--- title: The New Green Building Trend is Bricks of Cannabis. Really. description: A cannabis-based building material called hempcrete is gaining acceptance in home construction because it provides great insulation, while being flexible, breathable, fireproof, and resistant to pests and mold. And no, it won't get you high if you smoke it. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2015-07-08T15:17:26.000Z' modified: '2015-07-08T15:17:26.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - building a home - green building - home construction - Homes - legal weed - pubdesk word_count: 168 canonical: https://money.com/cannabis-hempcrete-building-material/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Rainer Nowotny, managing director of the company Hemp fibre Uckermark eG, presents bricks made of clay and hemp in Prenzlau, Germany, July 24, 2013.](https://img.money.com/2015/07/150708_em_hemphousing2.jpg) *Hemp, which can be mixed with lime and water to make "hempcrete" blocks, has been used for decades as a building material in Europe.* The jokes about homes "going up in smoke" are inevitable. But the truth is that one of the reasons the cannabis-based building material called [hempcrete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hempcrete) is gaining acceptance in home construction is that it's entirely fireproof. As a recent [*New York Times*](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/07/nyregion/cannabis-construction-entrepreneurs-use-hemp-in-home-building.html?_r=2) story reported, hempcrete has been used as a building material in Europe for decades, and lately it's been incorporated in more homes and offices in the U.S. A small group of hemp entrepreneurs envisions a time very soon when hempcrete will be totally mainstream. Hempcrete is made with the wood-like interior part of a Cannabis plant, which resemble the look and feel of balsa chips. They're combined with lime and water, and the resulting material is a block that provides terrific natural insulation, while still being flexible, breathable, and, as mentioned already, fireproof. And there's no need to worry about teenage hooligans ripping out your insulation to smoke it. Hempcrete contains an almost imperceptible amount of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana that gets you high. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/cannabis-hempcrete-building-material/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Lifestyle", "item": "https://money.com/lifestyle/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Health and Wellness", "item": "https://money.com/health-and-wellness/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "The New Green Building Trend is Bricks of Cannabis. 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