, a former used-car showroom with a circular glass facade behind a tall iron gate. The security staff uses 32 cameras to watch over the dispensary, inside and out; two unarmed guards also patrol the lot at all times.
Each visitor has to show identification and a medical marijuana registration card, proving they have a signed recommendation from a doctor. First-timers typically get a friendly introduction from the staff.
Then they enter the lounge, a bright room where they can smoke their marijuana or inhale the drug smokelessly using a special vaporizer. There’s free coffee, tea and snacks, and jazz playing in the background.
Richard Lahrson shuffles into the lounge, sets down his cane and settles at a small table. He’s not buying today, but came to the dispensary because it’s a safe and friendly place to smoke his medicine.
“It’s a great place,” said Lahrson, who didn’t want to talk about his illness. He packs marijuana into one of the dispensary’s bongs, or water pipes. He lights up and inhales as a woman at the next table rolls and lights a marijuana cigarette.
Not all of California’s dispensaries — often called marijuana clubs here — allow patients to smoke on-site, and it’s not clear if any of Maine’s will. Maine rules say only that the marijuana cannot be smoked in public and that employees can’t smoke at work. But state officials may revisit the issue to more expressly say that smoking on-site by patients won’t be allowed, said Catherine Cobb, head of licensing for the Department of Health and Human Services.
On one side of the Berkeley lounge is a room where, on different days of the week, patients might talk to a counselor, get a massage or have an acupuncture session.
And, on the other side is the store, where patients can buy pipes or bongs, cannabis lotions and balms, marijuana cook-books and ‘clones’ — six-inch tall marijuana plants grown from cuttings that sell for $12 apiece. The dispensary accepts cash and credit cards.
Ross DeGregory buys three ‘kush’ clones for his home marijuana garden. The 22-year-old, who helps runs a family painting business, said he relies on the drug to help with insomnia and to ease pain from a back injury that got him addicted to prescription painkillers years ago.
“I don’t think I could have gotten clean and sober without marijuana,” he said. “It probably saved my life.”
Before leaving, DeGregory also buys an ounce of processed buds that he plans to share with family members, including his grandmother. She is a registered medical marijuana patient, too, he said.
The heart of the operation is the actual dispensary, an open room with chairs along the back wall and a long glass case in front with samples of all the buds in stock, as well as edibles such as pot brownies and lozenges. Overhead, a color-coded electronic sign  shows the available varieties, including Super Silver Hazer and Purple Afgoo. Prices depend on quality, and range from $20 to $55 for an eighth of an ounce, or as much as $440 for an ounce.
Patients queue up as if waiting for a bank teller. Alan Clark, one of four employees behind the counter, explains some of the choices to a first-time visitor. Each variety of plant has different medical effects, such as relieving pain or increasing appetites, he said. And the effects also can vary from person to person.
Clark and other employees get training, and many of them also are medical marijuana patients who can speak from personal experience.
“I smoke for anxiety,” Clark said. “A lot of people here love the kushes. But, for me, they send me straight to nap time and I get nothing done.”
He usually recommends All Star Jack Frost for anxiety. “It gives you a heady, euphoric high and a sense of well-being. And you’re not all cloudy headed like you’re smoking a granddaddy or something.”
His pick for insomnia is Purple Afgoo. “That will give you some quality time with your couch.”
Relieving pain or muscle spasms could require a stronger blend, Clark said. “If you cross a purple with a train wreck, you’re likely to get something very heavy.”
For Sara Romano, Space Queen is the best medicine for managing anxiety, stress and depression.
“I’ve gone the (traditional) medical route with these things, and I’ve tried different pills. They may help on one level but they do bad things to your body,” Romano said.
She quit the pills and now sticks to weed, along with therapy, she said. “The depression is under control. Anxiety is non-existent.”
Having a safe, reliable – and legal – place to get her medicine has also been good for her health, she said.
LIKE CALIFORNIA, ONLY SMALLER
Maine’s dispensaries will be modeled after California’s biggest operations, but they clearly will be smaller.
Operators say they expect to start with a handful of employees at each site and that they expect to serve dozens of people a day instead of hundreds. Most project sales of $1 million to $2 million in the first full year of operation.
Along with a smaller population, Maine has far tighter limits than California on who can buy medical marijuana. Anxiety and insomnia, for example, are not among the short list of conditions, such as AIDS and cancer, that qualify a patient to legally use the drug in Maine. A state commission can add new qualifying conditions over time, but access in Maine is expected to expand much more slowly than it has in California.
California’s access rules are so open now that dispensary employees know they are selling some pot to perfectly healthy recreational users.
But, just as at a pharmacy counter, it’s impossible to tell just from looking who is really sick and who is not, said Clark. If a patient has a doctor’s recommendation, that’s good enough for him, he said.
Like Berkeley Patients Group and Harborside Health Center in Oakland, Calif., Maine’s dispensaries will blend into their neighborhoods and have plenty of security, operators said.
At the same time, the operators also say they plan to tailor the new dispensaries to fit Maine’s rules and its more conservative culture.
“We are looking to be as good as Berkeley Patients Group and Harborside or better, and that’s the cream of the crop in California,” said Tim Smale, who is working to open a dispensary called Remedy Compassion Center in the Auburn area.

UNCC researchers create a formula for recycling old bottles into new building materials

A UNC Charlotte researcher with a passion for sustainability is creating a new building material out of recycled plastic bottles and an ancient grass.
Dr. Na Lu, an assistant professor at UNCC’s Department of Engineering Technology, has created a material she believes may outperform composite lumber and wood lumber in many uses, and which has potential to be used in the residential and light commercial building industry.
In her lab at UNCC, Luna, as she prefers to be called, holds a dog bone-shaped sample of her creation: a beige plastic woven with threads of what looks like horsehair. “Hemp,” Luna says, and points to a fluffy pile of the fibers on the table.
Unlike much present-day composite lumber, Luna’s product substitutes hemp fibers for more typical chipped wood often mixed with virgin plastic. And unlike pressure-treated wood, the hemp material contains no toxic heavy metals.
Wood fiber is structured like a bundle of straws, she said, but hemp’s crystalline structure gives it greater mechanical strength. She demonstrates by holding out a handful of hemp fibers to pull.
“This (hemp composite) material performs up to 4,000 to 6,000 psi (pounds per square inch),” Luna said. “That’s as strong as medium-strength concrete.”
At the same time, the hemp-recycled plastic material is lighter than regular composite lumber, she said.
Hemp may be a promising building material, but the stuff Luna uses isn’t going to get anyone arrested. It’s industrial hemp, with an extremely low content of THC, the psychoactive substance for which marijuana is known.
Hemp is just one key to the new material; the other is recycled plastic bottles. In the United States, about 20 billion plastic bottles are used annually, and just 18 percent of those get recycled, Luna said. “The niche of what we do here is … we used HDPE recycled plastic, as opposed to resin epoxy,” she said.
Where things get wet
Unlike regular lumber, the experimental material is moisture- and insect-resistant, and hemp grows a lot faster than wood. Hemp fiber polymers are being used in the automotive industry in Europe for car interiors, Luna said, but she sees a future for the material in buildings, particularly in places where wood rot is a problem.
“The first application I really would like to see is any point where there is water contact in a civil application – a retaining wall, decking, bridges,” she said.
While it would cost more to produce the material today than it does to produce wood lumber, the life cycle cost would be cheaper and, over time, with a greater scale of production, she believes the cost to the consumer would fall.
For Luna, an interest in accomplishing conventional goals through unconventional means came early. Born in China, she said she saw firsthand the difficulty of a heavily populated nation struggling with high energy costs. After moving to the States, Luna earned her doctorate from Clemson University. In the process, she worked with a professor in Arizona in constructing a school from straw bales coated with cement.
Testing, testing
To prepare hemp composite samples for testing, Luna and her student assistant, John Larson, first extrude pellets of recycled plastic. Larson, a rising sophomore from Stanley majoring in construction management, treats the hemp fiber to remove its oil and odor. He points out a tensile testing machine used to pull the fibers and take pictures with a high-speed camera of how the material reacts and deforms in each moment.
Larson and Luna sandwich the strands between layers of plastic, and test the finished sample under a static load and a dynamic load (a moving load, such as that produced by wind or water) for changes in strength at various temperatures and humidity levels.
“We tried chopping them up,” Larson said of one of many experiments with the fibers. That didn’t prove strong enough, so now they’re turning out samples with longer hemp strands.
“It’s tedious,” Luna said of the yearlong process of trial and error. “But once you see the material improve … you love it.”
Listening to Mother Nature
In designing materials for building, it makes sense to take cues from nature, Luna said. “Mother Nature is much smarter than us,” she said. “I really respect nature and how things are designed.”
In the lab, Luna and Larson demonstrate the testing of a sample of the hemp composite. The “dog bone” slides into a vise-like apparatus on a strength-testing machine and, as Luna watches a glowing computer screen, the machine pulls the sample until at last it snaps, at 5,692 psi.
“Wow!” Luna says, surprised. Larson peers at the computer with her and they marvel at the test results, which were achieved at 70 degrees Fahrenheit and 35 percent humidity – variables, Luna says, which are important because a material’s performance changes with moisture and heat.
The next challenge will be making the material more fireproof. But already a lumber company and an architectural firm have expressed interest in it, Luna said.
In addition to exploring hemp and recycled plastic as a lumber substitute, Luna is looking at combining recycled plastic with bamboo fibers. She’s also working on a new class of thermoelectric materials to harvest waste heat energy and convert it into electrical energy without moving parts.

Frugal Foodie Friday: At long last, my CSA fruit share has graduated from apricots to peaches … not that I don’t have a freezer full of frozen apricots, but I thought I would shake things up by enjoying some peaches in my smoothies too. And I have to admit, I think I like peaches even better!
This is a simple smoothie recipe that uses vanilla hemp milk and vanilla hemp protein for that little something extra in the flavor and health departments. I was going for a balanced smoothie (some added protein and healthy Omega fats) with optimal taste, not a protein shake, which is why I opted to use a modest amount of hemp protein powder … but feel free to up it if you so desire.
I’m definitely liking hemp protein powders better than the other options, the only bummer is the green tinge takes away that beautiful peachy hue. But, I guess I will have to warm up to green as a lovely beverage color since the flavor is still wonderful …
Oh, and for those of you worried about the hemp “grit,” I have had good luck with Manitoba Harvest products. The HempPro 70 is the smoothest (nice powder actually), but these flavored varieties blend in nicely with a good 30 second or more whiz in the blender. No complaints here! In fact, my husband says he greatly prefers it to rice protein powder.
Just Peachy Vanilla-Hemp Smoothie
This recipe is Vegan, Dairy-Free, Egg-Free, Gluten-Free, Nut-Free, Soy-Free, and Refined Sugar-Free.

• 5 Ounces Frozen Peaches (1 overflowing cup)
• 3/4 to 1 Cup Vanilla Hemp Milk (I used Vanilla Hemp Bliss)
• 1/8 to 1/4 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
• 1 Date or Stevia to taste (can sub you favorite sweetener to taste)
• 1 Tablespoon Vanilla Hemp Protein Powder (optional – I used Manitoba Harvest Organic Vanilla Hemp Protein)

Add all ingredients, starting with 3/4 cup hemp milk to your blender. I usually pulse it several times first, and then blend until smooth. Add in additional hemp milk to your desired consistency.
Ginger Love: When the ginger cravings strike, I blend in two chunks of crystalized ginger for a special treat (I buy the inexpensive version at Trader Joe’s). For a lower sugar option, feel free to grate in some fresh ginger. Ginger powder just doesn’t cut it though – trust me, I’ve tried it.
Yields 1 peachy serving