A World Imagined

In order to sustain the presence of life and freedom on this planet Earth, it must be taken as a responsibility for the self-aware conscious beings that inhabit it, to engineer an environment of cohabitation and liberty, devoid of oppression to all other benign beings. Thus, we pledge to harmonize the functions of our labors to reverently nurture the cradle for anticipated generations, of all kinds. Striving without end, we embark on this task in gratitude, to allow nature take it's course, free of impairment. Priority of the task to embody compassion toward others will be perpetually held foremost, adapting habits to suit a symbiosis that considers the regional extents of intermingled thriving bodies, never to lessen their boundaries lest determined hazardous. Deliberation of this reasoning need not be outlined by numerous letter and character. By an evaluation of the merited, detriment or development shall be managed in appropriate fashion to align with the balances aforementioned.

The proposal being brought forward for balance and synergy with the planet, is a currency that is socially embellished by the cooperation of the people to contribute more as a whole than what is needed by the individuals. By which, making each denomination note worth more each year and eventually making itself obsolete as we move into a money free world. Imagine a currency backed by a renewable resource, with the benefit of manifesting our basic human needs and the means by which to share it for the progress of mankind. There is no other than the dog star plant to raise humanities standard of living to one of comfort for all lives.

Cannabis has been a useful plant for humanity since it's discovery several millennia ago, but around the world it was made illegal due to the U.N.’s Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961 A.D. (UN). However, people’s attitudes are changing today with Colorado, Alaska, Oregon, and Washington becoming the first states to legalize cannabis for purposes beyond medicine, we are now free to rediscover all the amazing things this plant can do for us and our planet.

As much as the digital age is fast reducing the need for printing many things, paper is very important to a modern economy as it serves as a medium for our currency, contracts, study, and especially artwork. Paper that is typically used in modern times is most often made of wood, along with chemicals not found in nature (Gendell). Needless to say, modern paper making is bad for the environment because it not only removes trees from their ecosystems, but also adds pollutants to the atmosphere by its production. Cannabis has the potential to replace wood, and does not need chemicals to become paper (General). Cannabis also produces more biomass per acre than trees, and in less time than it takes trees to grow. For comparison, one acre of cannabis will produce two crops in a year with the equivalent amount of 4 acres of trees. Cannabis can also be used to make cardboard and even tissue paper; basically every practical industry involving trees could instead be accomplished with cannabis.

Cannabis can also be eaten in a number of ways and all parts of the plant can be prepared into a wide variety of meals. It is very common for medical dispensaries to mix the flowering tops of cannabis into sweets because of its medicinal properties, and many of these sweets could pass as just regular food (Ferner). The seeds of the plant can be used to make a bread like substance known as hempseed cake. This cake is very good for whoever consumes it as it is high in many vitamins and minerals such as magnesium and manganese (Hemp Flour). The leaves and stalk of the plant can be prepared into a drink that the Indians call “bhang” (pronounced bong) it’s a very creamy and smooth drink that tastes like water if nothing is added to the original recipe, however one can add chocolate to it for flavor, or cinnamon for flavor and memory enhancing properties. Now you can eat cannabis and drink it too, all the while its good for you, they basically made the best vegetable illegal.

Cannabis has very strong fibers that can be made into products ranging from T-shirts to Hammocks. Cannabis also grows faster than traditional sources of clothing fiber such as cotton; two to three times faster to be exact (General). What this means is that cannabis is a stronger material than what people currently use now and it is also easier to grow more of it. Cannabis could therefore be a solution to clothing the world’s population at a time when many are worrying about overpopulation, and lack of resources.

The parts of the cannabis plant that are not used for fibers are known as hurds which make up about 70% of the plant’s biomass. These hurds can be used for building material when combined with lime (General). The resulting material is called hempcrete; a material which is both self-insulating and fire proof. This material also has a carbon negative action on the atmosphere, which means that it takes CO2 out of the atmosphere and locks it inside the material of the building. On top of this carbon negative benefit of hempcrete is another: reduced energy costs due to its superior insulation properties. One of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is human homes; making homes carbon negative and less dependent on fossil fuels could help turn the clock back when it comes to excess carbon in our atmosphere (Perritano). These buildings are not new, in fact the roman aqueducts in France were made of this same material, and are still standing today even 2000 years after Rome collapsed! This implies that carbon negative action taken now will have positive effects for generations to come. It also implies that if we made public buildings out of this material we could spend less on maintaining them, and less on replacing them.

Finding a sustainable, efficient, and clean energy source has been a very big challenge for people in the 21st Century, but the search may be over as cannabis can also be made into fuel. Biodiesel can be made out of cannabis oils from the seeds and stalk of the plant, while biofuel is made from just the stalks of cannabis (General). As stated earlier cannabis grows much faster than many plants in the world, and it can also be grown all over the world. What this implies is that people would have the ability to generate their own fuel, and in turn the laws of supply and demand would lower gas prices. Not only would gas be cheaper if we produced cannabis fuel, it would create a respiratory like cycle between cars and their fuel. CO2 would be burned and released into the atmosphere and then reabsorbed by cannabis plants ready to be turned into fuel or another product. Henry Ford even demonstrated that a car can be fueled by nothing but cannabis (Henry Ford's). Essentially what cannabis allows humans to do is have a healthy natural relationship with our planet while still enjoying the pleasures of the modern world.

Motor vehicles are a huge part of our economy given that they transport goods and people from place to place, but they are made of materials that must be mined to acquire. Luckily cannabis can be made into a light durable plastic that is ideal for motor vehicles. In fact Canadian scientists have already made one.(Gordon) The Scientists discovered that by using cannabis in the creation of this car that less fuels are needed to push the car forward because the cannabis plastic is much lighter than traditional materials. Cannabis is also stronger than steel when put in this form (Gordon). So now you can make a car out of cannabis and fuel it with cannabis, while at the same time being more efficient than regular fossil fuels and stronger than traditional car material.

The most well-known use of cannabis is its medical applications. Over 20 states in the United States have recognized that cannabis is effective when treating certain ailments. For instance just recently Utah passed a bill that allows epileptic people access to CBD oil: an extract of cannabis that prevents seizures and is known as an antipsychotic. Cannabis has another compound in it loved by patients everywhere because of its innumerable applications, that compound is known as THC. THC was the reason the plant was made illegal in the first place, but that was because people had very little knowledge of its true effects. The most shocking of these medical effects is that THC actually strengthens the brain rather than weaken it as THC protects it from neurdegeneration (Walia). This protection actually prevents Alzheimer’s disease and other symptoms of aging. THC has also been proven to reduce tumors from different cancers in multiple studies. One myth about cannabis is that it gives the consumer more lung cancer than tobacco, but the opposite is actually true cannabis cures and prevents lung cancer in the consumer, and has also been found to reduce asthma. When it comes to most cancers cannabis makes these cells wither and die; denying someone this medicine because of a propaganda campaign is morally wrong. Cannabis can be used for less serious conditions as well such as chronic pain from multiple diseases (105 Peer-Reviewed). Cannabis has also been proven to help people with bipolar disorder manage their condition by improving their memory, attention, and general attitude. THC also has the effect of improving appetite which is very valuable to AIDS patients who have trouble eating, as well as people with eating disorders. To say the least Cannabis has a lot of medical applications and more are surely going to be discovered now that people are more accepting of the plant.

Cannabis’s greatest application could be its use as a currency. Throughout history, I know of 3 monetary systems: bartering goods and services, gold/silver standard money, and fiat currency. Cannabis as a medium of exchange is not a new idea; in fact Thomas Jefferson used it as currency when the government ran out of money in May of 1781 while he was governor of Virginia.("Hemp history") Just as with gold backing, such a currency would operate by having each note redeemable for an amount of hemp, whether raw or in a refined state of oil, seed, fiber, or hurds. AN ACTUAL "federal reserve" would grow, harvest, and hold this crop, along with printing the amount of money equal to the amount of resource held, so that these notes can be redeemed at the banks for the harvested raw and/or refined hemp (oil, fiber, hurd, etc). Currently our currency is based on debt, not value, and this can lead to problems among neighbors, fearing scarcity. For every dollar we print we go that much plus interest in debt: meaning we can never pay our debt off even if we used every dollar in existence. Cannabis offers us a way out of perpetual debt, and also gives the power of currency to the people rather than the privately owned Federal Reserve.

Cannabis backed currency is a unit of accountability to our ecosystem and the betterment to our every man, woman, and child. An open worldwide market utilizing a network of claimed lands would serve as the basis for a cooperative economy and government, funded by a property tax of cannabis; that is to say, the more land that you participate with, the more cannabis you pay in taxes. The government would have to send high quality seeds to all land owning people in order for this system to be fair, but at least debt is not inherently created as a loan of principle and interest when this money enters the economy.

Citizens would replace their current currency notes at the reserve with the new cannabis notes, at the same value as compared with how much raw material that amount would purchase from the reserve. ANYone, at ANY time, has the option to grow a crop to turn in to the reserves, to attain cannabis currency (the reason that this benefit does not collapse the system and erase the need for jobs by citizens, and in turn erase capitalism markets, is because it can only be done once, possibly twice, a year).

To phase it into society, the best method would be to start with businesses that can utilize the crop either by 100% or a considerable amount, for them to pay their employees in hemp notes in a slowly increasing percentage of wages and to buy hemp ingredients for their products from the new hemp banks, at an appropriate amount per unit of the resource, in relation to the present economic state in the nation (These companies would buy, in USD, the hemp to manufacture with, until the harvesting is USD proofed; not requiring petroleum to run the machines or paying wages in USD).

After the first fiscal year, the number of circulated notes would be tallied, by the use of catalogued serial numbers (tracked like anonymous credit card numbers, tied to the hemp serial note, not the person), so that the sum could be grown to sustain the size of the economy. The supply will constantly grow and shrink at the same time because of how people consume and renew it.

As the fiscal years turn, all uncirculated notes would leave behind an amount of unredeemed hemp, that would rollover into the value of each note in the following year, i.e. out of 10 trillion pounds, if all but 1 trillion is used, then the notes are now worth 1.1x the amount as they were previously. That amount would be factored into the next year's crop size, to cover it possibly being redeemed later.

There could be a maximum of the number of years this amount would be covered by next year's crop, making inheritance of "old money" wealth out of the question and keeping the crop reserves fresh. So, if notes are not redeemed for, say, 3years, the serial numbers on the notes are "burned", removing that amount from what is to be grown the next year and making those particular notes unredeemable. This portion could be taxed to supply public sector programs with their needs, by turning into free food, clothes, shelter, fuel, etc.

The amount of hemp donated from the civilians between federally sanctioned crops would count against the amount of "hemp debt" factored for the added value notes (that didn't circulate the previous year and are not set to "burn" in that cycle) By surpassing the notes queued to cover the size of the economy for the next year, this starts to reduce interest rates on loans, potentially leading to a system that has NEGATIVE interest rates on loans.

The final reason this currency is inflation proof is that it's supplies will grow with the population: the more people alive, the more people that will want to consume cannabis, so more people will grow it. Inflation would only take place on non-renewable resources, that would increase in price with the overall amount of resource/money held at reserves, just to maintain it's rate of attainment, so as not to use these too quickly.

Cannabis can be grown everywhere humans live, so it can even be put to use as an international currency free from the barriers of languages and governments. The numbers I have crunched are only to outline a general concept. Starting with an overestimated 350 million US citizens, at 50k pounds per person, a 17.5 trillion pound reserves would be grown. Going from an estimated 6-10k pound per acre yield, it would require 1.75 to 2.92 billion acres. The US has ~2.25 billion arable acres, so this can possibly be done in a single year.

Some numbers I ran based on a full capacity use worldwide:

3.10798574 billion arable hectares of land on Earth * 2 crops a year * 8000 lbs is average between 6 and 10k lbs per hectare * 16 ounces per pound as the individual units likened to a dollar, totals 795,644,349,000,000 or 795 trillion, 644 billion, 349 million. That's the total potential of a world cannabis currency in individual slices in the pie if grown at full capacity.

Only 7.59 billion hectares are needed to give everyone on Earth a 1,250 square foot home. 971.25 trillion units worth of work that can be done in about two and a half years. On top of the fiber and hurds content used from the plant to make the houses, there would also be 3,000 lbs average of seed yield per hectare * the 3.10798574 billion hectares a year * 2 crops a year is 18,647,914,440,000 or 18.65 trillion lbs of seed, 46,619,786,100,000 or 46 trillion 619 billion 786 million 100 thousand lbs of seed after the 2.5 years to grow the hemp for fiber to build houses for everyone. 37 gallons of oil per acre from seed is 284.16 billion gallons in a year, or 710.4 billion gallons of hemp oil after the 2.5 years to grow the fiber to build houses for everyone.

That is a hypothetical cap to the planet's capacity for this economy. Even if scaling it down to small fractions of the areas mentioned, you can see that it still yields a considerable amount for trial local economies.

On top of all this the flowering tops of cannabis, which hold the most THC and CBD, would be representative of other products in the economy due to the other parts of the plant being applicable for so many uses. How could this system be managed? Since all cannabis varies a spectrometer device will be needed to “read” the THC and CBD of cannabis while simultaneously weighing it. This device could also double as a virtual wallet that would account for how many cannabinoids you have stored in the bank to avoid theft and inconvenience.

All in all, cannabis has a lot of uses, and potential uses. One day you could be driving a cannabis car, using cannabis fuel, on the way to your cannabis house, to eat your cannabis dinner, while wearing cannabis clothes, and all while everything was purchased with cannabis. This plant clearly forms a symbiotic relationship with humans, and for the health of our planet it should be accepted as a wise alternative to the harmful things we do to maintain our standard of living currently.

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#CannabisCurrency
https://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/4y9v9x/a_world_imagined/
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.AGrow
.BHarvest
.CContributors weigh by lbs. (Banks and Individuals)
.DStore in Central Vaults (Clear pyramid over an open pit with view of cranes picking out bales)
.EPaid wages on single hemp note, with a heading like a denomination bill, a security strip, given to each company, very precious tape embeded, a ledger following under where it's spent and for how much (bifolds like a check).
.FEach place of spending would take the note, scan a bar, which figures the difference, write a new line on the ledger, prints new heading with a new company security strip embeded, new value of note stated, and then destroy the old note in order for the print to work.
.GBuilt in system of recording, in case of failure and needing a note replaced.
.HSpent like an anonymous bank card, that communicates the trades of the values of hemp product and hemp currency, back to the reserves.
.IHowever, it is a note, resembling a Bond, with a binary strip or RFID embeded.

[US Dollar (USD)] = 1
[Current Currency (CC)] = [USD] x [Exchange Rate]
[Hemp Reserve Note (HRN)] = [CC]

[Crop Unit] (CU, cubic 3 ft. bundle of raw plant)
[Unit Weight] (UW, number of Lbs or Kgs)

Price of Crop Unit: [Hemp Reserve Notes (HRN)]/[CU] = 27([UW]/Ft^3)* x 65[CC]**

• = Actual Weight {[CU] =? [UW]/Ft^3}
  ** = [CC]/[UW], subject to change when compared with national economic state. This number represents the quantity of base value(1CC) hemp notes per pound
  [Yearly Print (YP)] = [Reserve Crop Held in Lbs(RCH#)] x 65**

[Citizens' Withdraw in Hemp Notes (CW)] = [CC]/65**

{YP is the new hemp currency notes put into circulation each year, that represent the exact amount of the harvested plant, broken down into stackable blocks that has been verified to be able to produce X amount of each Known Goods (KG)}
(Known Goods / KG: Refer to diagram - Message me for link to PDF containing graph)

Sources

Ferner, Matt. "10 Marijuana Edibles That Could Pass As 'Real' Food." Huffington Post. 15 10 2013 : n. page. Web. 4 Apr. 2014.

Gendell, Adam . "Paper is Made from What?!." GreenBlue. GreenBlue, 3 Oct. 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2014.

"General Hemp Information." HempBasics. Natural Hemp Products, n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2014

Gordon-Bloomfield, Nikki. "Canada's Cannabis Car." FoxNews.com. (2010): n. page. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

"Henry Ford's Suppressed Hemp Car - What We All Should Be Driving." Spirit Science and Metaphysics. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.

"Hemp Flour and Hemp Seed Cake." HempSeed.ca. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2014

"Hemp history." Global Hemp. N.p., 2001. Web. 4 Apr. 2014

"105 Peer-Reviewed Studies on Marijuana." ProCon.org. N.p.,5 Sep. 2012. Web.4 Apr. 2014. Perritano, John. "Can I use hemp as a building material and to insulate my house?." how stuff works. n.d. n. page. Web. 4 Apr. 2014

UN, "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 ." United Nations Treaty Collection. un.org, 30 Mar. 1961. Web. 4 Apr. 2014.

Walia, Arjun . "20 Medical Studies That Prove Cannabis Can Cure Cancer." Collective Evolution. N.p., 23 Aug. 2013. Web.4 Apr.. 2014.