HEMP: Farmers Against the DEA

[MagickMuffin]

I have known about this topic for a very long time. I even gave Jimmy Carter a copy of Jack Herer's book ""The Emperor Wears No Clothes", and Jimmy told me flat out hemp would NEVER be a legalized. I was very disillusioned by his statement, considering I thought he would care. Think of ALL the housing he could make using hemp products, from straw bales to floors, paint, textiles, etc etc.

Would Al Gore say the same thing?!?!? I would hope not. But I'm not holding my breath.

Why would a plant that has sooooooo many benefits have be continually part of the Controlled Substances Act, when Hemp has no THC that would register on their meters???

Below is an excellent article on the subject.

Yesterday, two farmers filed suit in the federal district court of North Dakota. They are seeking a declaratory judgment against the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that would allow them to cultivate hemp, a profitable crop with many legal uses.

The DEA, however, is likely to strongly defend the suit. After all, ever since its very inception, the DEA has feared that if it allows "industrial" hemp to be produced, the result will be to seriously undermine its war on drugs, including marijuana. As I will explain, its position has led to a bizarre and, some argue, utterly irrational situation: It makes little sense for the War on Drugs to also include a War on Hemp.

This unbending legal regime is a great shame, because the marijuana plant is a botanical superstar. It generates a portfolio of raw materials for products like rope and canvas (which reportedly covered the Conestoga wagons of the Nineteenth Century West), oil, paper, and cellulose.

So if you're looking for an "assault on reason," a flat ban on this plant--given its multitude of beneficial uses, most of which are fossil fuel-reducing and organic in every sense--certainly fits the bill.

The cannabis plant was among the first drugs the U.S. Government tried to eradicate in this country, beginning in 1937 with the Marihuana Tax Act. The 1937 law was preceded only by the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, which taxed opiates and cocaine, and, of course, the Eighteenth Amendment, imposing Prohibition.

While the 1937 law was formally a tax, it might as well have been a ban, for it made the cost of the plant prohibitively high, and thus effectively prohibited the growing of varieties and foliage to maximize THC ("pot"). Nevertheless, the growing of "hemp"--which has THC concentrations too low to move the needle--was taxed hardly at all.

However, the suit filed yesterday in North Dakota may showcase the consequences of the agency's rigidity on this point. Given such a short growing season, competitors in Canada who are making money on the crop in our globalized agricultural economy, and so many possibilities for this plant, DEA should have to answer for its interpretation of the law in this respect, at least: Isn't there some other kind of trouble we can borrow?

Will Congress change the agency's mind about hemp, or will the courts? The prospect of either happening seems bleak, and that underscores how perverse our drug laws have become. In a time when it is so important to be "green," hemp is one of the "greenest" things around.

MORE
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=/commentary/20070619_colburn.html

[yes2truth]

1. Mary Jane is too important to too many special interests...

like criminal defense lawyers, intelligence services that rely on drug dealing as a source for "off the books" funding for various black operations (overthrowing gov'ts that pose a threat to U.S. corp. interests) and 100 or more other special interests.

Mary is not going to become of legal age for a long, long time.

[MagickMuffin]

3. Yep, because we ALL know we could smoke our clothes for a quick fix

:rofl:
I have heard this excuse on numerous occasions. I own some hemp clothes, very soft material. However, I would NEVER consider smoking or eating them unless I was extremely hungry.

I knew some people who brought some industrial hemp back from a visit up north. At the time I didn't KNOW about hemp, and let's just say you smoke hemp and you will have one tremendous headache.

[dkofos]

2. Ridiculous laws that hurt America's bottom line.

[MagickMuffin]

4. Bingo

I get incensed to think of how our economy could benefit by hemp production.

WHERE ARE OUR LEADERS? When will they get some balls and do SOMETHING???