This House Smells of Ganja: Cannabis Cement Now Used in Buildings

When he observed the damage caused to homes in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina or the wreckage in Haiti following the devastating earthquake that shook the country, James Savage decided to look for new and resistant construction materials.

Then an analyst on Wall Street, Savage reached the conclusion that cannabis could have other uses beyond recreational and medical use. Therefore, when building his own house in the New York countryside, he has used “hempcrete”, a cement made by mixing hemp fibre, with water and limestone this provides a natural watertight insulation that is also breathable, flexible and practically fireproof. Now, Savage has created his own business for materials made from hemp, Green Built.

The entrepreneur is not the only person who believes that hemp is contributing to a new form of environmentally friendly construction. Ken Anderson is the owner of Original Green Distribution, a company in Minneapolis (in the state of Minnesota) that produces its own cement, Hempstone. "You could smoke a telephone pole of our substance and not get high”, explained the business man, as Hempstone only includes 0.3% of THC, while varieties used for human consumption contain between 5 and 10%. "It is similar to the difference between a wolf and a poodle”, explains Savage graphically.

In reality, the use of hemp as a construction material is nothing new: it had a special boom in the 80’s in France, where there are hundreds of buildings built with “hempcrete”. In the United Kingdom and Germany there are also buildings that have used this cement.

The increasing popularity of marijuana in the United States following its legalisation in Oregon, Alaska, Washington and Colorado could be the definitive driving force that leads to cannabis cement being used more in the country. At the moment, the raw material is imported: last year, Canada sent hemp worth 600 million dollars (541 million euros) to American companies.