Ep. 15 - From Illegal to Essential: It’s Time for a Polar Shift in Values… w/ Paul VonHartmann, Hemp Ecologist & Author of “Cannabis vs Climate Change”

Paul is one of our favorite Cannabis  OG’s - a seasoned expert always teaching us something new and mind blowing about this incredible plant with an unforgettable passion and sincerity for his life’s work.

This episode offers an hour of in-depth discussion with Paul looking at the  numerous ecological (and ultimately, climate) benefits of Cannabis, followed by  an additional hour of  post-show questions and discussion with LIVE audience members.

“The planet is in big trouble from greenhouse gases that warm and change the climate. Ashland resident Paul J. von Hartmann proposes a cure you might not expect. It’s cannabis.

Von Hartmann has been a Cannabis scholar and speaker for over 25 years on the need to decriminalize Cannabis and get it out to the world, not just for healing to the user, but for healing of the planet in these perilous times of climate change.

Von Hartmann is an organic Cannabis farmer, who worked with Ebb & Flow Farm in Oregon and recently authored the book “Cannabis vs. Climate Change: How hot does it have to get before all solutions are considered?”

Von Hartmann founded the California Cannabis Ministry, in 2007, and the first cannabis college in Amsterdam before that. 

“Cannabis is completely unique -the only crop that produces complete nutrition and sustainable energy from the same harvest,” he said in an interview with So Good Herb. “It has the three essential fatty acids in proper proportion for long-term consumption and is loaded with amino acids and proteins.”

For the planet, Cannabis’ most significant property may be production of “atmospheric terpenes (volatile unsaturated hydrocarbons found in the essential oils of plants), and these are needed to protect Earth from the sun, that is, the UVB radiation that has increased as we’ve cut down boreal (far northern) forests to make paper and killed off half of marine phytoplankton.”

Cannabis, he says, is the only crop capable of replenishing the atmosphere with terpenes we need for survival, as well as helping sequester carbon in boreal forests and ocean plants. Inherent in this process of healing the planet, he says, is reducing burning of fossil fuels and turning to plants, such as hemp, as the new source of plastics. Massive cannabis farming also produces much oxygen.

Cannabis can make the world go around in many ways, he says. Industrial hemp can be a multibillion-dollar industry, can produce a plant-based fuel, and can help sequester carbon by fully replacing fossil fuels.

“It’s the illogical social prejudice against a plant in a society that feels it’s okay to burn fossil fuels, knowing they are Gaia-cidal (earth-killing), but still continues to do it. Nothing else can do all the same things that Cannabis does.”

Von Hartmann calls for a  “radical shift of values, from illegal to essential,” to liberate our most valuable and  essential resource — Cannabis, which Paul describes as “mankind’s functional interface with the natural order.”

Quoted from “So Good Herb” 2018 article by John Darling

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