The Portland Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws will be hosting a public forum on industrial hemp this Saturday, August 22 at Noon at the Tony Starlight Showroom at 1125 SE Madison St. in Portland featuring Pacific Northwest hemp expert Joy Beckerman from Hemp Ace International.

Beckerman, who is also founding president of the Washington Hemp Industries Association, has over two decades of experience in the industrial variety of the cannabis plant popularly known as hemp. Her company specializes in global supply networks for everything from raw hemp fiber, hemp building materials, seed oil, and seed nutrition, to textiles, apparel, cordage, and certain hemp bio-composites.

The meeting will feature an address by Beckerman on industrial hemp, a legal crop in Oregon, where thirteen licensees are currently registered with the state to farm the plant. Beckerman will then conduct a presentation on hempcrete – a durable, fire-, pest-, mold-, and rot-resistant hemp-and-lime building material that will revolutionize home construction wherever hemp biomass feedstocks become available.

“Hempcrete is actually carbon-negative,” explains Beckerman, “if the hemp is locally sourced. The process of the hemp and lime calcifying, combined with the carbon-dioxide that growing hemp plants absorb from the atmosphere and convert into oxygen, means a hempcrete home will sequester carbon and help reduce global climate change. It’s also completely renewable and provides optimal indoor air quality as an insulation that regulates temperature and breathes and passes vapor and humidity naturally, while lowering overall building costs. Hempcrete is a no-brainer!”

Portland NORML aims to educate the community about the value of hempcrete as an industrial building material, particularly as political complaints intensify from farmers of psychoactive cannabis who worry about cross-pollination with industrial hemp crops. “Nobody is any better educated on the value of industrial hemp as Joy Beckerman,” says Portland NORML Executive Director Russ Belville. “We hope someday we can use volunteers and locally-sourced donated hemp to help construct ‘tiny homes’ for our homeless population.”

Portland NORML’s Saturday meeting will also feature information on recreational cannabis cultivation classes at Portland Hydroponic & Organic. Portland NORML members will receive a discount on the comprehensive 16-hour course tuition.

Source: Portland NORML – make a donation