Last edited Thu Jul 17, 2014, 03:45 AM - Edit history (1)
The Other Cannabis War: The Battle Over Hemp
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-other-cannabis-war-20140603
How a 20-year campaign to distinguish industrial hemp from marijuana scored an epic victory
...Despite its patriotic bona fides, cannabis sativa was a victim of reefer madness in almost every decade of the 20th Century. Praised, taxed, vilified, confused with pot and blamed for killing sprees and the theft of American jobs by immigrants. The final nail in hemp's coffin was its classification as a Schedule 1 narcotic in 1970's Controlled Substances Act.
The U.S. is the only industrialized nation without a commercial hemp industry. All the hemp sold in the U.S., including the food and body products lining the shelves of Costco, the Body Shop and Whole Foods is imported. As Americans buy hemp, Britain, China, France and Germany are among the countries benefiting from America’s incoherent drug policy. Last year, Canadian farmers grew 67,000 acres of hemp and say they may not be able to grow enough to fill this year's orders. David Bronner began adding hemp oil — imported from Canada — to his liquid soaps in 1999. "I thought this was the most ridiculous piece of the drug war," he says "that a non-drug agricultural crop was caught up here."
In 2001, in a fit of drug war paranoia, the DEA declared a ban on foods that contain hemp including certain cereals, salad dressings, breads and veggie burgers — claiming that the foods contained THC. Effected businesses were given 120 days to dump their inventories. With the hemp food market just taking off, 200 hemp companies, including Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap, took the DEA to court. The lawsuit allowed the hemp industry to make its case in the media. Hemp won the bruising battle nearly three years later when a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the government couldn't regulate the trace amounts of THC that occur naturally in hemp seeds.
...In Kentucky, farming programs for veterans that teach families how to grow their own food have just sewn hemp in collaboration with the agriculture department and Vote Hemp. Mike Lewis, a military veteran and food security expert who founded the group in 2012 when his brother returned from the war in Afghanistan with a brain injury, now has grant money for a hemp textile project and part-time work for twelve people. This in a state with a 19% poverty rate. "Appalachia has a strong history of textiles," Lewis observes. "In my vision that's what's missing from rural communities, ag income. People used to survive off tobacco. If it has to be hemp for textiles, let's do it. People call hemp a panacea, a pipe dream, but look how many people came together from all walks of life in Kentucky to make this happen."
I have NOTHING to back up my speculations, but in my fictional D.C. universe (Washington, not the Comics), McConnell got the dam project approved for KY as part of the budget bill way back when the Republicans were going for "shut it all down" and, maybe, he got on board with the legalization crew through the hemp bill.
Hemp is a Republican issue in KY - as in, it's been touted by Republicans because the Ag. Commissioner and McConnell are buddies and Democrats have obstructed - b/c of politics, not because of what's good for the state or the nation. Hopefully, Grimes won't continue this - but if she does - she'll be making a wrong move, imo. A major wrong move.
So, here's old Mitch, raising a fuss with the DEA about the hemp seeds his state cannot import from Italy, and getting his base riled up about DEA interference in state law - while the hemp amendment never stated how states were supposed to obtain seeds for their agriculture commission and university ag. dept research projects with hemp.
So, he undercuts the religious right's - omg, it could be, over a lot of generations and why bother when hybridized seeds already exist for much less cost or hassle- objection to any leniency regarding marijuana policy by focusing on the federal govt's interference - Mitch is getting support from Republicans in this way and so the rr has to take a backseat because... the farmer puts the food upon the table, yes, sir.
A medical mj bill died on the floor of the House in KY - and one representative there noted they are fighting against all the propaganda about mj from the 70s, etc. the false links to crime, the way politicians have linked mj to racism - this is a long, long legacy this nation has to overcome and pretend like the very politicians or their offices were not the ones telling these lies all these years. This process is esp. true in the south, but the northeast also has a stake in racist application of laws based upon racism - like stop and frisk - and LEO budgets have been tied to making easy marijuana arrests that also harass the minority populations there - so a lot to untangle in their and their voters' minds.
Otherwise, all the support for mj reform comes from Democrats in states with one Republican co-sponsor - Rohrabacher, in CA, where it's safer for him to support legal mj than oppose.
The bill was reintroduced this year in the house by a guy in
Arizona Nevada - who is making a national name for himself among legalization supporters by doing so. He's a Democrat. Steven Horsford.
All the state-level decriminalization has been argued on the basis of the unequal application of the law - this isn't something Republicans care about, and, in fact, they tend to favor laws that target minorities since minorities are not part of their voting bloc (hey, nothing personal, just screw you, it's politics...argh.)
So, I see Mitch doing his job on his end to provide a way for Republicans to build a case for changing the law based upon hatred of the federal entities that Republicans like to hate. It's simple to get economic conservatives on board - this is why libertarians are leaving politics and going into the marijuana industry - they see this is a growth industry - and libertarians have been on the forefront of legalization in many places, like California, where Democrats, like Jerry Brown, or Dianne Feinstein, have shown they favor the bureaucratic mess that exists because... who knows... who pays their campaign contributions? Adelson? LOL.
= new reply since forum marked as read
