More States Want Federal Government's OK To Grow Hemp

[Jacob Bell]

It hasn't gotten the attention of medical marijuana, but a growing number of states have passed laws authorizing the growth of hemp and are attempting to get the federal government to make it legal nationwide.

Hemp can be cultivated for fiber or oilseed, and it is used to make thousands of products worldwide including clothing and auto parts. From 1999 through last year, 17 states have enacted measures that would either permit controlled cultivation or authorize research of industrial hemp, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

Colorado was the most recent to authorize research in 2010. Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont and West Virginia have passed laws authorizing cultivation, according to NORML.

Hemp and marijuana are different varieties of the same species of plant, Cannabis Sativa. Industrial hemp has lower THC content, the primary psychoactive component of marijuana.

Hemp can be cultivated for fiber or oilseed, and it is used to make thousands of products worldwide including clothing and auto parts.

The federal government classifies all cannabis plants as marijuana and places strict controls on the cultivation of hemp. Industrial hemp was an American staple in colonial times. The output peaked during World War II.

Advocates say American farmers are being shut out of a lucrative market. More than 30 countries grow hemp as an agricultural commodity, and hemp-planted fields in Canada – which legalized cultivation in 1998 – increased to 26,815 acres in 2010, according to "Industrial Hemp Production in Canada," a report issued by Alberta's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Opponents say the arguments in favor of hemp-growing represent little more than a smokescreen for legalizing marijuana and other illegal drugs.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has introduced a bill that would effectively legalize hemp-growing by excluding low-THC cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act each of the past four legislative sessions, including this year, but the measure has not yet progressed to a a committee hearing.

In October, Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a measure that would have created a pilot program for cultivating industrial hemp in four counties. In his veto statement, Brown criticized Washington's position on hemp and called for the law to allow cultivation nationally.

"Products made from hemp – clothes, food and bath products – are legally sold in California every day," Brown wrote. "It is absurd that hemp is being imported into the state, but our farmers cannot grow it."

Rep. Dan Lungren, R.-Calif., wrote in a June 20 letter to a constituent that he supported the Drug Enforcement Administration's argument that commercial cultivation would increase the likelihood of covert production of high-THC marijuana and send the wrong message to the American public concerning the government's position on drugs.

North of the Vermont-Canada border, Christian Boisjoly says he is growing 23 acres of hemp in Lanoraie, Quebec, northeast of Montreal. Some farmers in his region are switching from tobacco to hemp, he says.

The crop is regulated closely there. The government checks growers' criminal records and mandates that hemp cultivars test for less than 0.3 percent, according to a fact sheet issued by Health Canada. A minimum of 10 acres is required for a permit, according to Canada's Department of Justice.

In Burlington, Vt.. the Hempest sells a range of clothing, footwear and body-care products, store manager Dana Begins says.

By some estimates, he says, hemp is used in more than 25,000 products worldwide. "There are so many uses for it, it seems silly we're not taking advantage of it," Begins says.

News Hawk- Jacob Ebel 420 MAGAZINE
Source: usatoday.com
Author: Tim Johnson and Adam Silverman
Contact: Contact Us
Copyright: USA Today
Website: More states want federal government's OK to grow hemp

 

[sensinique]

thank you! In soo many ways for your diligence, perseverity, boldness and honesty! Fight for what is right always whether it is recoginized or not by the "temporary" but well known with the "eternal" and the fruits of your labor are there for you to claim at your leisure.

sensinique

 

[adobeboxer]

This is the logic of the tyranny of the Therapeutic state, where "health" is our culture's secular religion, and the physician, its clergy.



I don't see why this cannot be a state's rights issue. This ritual persecution of drugs and its users, now reaching its fourtieth year, has never been Constitutional, but rather, a war on citizenry, ultimately perpetuated by executive fiat and whim. Of course, most in Congress are on board, other than Ron and Rand Paul types, who, quite legitimately, call for an end to such Federal overstep! Let the states decide, and let's not let those with power lust for more Centralized power be a discouragement.
In short, the banning of certain drugs from the pharmacopia (as well as the nature of present, rather draconian prescription laws, and the sundry other controls of one's person, and of the physician's effectiveness to treat his patients, without the facist DEA meddling!) and the continued prosecution and persecution of my Constitutional right to ingest, must be attacked head on, not by pandering to the medical lobby (therapeutizing cannabis), but by appealing to reason and Constitutional grounds! In short, the push for legalizing marijuana for strictly medical purposes, is but the opposite side of the same coin, eminating from present drug prohibitionism. Where is, afterall, our age's Volstead Act? Right, there is none!

 

[Hogdady]

As Jack Herer wrote....

"If all fossil fuels and their derivatives, as well as trees for paper and construction were banned in order to save the planet, reverse the Greenhouse Effect and stop deforestation;

Then there is only one known annually renewable natural resource that is capable of providing the overall majority of the world's paper and textiles; meeting all of the world's transportation, industrial and home energy needs, while simultaneously reducing pollution, rebuilding the soil, and cleaning the atmosphere all at the same time . . .

And that substance is - the same one that did it all before - Cannabis Hemp"

 

[adobeboxer]

This is a germane response for the reader to consider: private enterprise as a cornerstone of personal freedom: my property, my right.

Again, why is this so confusing to the electorate and their state representatives? Yes, both State and Federal, Dems and Republicans, generally, are in accord over the status of hemp: no go. Respective party loyalties and and ideology, indeed, run deep.
In the succeeding generations, and in piecemeal fashion, Americans have quietly allowed the federal govt. greater control and discretion over the free-market and, concomitantly, of economic self-determination. So much of what has traditionally been left to the individual or states, have now become matters of "public" (read:federal-bureaucratic) concern. It is said, that a frog will not jump to save itself, if the temperature of the water in which it sits comes to a slow boil. The government did not steal from us our Constitutionally guaranteed sovereignty and rights, that would have been blatant. The greatest lose to our personal freedoms has come by way of promises of greater collective security, at the cost of abridging those individual freedoms on which our unique democracy is founded.

 

[Hogdady]

This is a germane response for the reader to consider: private enterprise as a cornerstone of personal freedom: my property, my right.

Again, why is this so confusing to the electorate and their state representatives? Yes, both State and Federal, Dems and Republicans, generally, are in accord over the status of hemp: no go. Respective party loyalties and and ideology, indeed, run deep.
In the succeeding generations, and in piecemeal fashion, Americans have quietly allowed the federal govt. greater control and discretion over the free-market and, concomitantly, of economic self-determination. So much of what has traditionally been left to the individual or states, have now become matters of "public" (read:federal-bureaucratic) concern. It is said, that a frog will not jump to save itself, if the temperature of the water in which it sits comes to a slow boil. The government did not steal from us our Constitutionally guaranteed sovereignty and rights, that would have been blatant. The greatest lose to our personal freedoms has come by way of promises of greater collective security, at the cost of abridging those individual freedoms on which our unique democracy is founded.

Well said and I'm in total agreement...