CANNABIS IS KEY TO DAIMLER

CANNABIS IS KEY TO DAIMLER'S NEW CONCEPT IN CAR BUILDING

Thu 14 Nov 1996 By John von Radowitz, Science Correspondent, PA News
German car giant Daimler-Benz is looking at ways of introducing cannabis into the structure of its vehicles.

Hemp fibers from the marijuana plant, Cannabis sativa, are being used in place of glass fiber to reinforce plastic components like head rests. Scientists at Daimler-Benz have already experimented with other natural alternatives, like flax, to avoid using environmentally unsound glass fiber. Until now the law prevented them using cannabis, but from this year new legislation in Germany has allowed hemp to be cultivated for industrial purposes.

The fibers, which hold small quantities of the marijuana drug resin, proved to be better than flax - a well known textile fiber derived from the stem of a blue-flowered plant. A statement from Daimler-Benz said: "Hemp fibers have a number of advantages over flax. "They are more rigid than flax and can be cultivated without the use of insecticides. Initial investigations have shown that hemp matches and even surpasses flax in terms of performance potential, and promises to be more economical."

The company has been exploring the idea of replacing glass fiber with natural materials since 1991. Its subsidiary Mercedes-Benz in Sao Paulo, Brazil, pioneered the concept, using coconut fibers and other ingredients from the rain forest in its trucks. A Daimler-Benz spokesman in Germany said: "We were very skeptical at first, but then we put our scientists there and they really saw the benefit."

The problem with glass fiber is that it cannot be recycled without breaking down into small particles which are dangerous if inhaled. The spokesman said while the advantages of hemp had been known for some time there were obvious barriers to its use until now. "We had the problem that hemp wasn't allowed to be used here in Germany because of the marijuana. Then people developed a type of hemp with a very low content of this substance, and from this year there was a change in the law."

*Industrial-Hemp has no psychoactive properties following definition of the European Economic Community (EEC); THC content is less than 0.3%. In general, low THC-seed varieties without psychoactive properties are those that have a THC content of less than 1%.