Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 10, 2016)
T H E U D E N T F IL E S THE HEMP WORSHIPER CLACKAMAS STUDENT STARTS BUSINESS WITH HEMP BY MATT ROWNING T h e C la c k a m a s P rin t: T e ll u s a b o u t yourself! W h at’ s the story b ehin d O r ego n H em p W orks? B en C h risten sen : I started my company about six years ago. 1 ended up getting in a car wreck at a certain point and got a medical marijuana card. I had a buddy growing marijuana. 1 thought it was pretty cool that he worked with the plant, but I didn’t think there were enough voices on hem p. I decided I wanted to work with hem p. A lso , I happened to like 'Fight Club' quite a bit at the time, so I decided to make soap. I sp ent the next year research ing Oregon and hem p and cannabis in general. BC: No, 1 source it from Canada, they’re kind o f the world leader on hemp oil and hemp seed product. ’97 1 think they start ed doing a pilot hemp program. It’s a huge industry. The United States buys 90 per cent of what they produce, so a significant am ount. The federal governm ent was actually sued over that. The US govern ment had said 'no hemp in this country,’ but there was a suit filed claim ing hemp was a food product. Now we have hemp food items and oil. So that’ s what I use in my soap is food grade, organic hem p oil. TCP: You’ve mentioned the product is organic, why did you choose to make it that way? BC: It’s not certified organic, so what I can TCP: Y ou w ere liv in g in O regon at th e tim e? B C: Yes, I am bom and raised here. T CP: W h at successes have you had so far? Is th e b all fin a lly sta rtin g to roll w ith th e le g a liz a tio n o f recreatio n al m arijuana? Ben Christensen proudly stands with marijauna plants. Photo contributed by Ben Christensen. B C: I’ve seen a dramatic increase jn the acceptance of hemp with the legalization. There’ s so many people fighting for med ical and recreational, but in comparison there’ s quite a few less for hem p. A s o f last year there are n ine hem p farm s in Oregon. TCP: Do you have any difficulty acquir ing industrial hemp for your products w ith o n ly n in e fa rm s in state? say on my label is it’ s made with organic hemp oil. It’ s made with organic olive oil, organic coconut oil. I can only put that on the label. TCP: What’ s the future for you and for Oregon Hemp Works? BC: As for the future, it kind of started out as a hobby thing, I didn’t know what I was doing. Now I’ve started to go to school for renewable energy, I started at Clackamas fou r years ago. M y renew able energy degree will only help me to improve and build in sustainability into my company. So, I can understand it’ s not just about having a Prius company car and compact fluorescent lights, it’ s a matter of putting solar panels up. It’ s not just recycling but actually m anaging our waste. Right now the soap’s packaging is hemp paper with hem p twine. It’ s biodegrad able. M ovin g forward, I ’ m transferring to OIT n ext term fo r business. TCP: W h at w ould you say i f I accused you o f b ein g a forw ard m ind ed e n tre preneur? B C: I w ouldn’t use that terminology for m yself, but I w ouldn’t disagree with it. I th in k it w as A dam Corolla w ho said 'you’ re not an entrepreneur u n til you m ake $100,000 a year.' I just try to be humble about it, because it’ s not about me or m y com pany, its a m atter o f the planet. This is the m ost sustainable resource we have, and you can’t really talk about renewable energy and saving the planet unless hem p is in the conversation as well. It is the most nutritionally complete food source on the planet; it’ s a carbon negative building material. I took classes in 2015 on how to build with hempcrete. I went to Bellingham over the summer and took a three day course on building a tiny house with hemp materials. Hempcrete is chopped up hemp stock with lim e and water. It creates a carbon negative building material that absorbs carbon over tim e, it essentially petrifies and sucks carbon dioxide out o f the air. It makes a building that will last hundreds o f years. Then, when you want to change som ething, you can smash it down and make it into a new hempcrete batch. It’s amazing stuff. It’ s a victim o f its own success. People hear this and say I would haye heard o f it if it could do all those things. That’ s exactly why you haven’ t heard o f it. Correction: In issue 11 of The Clackamas Print. Cassandra Garcia-Torres' name was misspelled. We apologize for the error. ON THE COVER: Macro photo o f marijuana by Andrew Koczian. Design by Brandon Chorum. Itheclackamasprint.com oo® Editors- In-Chlef Andrew Koczian & Megan McCoy, chiefed@clackamas.edu; News Editor Cassidy White, newsed@dackamas.edu; Arts & Culture Matthew Rowning, aced@dackamas.edu; Associate Arts & Culture Saige Keikkaia; Sports EdRsr Katie Archer, sportsed@clackamas.edu; Copy Editor Blake Swan, copyed@clackamas.edu; Design Editor Brandon Chorum; Photo Editor Austin Boltz. ptiotoed@clackamas.edu; Associate Photo Editor Victoria Inker; Wed Edftor.Cheisea Pagan, weberktor@dackamas.edu; Associate Wed Editor Shaytyn Struna; Ad Manager Robin Scott, admgr@clackamas.edu; Associate Ad Manager Merari Calderon Ruiz; Staff Writers A Photographers Dani Clifton. James Harley. Taras Kovch, Tom Boggess. Tony Pellico; Production Cole Slawson. Debbie Fox. lexie Wagar. Travis Whittaker. Journalism Advisor Melissa Jones, melissai@cldckamas.edu; 77* aadteaias Print aims to report the news in an honest, unbiased and professional manner. Content published in The Print is not screened or subject to censorship. Email comments, concerns or tips to: chiefed@dackamas.edu or call us at 503-594-6266; 19600 Molalla Ave., Oregon City, OR 97045 2 Clackamas Pri n t FEBRUARY 10.2016 foeclackamasprint.com
