* Great Britain harvested its first Hemp crop in 50 years. A consortium of 20 British farmers harvested 1,500 acres.
* In November 1995, Canada harvested its first legal hemp crop in 50 years and interest in cultivation and manufacturing are spreading like wild fire. Any day now the Canadian Parliament will legalize hemp growing throughout Canada.
* President Clinton signed Executive Order 12919, which lists hemp as one of the numerous resources essential to national preparedness in time of emergency.
* Kentucky's Governor, Brereton Jones, formed the Governor's Task Force on Hemp, to bring industrial hemp into national consciousness.
* The Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association has been reincorporated. This is not a new organization, but resurrected from 1913.
* Senator Lloyd Casey intends to reintroduce his bill in Colorado, allowing Colorado farmers to participate in the hemp industry.
* On January 10, 1996, the nation's largest farming organization (representing 4.9 million members), The American Farm Bureau Federation, unanimously passed a resolution calling for "research into the viability and economic potential of industrial hemp production in the United States".
* According to recent surveys, 77% of Kentuckians favor the re-legalization of Industrial Hemp as a cash crop for Kentucky farmers. Over 80% of San Franciscans want medicinal marijuana re-legalized.
* Because hemp answers consumer's demands for high quality, longer lasting, goods and environmentally-responsible manufactured products; the demand for hemp products in the U.S. has already out grown the world supply.
Any one of the above-mentioned promising facts is encouraging to hemp advocates. However, now is not the time for celebration, but re-dedication to re-legalization.
* The U.S. Government has not granted a permit for large scale hemp farming in over 40 years.
* The Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. removed tags identifying early American textile relics in their museum, as hemp products.
* The DEA refuses to acknowledge the difference between industrial hemp and marijuana. It has also begun a new misinformation campaign in the form of guest editorials. Some of the new lies told by the DEA are that cotton fiber is superior to hemp fiber and that wood pulp can out-produce hemp pulp. They go on to state that attempts to legalize industrial hemp is really a thinly veiled excuse for pot smokers to legalize their drug.
Re-legalization of Marijuana does threaten the DEA. Over 25 billion dollars a year are wasted hunting down and incarcerating users of this relatively innocuous substance. Over 50 million otherwise law abiding citizens are considered criminals, many of whom now pack our prisons, contributing to our status of imprisoning more of our population than any other country in the world. The "Drug War" mentality has created such an intolerance that the terminally ill are denied the medicinal use of marijuana.
If the DEA would recognize the difference between industrial hemp (which has THC levels so low it can't make you high) and marijuana they could move a long way up the road to credibility. If anything, industrial hemp threatens the illegal marijuana crop. The pollen generated by huge fields of industrial hemp would contaminate domestic sinsemilla by causing the flowers to make seeds and eventually diluting the amount of THC contained in "Mendo mellow", thereby reducing its value. Eventually it would put many illegal farmers out of business, along with many DEA employees....Hmmmm what a concept.... Does the DEA actually benefit from marijuana being illegal?
A Carbohydrate Based Economy
Once petroleum technologies promised a new age of synthetics based on hydrocarbons. Sixty years later we are living with the consequences of that promise; pollution and economic dependence. Anything that can be made from hydrocarbon can be made from carbohydrate. Plant based plastics can be completely biodegradable. A carbohydrate based economy is the answer to our environmental and economic woes. American farmers are capable of growing all the carbohydrates we need to replace hydrocarbons. America's prosperity, our true riches, lie in the "Amber waves of grain". Our farm lands are our oil fields. Our farmers can free us from our economic dependence on foreign oil, by growing renewable, sustainable, clean carbohydrates for fiber, energy and plastics. Corn, rice and wheat can provide carbohydrates but hemp provides cellulose at much higher rates. Hemp is more versatile than soybean, cotton plant and Douglas Fir put together.
The potential of an economy based on carbohydrates, especially hemp, will encourage bioregional economics. Bioregional economics stimulate economic activities that are beneficial to both people and the environment. Hemp offers opportunities for small scale family farms, local manufacturing and retailing cooperatives and the development of new jobs. Hemp farming in the Pacific Northwest would greatly improve our economy and environment. By producing crops and goods for local use, jobs will be created and the tax base increased, encouraging a rural, decentralized approach to government and economy.
Cannabis Sativa is a crop ideally suited to our climate. It does not require pesticides or chemical fertilizers. It is a crop that actually aides in the improvement of over-cut and over-grazed soil. International Paper/Masonite could be entirely supplied with locally grown, totally sustainable, annually renewable raw hemp and stop its dependence upon the pulp-logging our ravaged forests. Mendocino County can be an exporter of hemp hurds, seeds, fiber, etc. and of value added hemp products. Everyone with garden space could grow the county's most valuable agricultural crop. Oil, Timber and Law Enforcement industries are the ones who still benefit from hemp prohibition. The rest of us stand to continue losing the quality of our environmental and economic lives without this amazing fiber.
Please, educate yourselves, your friends and government officials. Remember, in order to enjoy the environmental and economic benefits of hemp we need a legal distinction between industrial hemp and marijuana. Any cannabis sativa with less than .3% THC should be classified as industrial hemp and immediately legalized. HEMP FOR VICTORY!
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1997
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited