"Where do we grow the hemp to replace that much wood? A forest of trees would yield a lot more pulp per square foot than a field of hemp."

Actually, that's not true. Trees aren't exactly an annual crop, you know. They take years to mature enough to make harvesting them pay. Depending on local conditions, an acre of hemp can produce from four to ten times as much paper pulp as an acre of trees that takes twenty or so years to mature.

Hemp also produces a higher-quality type of paper, and the production of it doesn't require all the toxic chemicals that wood pulp needs.

Where to grow it? Let some of the farmers who are growing corn now change to growing hemp and make a decent living for a change. Corn has long been America's #1 crop. It grows on over 80 million acres, producing about 13 billion bushels. But by the time the farmers buy all the fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides this greedy crop requires, he's not making much profit; without the subsidies, he wouldn't be making any. I have never heard of a crop that takes as much fertilizer and chemical protection as corn. We grow a lot of corn here because it provides a guaranteed income for farmers through the subsidies paid for by the taxpayers. We grow so much of it that scientists are paid to find new uses for it. Corn is poor feed for livestock, but it's fed to livestock. High-fructose corn syrup is bad for people's health, but since 1990 or so, it's put in virtually everything we eat. The next excitement was using it for ethanol, although is isn't really good for that, as the cost to produce it just about wipes out any profit from the alcohol. Mesquite beans, cattails and fodder beets are far superior to corn for ethanol, but corn is SUBSIDIZED, which is the attractive difference. Sense is not an issue in subsidized farming.

Hemp, on the other hand, doesn't take many additional nutrients, nor much water. It grows fast and is harvested in 4 months, growing so fast that it outcompetes weeds, so it doesn't need herbicides. All hemp varieties produce their own natural pesticides, so farmers wouldn't have that expense, either. The valuable fibers are in the stems, so the plant residue after basic processing can be returned to the soil, as the unneeded leaves and roots are where the nutrients are concentrated.

Always follow the money, not the political fabrications.

Sue