Topic: Legalizing the growing of hemp is beginning to become a more prominent issue in South Dakota.
Our View: Perhaps it’s time to start considering hemp as a viable crop.
Hold on. Don’t freak. We’re talking about legalizing growing hemp, not legalizing smoking marijuana. So please, don’t write the Collegian off as a bunch of pot-smoking, ultra-liberal college students who are just trying to fight “The Establishment.”
Seriously, hemp can be made into useful products like cloth, rope, building materials, paper, and according to some, fuel. Sure, there are already crops and resources that can be made into the afore-mentioned products. But with the not-so gradual loss of renewable resources like trees and with the harsh and damaging herbicides and pesticides that have to be applied to crops like cotton, maybe it’s time to consider hemp as an actual plausible alternative.
The pro-hemp folks have a long fight a head of them. And the fact that actor Woody Haroldson is one of their spokespersons will not help matters. Trying to overcome the negative connotations that go with hemp will be the real trial. Hemp and marijuana are so firmly imbedded into the “drugs and anything drug-related is bad” part of people’s minds that it may be impossible to make any changes.
But the pro-hemp people are resourceful (just look at how many useful products they’ve concocted out of the controversial crop) that they may actually succeed in bringing the issue to the ballot. And in the end, that may not be a bad thing.
E-mail comments to sdsucollegian@yahoo.com.
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