"Make the most of the Indian hemp seed."

No, that's not a quote from a half-baked hippie at Mellow Mushroom.

That's George Washington speaking.

There is a foolish misconception rampant in today's society that hemp and marijuana are synonymous terms.

While marijuana, like industrial hemp, is indeed a byproduct of the cannabis sativa plant, the latter is a nearly tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC )-free, soil-enriching, multi-faceted resource" which the United States doesn't grow.

It didn't always used to be that way.

Actually, during World War II, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a propaganda film titled "Hemp for Victory," which encouraged farmers and citizens alike to plant hundreds of thousands of acres of hemp for the war effort.

In 1970, lawmakers and bureaucrats started humming a different tune and passed the Controlled Substances Act, which prohibited the cultivation of hemp in the United States.

How can the government go from being staunchly pro-hemp to anti-hemp in the span of 28 years?

If the drug movement of the 1960s is to blame, then I suppose lawmakers forgot to read their history books because industrial hemp does not produce any of the effects of marijuana.

The THC levels in industrial hemp are less than 0.05 percent, according to votehemp.com.

Basically, if you smoked industrial hemp, all you would get is a massive headache.

Lawmakers are aware of this, but their concern is that THC-heavy strands would be hidden among the industrial hemp plants.

However, marijuana must be grown away from industrial hemp plants because the high levels of CDC in hemp plants would counteract and taint the THC in the marijuana plants, leading to a much lower-quality drug that would have little or no street value, according to Hemp and Marijuana: Myths and Realities by Dr. David West of the University of Minnesota.

The hemp stalk is a valuable source of fiber, which is used in a plethora of products around the world.

Fiber produces greater resiliency and breathability than cotton, which accounts for 25 percent of pesticides sprayed on the world's crops, according to industrialhemp.net.

Even Mercedes-Benz uses a bio-composite of hemp to make stronger, cheaper door panels.

And speaking of cars, as the price of a barrel of oil creeps over $100, hemp seeds produce oil that can be used as a biodiesel alternative.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, hemp as a biomass fuel producer requires the least specialized growing and processing procedures of all products.

Hemp can also be used as an alternative to timber for the production of paper. According to the Hemp Industries Association, hemp produces more pulp per acre than timber on a sustainable basis, and can be used for every quality of paper.

Thomas Jefferson actually drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper.

If that's not irony, I don't know what is.

Growing hemp in the United States is technically legal, but farmers must receive a DEA permit in order to grow the plant which is about as easy as getting permission from a cop to drive his or her car.

So if we hold our forefathers in such high esteem, and I'm starting to think for multiple reasons that we don't, how can our government not see the benefits of hemp production in the United States?

With the agricultural economy in the shape that it is in, continuing a hemp ban seems like one illogical slap in the face to the farmers of America.

It shouldn't even be a debate.

Early colonists and Americans were actually required to grow hemp.

Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain all cultivate hemp for a variety of uses. Even our steadfast ally Great Britain lifted its hemp ban 15 years ago!

Thomas Jefferson once said, "The greatest service which can be rendered by any country is to add a useful plant to its culture."

Oh, how foolish we would look to our forefather today.

Source: Appalachian, The (NC Edu)
Copyright: 2007 Appalachian State University
Website: The Appalachian Online - Offline

Charles Monson was awakened at 7 a.m. on Oct. 30 by a loud pounding at the door of his Orange home. The quadriplegic couldn’t get out of bed to answer it himself, so his care provider responded.

Unknown to his provider, Roger Mondragon, a dozen or so Orange Police Department officers and detectives waited impatiently on the other side, search warrant in hand.

The door opened, and the officers flooded in and soon had Mondragon and another care provider, who didn’t want to be named for this story, on the ground. Their real target: Monson’s marijuana.

Monson, who was the subject of an OC Weekly cover story ("Roll Player," Aug. 24) for his work helping fellow quadriplegics get wheelchairs when they’ve been denied them by Orange County’s Medi-Cal agency CalOptima, says the police confiscated 16 immature pot plants and some 3 ounces of weed (about a month’s supply).

Monson says he showed the officers his prescription to no avail: They charged him with felony cultivation but didn’t take him to jail. However, they did arrest Mondragon and, according to Monson, turned him over to the INS. As Mondragon was in the country illegally, he was deported to Mexico.

The Weekly’s Nick Schou has written extensively on the continued medical marijuana related confiscations, arrests and prosecutions in Orange County by various police agencies and the sheriff’s department. Although Monson did have 10 more plants than he’s legally allowed, he says he was growing a "collective garden" for eight other people, including quadriplegics, paraplegics and arthritis sufferers. It is unclear why the police decided on an early-morning raid.

Contacted by the Weekly, the detective in charge of the case, Miguel Cuenca, says he’s not cleared to discuss it until it is adjudicated. The search warrant given to Monson was sorely lacking in detail; Cuenca requested that the information that led to the issuing of the warrant be sealed, a move that usually is made to protect confidential sources.

The district attorney’s office, headed by Tony Rackauckas, who famously said medical marijuana users just want to "escape from the realities of life and get high for a while," declined to pursue charges against Monson. However, a DA’s office representative told Monson the office has up to three years to file charges against him if they receive additional evidence against him.

Monson, who broke his neck at age 16 while swimming in the ocean at Newport Beach, says for him, marijuana is a legitimate and irreplaceable medicine. Until he began smoking pot, he says, he was unable to sleep through the night due to muscle spasms. Although he doesn’t feel normal pain below his spinal injury, he says, marijuana also helps reduce pain signals his body sends, known as neurogenic pain, such as profuse sweating. Other prescription medications either interfere with the few motor skills he has left or have dangerous side effects, he says.

Monson, who has begun jokingly to refer to himself as "Kingpin Quad", says that despite the threat of charges being revived in the future, he’s not going to be quiet. He plans to address the Orange City Council to possibly seek a settlement and try to recoup the $2,000 cost of the equipment that was taken from him. Monson says the episode has made him a medical marijuana advocate in addition to wheelchair advocate.

But even though he lost his medicine, he had the daylights scared out of him, and his friend and care provider was deported, he credits the Orange P.D. as some of the "most courteous" law-enforcement officers he’s ever had to deal with.

Monson says when he informed the cops they were taking all his medicine, one said, "I’m sure if you look hard enough, you’ll find something."

He did find something, he says. They didn’t take one small jar containing about 2 grams of marijuana. About a day’s worth for Kingpin Quad, he says.

Source: Orange County Weekly (CA)
Copyright: 2007, O.C. Weekly Media, Inc.
Website: Orange County Weekly - Home

SACRAMENTO: A revised bill that would allow some state farmers to grow hemp is en route to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk and both sides of the argument are optimistic the governor will agree with their position.

The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act was redrafted from last year's version to address gubernatorial concerns about law enforcement issues. The act was passed by the legislature Sept. 12.

Proponents of the bill, such as the Hemp Industries Association and the nonprofit advocacy group Vote Hemp, argue that hemp products — including food, body care products and textiles — are a multimillion-dollar industry that could benefit California's economy by allowing the raw materials to be grown here instead of importing hemp from overseas.

Opponents include numerous law enforcement agencies, the state's police chiefs organization and Drug Watch International, which point to interference with law enforcement capabilities because of the physical similarities of hemp with marijuana.

Schwarzenegger vetoed the original version of the bill last year, saying that in addition to the potential drain on drug-enforcement activities, federal law does not recognize the difference between industrial hemp and illicit marijuana, as delineated in the bill.

The current bill revises the definition of marijuana, making hemp a legitimate crop. The bill would allow farmers who participate in a pilot program to grow hemp that has less than 0.3 percent of the psychoactive ingredient terahydrocannibinol, or THC. Marijuana usually has a THC content ranging from 3 to 15 percent, according to a fact sheet released by the authors of the bill.

John Lovell of the California Narcotics Officers Association points to one of the reasons to oppose the bill: "Marijuana prosecution will be difficult, if not impossible because sophisticated (drug growers) will use female hemp plants as a buffer (in fields of marijuana), to evade detection," he said.

Charles Meyer, a 66-year-old third-generation cotton farmer, disagrees with that position. He became involved with Vote Hemp about 10 years ago while researching a sustainable alternative to cotton. He has testified before the legislature on behalf of the hemp industry.

"A marijuana patch looks like an orchard, it has to be separated out in rows and the male plants are removed," Meyer said.

"A hemp field looks like a wheat field," he continued. The hemp fields can have both male and female plants, because pollinated marijuana plants have reduced THC content and are useless for commercial markets, Meyer said.

If signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hemp Industries Association and Vote Hemp — the two groups that helped advise the Assemblymen who drafted the legislation — will seek to enjoin the Controlled Substances Act from interfering in the pilot program, said Patrick Goggin, California council with HIA and Vote Hemp.

The CSA is the federal law that does not recognize a difference between marijuana and industrial-grade hemp.

The proposed law will begin with a pilot project that allows farmers in four counties — Imperial, King, Yolo and Mendocino — to receive hemp seeds from an established research institution and grow only test crops for five years.

Each crop must be sampled by a laboratory registered with the DEA and each sample must contain less than 0.3 percent THC to comply with the California law. However, this testing only opens up logistical problems, argues Lovell.

"(Even if) you are using the Department of Justice state crime lab for all testing, the problem is the DOJ does not have instruments to do quantitative information on marijuana or hemp," he said.

The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, the most restrictive category. Only a few scientists around the country have permits from the Drug Enforcement Administration that allow them to grow marijuana for scientific research.

A common mistake is supposing that hemp and marijuana are different species. In fact, the differences between the plants, both Cannabis sativa L., are akin to the relationship among dog breeds.

Hemp and marijuana are as similar as a Chihuahua and a Great Dane, said George Weiblen, associate professor of botany at the University of Minnesota, one of the few scientists who has a permit to marijuana study.

"These are different forms of the same species that have been selected for different characteristics," he said in a telephone interview in the spring from his office in St. Paul.

"This is really a product of 10,000 years of modification of a species," Weiblen said. "Hemp breeders focused on fiber characteristics and low drug content and marijuana breeders focused on high drug content."

The fastest-growing segment tor hemp is body care products, but paper, fiber and oil are also among the thousands of products sold each year in the U.S. The Hemp Industries Association says annual sales are nearly $300 million and are growing at an annual rate of about 10 percent.

California farmers are currently shut out of a multimillion dollar-industry because we don't allow our farmers to grow industrial hemp, and we force California manufacturers to buy hemp seed, oil and fiber from other countries, Leno said in a recent press release.

Our enterprising and innovative farmers should not be hindered by senseless regulation. It's my hope that by giving farmers in these counties the opportunity to supply a $270 million industry that's growing by $26 million each year, that other counties won't be far behind, Leno said.

Regardless of the legal issues surrounding industrial hemp, it is one of the oldest known cultivated plants, dating back to China 10,000 years ago.

Hemp was cultivated in the U.S. by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and was a viable crop until the 1937 Marijuana Tax Stamp Act outlawed both industrial and psychoactive varieties.

Without a change in policy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt promoted a Hemp for Victory campaign during World War II, encouraging patriotic farmers to make up for the restricted supply from the Pacific.

While grown in at least 30 countries worldwide, North Dakota is the only state that allows its residents to grow hemp.

From Controversial hemp bill awaits governor's signature