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Notes for Industrial Hemp: A Bizarre Policy 

[1] from "THE DEMONIZED SEED" by Lee Green, Los Angeles Times, 18 Jan 2004 

The fiber volume supplied by trees that take 30 years to grow can be harvested from hemp just three or four months after the seeds go into the ground - and on half the land. Hemp requires no herbicides, little or no pesticide, and it grows faster than almost any other plant: from seed to 10 feet or taller in just a few months. Unlike most crops, it actually enriches rather than depletes the soil. As a textile it has proven stronger than cotton, warmer than linen, comfortable to wear and durable. As a building material, its extraordinarily long fibers test stronger than wood or concrete. As a nutrient it contains one of nature's most perfectly balanced oils, high in protein, richer in vitamin E than soy and possessing all eight essential fatty acids. 

[2] Editorial in Capital Press (Oregon)03 Mar 2000 

"A paranoia about marijuana that prevents drug enforcers, who obviously know little about agriculture, from distinguishing between industrial hemp and its cousin that produces an illegal drug. ... the intoxicant in the marijuana cousin is found only in trace amounts in hemp." 

[3a] from "THE DEMONIZED SEED" by Lee Green, Los Angeles Times, 18 Jan 2004 

... hemp crops once flourished from Virginia to California. (In Kentucky, hemp was the state's largest cash crop until 1915) Prized for thousands of years for its fiber, the plant rode commerce from Asia to Europe in the first millennium and sailed to the New World in the second. American colonists grew it in the early 1600s. Two centuries later, hemp was the nation's third-largest agricultural commodity. The U.S. census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp plantations, and those were just the largest ones. 

The industry slowly declined to the brink of extinction as cotton captured the fiber market, but by the mid-1930s new machinery could efficiently extract hemp's fibers from its stalk, and the plant was poised for economic recovery. The February 1938 issue of Popular Mechanics hailed it as the "New Billion-Dollar Crop," while a concurrent issue of Mechanical Engineering deemed hemp "The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop That Can Be Grown." 

[3b] In 1935, the U.S. government—in particular the Bureau of Narcotics ( part of the Treasury Department and a predecessor to the present-day U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency ) and its chief, Harry J. Anslinger—embarked on an inflammatory campaign to convince the public of the evils of marijuana. 

The Hearst newspapers had acquired a taste for sensationalistic headlines and lurid stories about Mexicans and "marijuana-crazed Negroes" assaulting, raping and murdering whites. It was all nonsense, but Anslinger shamelessly parroted these myths and concocted his own in congressional testimony and in speeches and articles, branding marijuana the "worst evil of all." In a 1937 magazine piece titled "Marijuana, the Assassin of Youth," he blamed suicides and "degenerate sex attacks" on the drug. 

"Marijuana is the unknown quantity among narcotics," he wrote. "No one knows, when he smokes it, whether he will become a philosopher, a joyous reveler, a mad insensate, or a murderer." Prior to such calculated misstatements, few Americans had smoked marijuana. Most had never even heard of it. 

Regardless of motives, the ensuing stigmatization, red tape, state and federal controls, punitive taxes and misconceptions about marijuana's nature and its relationship to hemp doomed any chance that hemp would be resurrected as an agricultural crop. 

[4] from "THE DEMONIZED SEED" by Lee Green, Los Angeles Times, 18 Jan 2004 

Since taking root in the early 1990s, the hemp movement has made great progress around the world. Unfenced fields of the tall, cane-like plants flourish in Austria, Italy, Portugal, Ireland—the entire European Union. Great Britain reintroduced the crop in 1993. Germany legalized it in 1996. Australia followed suit two years later, as did Canada. Among the world's major industrial democracies, only the United States still forbids hemp farming. 

If an American farmer were to fill a field with this drugless crop, the government would consider him a felon. For selling his harvest he would be guilty of trafficking and would face a fine of as much as $4 million and a prison sentence of 10 years to life. Provided, of course, it is his first offense. 

This for a crop as harmless as rutabaga. 

[5] from "THE DEMONIZED SEED" by Lee Green, Los Angeles Times, 18 Jan 2004 

Confronted with declining demand for their tobacco, farmers in Kentucky, where hemp was the state's largest cash crop until 1915, argue that commercial hemp could help save their farms. 

Other states [12] have passed resolutions or bills. Since 1997, North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, West Virginia and Maryland have legalized cultivation, and in 2000, the National Conference of State Legislatures passed a resolution urging the federal government to clear the barriers to domestic hemp production. But entrenched federal opposition renders all these political machinations meaningless beyond symbolic value. editorial in Capital Press (Oregon)03 Mar 2000 

[6] Editorial in Capital Press (Oregon)03 Mar 2000 

"A paranoia about marijuana that prevents drug enforcers, who obviously know little about agriculture, from distinguishing between industrial hemp and its cousin that produces an illegal drug. 

[For more on DEA incompetence, see Marijuana Casebook

[7] editorial in Capital Press (Oregon)03 Mar 2000 

"Hemp is produced for its strong fiber and therefore is tall and tightly grouped. Its harvest comes early. 

Marijuana is sought for flowers and leaves. Therefore, it is short and bushy and is harvested late." 


 Medical use of marijuana This topic is covered in Immediate Action  For a more detailed discussion, see: "Are Texans Being Denied Access to a Vital Medicine?  A Scientific Assessment of Marijuana"


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