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California Considers Hemp

MONDAY AUGUST 28 2006 4:00 PM

Submitted by legionnaire. Edited By Rahodeb.

TAGS: hemp, california, legalization, agriculture

If you ask those in favor of legalizing hemp, it is the panacea of modern agriculture, capable of being used for construction, paper, clothing, and even cleaning the environment. It seems that California has caught the hemp bug as well, and a bill that would approve the agricultural growing of hemp has passed the state legislature and is waiting for Schwarzenegger's final approval.

California is the first state that would directly challenge the federal ban, arguing that it does not need a D.E.A. permit, echoing the state�s longstanding fight with the federal authorities over its legalization of medicinal marijuana. The hemp bill would require farmers who grow it to undergo crop testing to ensure their variety of cannabis is nonhallucinogenic; its authors say it has been carefully worded to avoid conflicting with the federal Controlled Substances Act.

But those efforts have not satisfied federal and state drug enforcement authorities, who argue that fields of industrial hemp would only serve as hiding places for illicit cannabis. The California Narcotic Officers Association opposes the bill, and a spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington said the measure was unworkable.

Drug enforcement agencies aren't really known for their openness to new ideas or progressive thought, so it's not entirely surprising that groups that still subscribe to Reefer Madness theories on marijuana display such dogged determination in preventing the cultivation of marijuana. What these dolts fail to realize, however, is that hemp is virtually useless as an intoxicant, and actually hurts illicit marijuana cultivation.

They want to lump together all things cannabis,� said David Bronner, 33, whose family�s squeeze-bottle Dr. Bronners Magic Soaps, based in Escondido, Calif., are made with hemp oil. �You don�t associate a poppy seed bagel with opium.�
[...]
Ernest Small, a Canadian researcher who co-wrote a major hemp study in 2002 for Purdue University, compared the genetic differences to those that separate racehorses from plow horses. Evolution, Mr. Small said, has almost completely bred T.H.C. out of industrial hemp, which by law must have a concentration of no more than three-tenths of 1 percent.
[...]
To some people intimate with the nuances of marijuana, however, the idea of hiding marijuana in a hemp field, where the plants would cross-pollinate, provokes amusement.

�It would be the end of outdoors marijuana,� said Jack Heber, 67, a marijuana historian and author who runs a group called Help End Marijuana Prohibition, or HEMP. �If it gets mixed with that crop, it�s a disaster.�

To many people familiar with marijuana, the thought of the government getting its panties in a bunch over the prospect of someone smoking a joint would be hilarious if it didn't result in so many incarcerations. But what's really funny here is that no stoner would ever even bother to attempt to smoke industrial grade hemp. It just... doesn't haven't enough THC in it to do much of anything. And having male hemp plants in a field with female (which are typically used for illicit marijuana cultivation) plants will eliminate their usefulness for growing marijjuana for smoking, since pollination will cause the "buds" (the richest source of THC) to go to seed, rendering them unsmokable.

Schwarzenegger might just pass this bill, but it will be guaranteeing him a variety of headaches brought on by the federal government when they ignore the facts about hemp and monomaniacally pursue their dated agenda.

21 Comments

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blackroseMD1

Tacoma, WA

April 2003

AUG 28, 2006 04:36 PM

The federal government just needs to back the hell off. Like they don't have enough to worry about without trying to fight California over growing hemp. Idiots.

MschfMayhemSoap

Phoenix, AZ

April 2006

AUG 28, 2006 04:44 PM

Tell them its not being used for Porn. That outta work.

thefreak

NEWSWIRE

Gardner, MA

AUG 28, 2006 08:06 PM

My opinion has always been this:

I can get arrested for smoking a joint and spend time in jail. The federal government is spending all of this $$$ (out of taxpayers' pockets, mind you) prosecuting otherwise law-abiding citizens for smoking pot and having it on their person, otherwise doing nothing wrong.

Yet, just HOW many friggin' sex offenders are running around on the streets, unregistered, hurting kids again and again?

You would THINK the $$$ could be better used for a little shift in priorities.

Much of Europe has reduced the criminal punishment for weed for a reason.

-TM

MschfMayhemSoap

Phoenix, AZ

April 2006

AUG 28, 2006 08:15 PM

thefreak said:
My opinion has always been this:

I can get arrested for smoking a joint and spend time in jail. The federal government is spending all of this $$$ (out of taxpayers' pockets, mind you) prosecuting otherwise law-abiding citizens for smoking pot and having it on their person, otherwise doing nothing wrong.

Yet, just HOW many friggin' sex offenders are running around on the streets, unregistered, hurting kids again and again?

You would THINK the $$$ could be better used for a little shift in priorities.

Much of Europe has reduced the criminal punishment for weed for a reason.

-TM

havent you seen the commercials
If you smoke weed, you dont do anything.
If you dont DO anything, you cannot work to feed the coporate machine.
If you do not feed the corporate machine, then we cannot afford to build those fancy new bombs the Govenrment has RE-classifed. :

thefreak

NEWSWIRE

Gardner, MA

AUG 28, 2006 08:33 PM

MschfMayhemSoap said:
havent you seen the commercials
If you smoke weed, you dont do anything.

That's not true! If I smoke weed, I support terrorism!

BTW, WTF was THAT shit about?

-TM

MrCrisp

Charleston, SC

August 2004

AUG 28, 2006 08:35 PM

i'm freaking out, man!
the snozz berries taste like snozz
berries! CANDYBARS!

MschfMayhemSoap

Phoenix, AZ

April 2006

AUG 28, 2006 08:49 PM

thefreak said:

MschfMayhemSoap said:
havent you seen the commercials
If you smoke weed, you dont do anything.

That's not true! If I smoke weed, I support terrorism!

BTW, WTF was THAT shit about?

-TM

you're wrong. it opens a gateway to hell.
hope you have a Ring of Protection.

MrCrisp

Charleston, SC

August 2004

AUG 28, 2006 08:57 PM

oh, i miss those days -
playing super smash brothers,
high as a damn kite.

Princelogos

USA

November 2005

AUG 28, 2006 09:08 PM

One point in the original article, ( I actually read it this time,): was that we don't associate poppy seeds on bagels with the illegal poppy/ opium crop.
A while back National Geographic did an issue just about that fact; that the seeds are from the same illegal crops of poppies grown in Pakistan for opium. Also sited was the vast dichotomy in thinking that while the poppy crop was illegal somehow the seeds it generated were not.
On the whole I see the same, Quote, Catch 22 mentality here.
These tight asses have decided that something is bad and it's going to stay that way;...no matter how much suffering and money it costs.

hadees

Austin, TX

December 2003

AUG 28, 2006 09:17 PM

There was a time when the government encouraged people to grow Hemp to win a war.

United States Department of Agriculture presents "Hemp For Victory".

MschfMayhemSoap

Phoenix, AZ

April 2006

AUG 28, 2006 09:26 PM

hadees said:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

ROMAN RED!!!!
ROLLING PAPYRUS!!!!!

And now we are armed with MIGHTY JOINT!

(and thats enough comedy)

isnt it funny how hemp with its NON-lethal qualities is illegal, while tobacco is VERY legal, and defended to the DEATH!

Princelogos

USA

November 2005

AUG 28, 2006 09:27 PM

Actually the Audubon Society had at one time petitioned and won, the right for Hemp to be grown for bird seed as it was a necessary part of many bird species diet.
I'm not sure if that ruling still stands. Cannabis Americana grows on the side of the road in Indiana.

ortho7117

Charlotte, NC

April 2004

AUG 28, 2006 09:30 PM

That was a really big mirror in that video.

The US federal government has a problem with any amount of THC from what I've read. I guess they fear some really desperate stoner might get clever and start extracting usable quantities of cannibinoids from literally pounds of industrial hemp.

But why don't they fear this when it comes to poppy seeds? They vary widely in potency, but most contain minute quantities of codeine and morphine. You can actually extract the good stuff from pounds of seeds and some clever kitchen chemistry, but in this case, since potency varies so much, you could LETHALLY OD on poppy seed extract from an unusually strong batch, while another might barely yield a buzz.

Culinary poppy seeds are clearly a much greater social threat than industrial hemp. It would be entirely unreasonable to ban poppy seeds because a few people might try to get high on them. Why shouldn't the same reasoning apply with industrial hemp?

Princelogos

USA

November 2005

AUG 28, 2006 09:47 PM

ortho7117 said:
That was a really big mirror in that video.

The US federal government has a problem with any amount of THC from what I've read. I guess they fear some really desperate stoner might get clever and start extracting usable quantities of cannibinoids from literally pounds of industrial hemp.

But why don't they fear this when it comes to poppy seeds? They vary widely in potency, but most contain minute quantities of codeine and morphine. You can actually extract the good stuff from pounds of seeds and some clever kitchen chemistry, but in this case, since potency varies so much, you could LETHALLY OD on poppy seed extract from an unusually strong batch, while another might barely yield a buzz.

Culinary poppy seeds are clearly a much greater social threat than industrial hemp. It would be entirely unreasonable to ban poppy seeds because a few people might try to get high on them. Why shouldn't the same reasoning apply with industrial hemp?

I think that's the point I was driving at;...Thank you .( I actually mean that.)