Army Captain, Hemp Food Makers Get No Apology

http://quote.bloomberg.com ^ | 4 10 04 | Ann Woolner

[freepatriot32]

April 9 (Bloomberg) -- You don't have to ponder the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to notice the Bush administration has trouble admitting it erred.

Consider a smaller, quieter misadventure. Consider the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's war on hemp, a harmless and healthy food source.

[NotchJohnson]

The proponents of hemp make a great case. Not a stomer myself, but I am willing to listen to anyone with an alternitive. So hemp is useful, but the bad part is that the buds are attached? Not an expert here but just because you wnat to look at other alternatives does not make you Ed Bagely Jr.

[freepatriot32]

ping

[charlie-2]

I've never ever understood why the weed is not controlled exactly the same as alchohol products. Oh, that's right, we're only a few states away from a Federal anti-tobacco-consumption-in-public law, aren't we? Dumb, dumb, dumb.

[NotchJohnson]

Weed has a huge stigma. People get loaded all the time who would never smoke. However there is a huge profit for the government. I suppose things happen slowly and this is one of them. Give it 50 years.

[bc2]

Hemp is indeed useful. Its fibers can be used to make clothing, rope, accessories, papers, etc. Anything.

The industrial hemp plants and the plants grown for bud harvesting are NOT THE SAME PLANTS. The industrial hemp plants DO NOT HAVE BUDS and contain LITTLE of the THC that makes you high. Not enough to get you high. You would have to smoke the equivelent of a telephone pole sized joint to get the same effects from industrial hemp as you would a normal cigarette sized joint from a marijuana plant. You would die of smoke inhalation first :-)

The only negative is that the cotton industry, wood paper industry, etc would all be screwed by new competition, and the Federal Government DEA goons would have to admit that their propaganda war has been bunk for all these years.

[NotchJohnson]

The only negative is that the cotton industry, wood paper industry, etc would all be screwed by new competition, and the Federal Government DEA goons would have to admit that their propaganda war has been bunk for all these years.

Ah ha. That is what I thought. Also, to make paper there are many chemicals taht are needed. Interesting.

[stuartcr]

Probably because all it does is make people feel good with no bad feelings/hangover in the morning.

[PaxMacian]

"What makes the hemp case remarkable is the lack of a rationale for the administration's belief that hemp foods are as illegal as marijuana. "

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties
are of the gift of God?" --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.



GOD MADE HERB
GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD
GOD GAVE IT TO MAN

Genesis 1:11
Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its
kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so.

Genesis 1:12
And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is
in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:29
And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.

Some seem to believe that an herb given by God to man and beast alike at the beginning of time and which has grown freely almost everywhere,
including here long before our nation was formed, is permissibly eradicable or controllable by the federal government through powers granted by the
interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. Though, it is an impossible task to devise a logical explanation of how this could be true. In light of
the rest of the Constitution any such perceived mandate dissolves.



"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their
Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness."

Preamble: ...secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity...
Amendment V: nor shall (anyone) be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the PEOPLE.
Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to
the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the PEOPLE.



Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof


Nowhere in the Constitution is it enumerated what one may put into ones body. Therefore, that right is reserved for the states or the people. However,
since God has already specified in the Bible what one may consume, it is, in fact, the People’s God given right.

Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

[Sybeck1]

Get high on life!

[dljordan]

I believe they're talking about industrial hemp. You could smoke a carload and not get high on it. It's great stuff and has lots of usages.

[graf008]

I agree.

Cecil Adams has a good critical review of the use of industrial hemp. Seems it isn't all the stoners crack it up to be, but still might be a decent product:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_131.html

[graf008]

I agree.

Cecil Adams has a good critical review of the use of industrial hemp. Seems it isn't all the stoners crack it up to be, but still might be a decent product:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_131.html

[slowhandluke]

do not have buds?

They are fairly normal plants, they have leaf buds in the spring and flower buds later. Did you think they were asexual? I doubt they'd be considered the same genus species if one had flower buds and the other didn't. Flowering and non flowering plants are quite different. Or did the one jump to a flower without a flower bud?

The only remarkable distinction is the quality of the fiber and the amount of THC. I believe (but do not know) that the fiber industry traded one for the other in their crop breeding programs.

[bc2]

marijuana plants have buds that look like this:

that's what I meant by "buds".

Industrial hemp plants don't have buds like that, they look like this:

now, which one of those would you want to smoke? (hint: it's not the indusrial "bud".)

[JoeFromSidney]

Several years ago I attended a Libertarian Party picnic. The booth next to mine was staffed by NORML. They had acquired a copy of a World War II movie originally put out by the Department of Agriculture, HEMP FOR VICTORY. The government had suppressed the film, and even denied it ever existed, but NORML had found a copy in an archive somewhere and converted it into a video. Anyway, the movie urged farmers to grow hemp because it was needed for rope for the war effort. What a difference 50 years of anti-drug fanaticism makes.

[freepatriot32]

Get high on life!

No way am I falling for that again.There was a group that came to my high school once with that same slogan so I tried it.I ate 4 bowls of regular and 3 bowls of cinnamon life and I didnt even get a mild buzz!All I got was a severe stomach ache and an aversion to all cold cereals for 3 months. Its just an urban legend that you can get high on life.Well maybe if you smoke it but I'll be damned if I can keep those little sqaures lit long enough to puff on em.

[BBell]

Have you ever been a stomer? Me, I used to like to joke a smoint once in a while!

[TKDietz]

There are too buds on industrial hemp. There are even buds showing on the picture you posted. It has to bud, otherwise it could not produce seeds. Marijuana is one of those plants that have distinct male or female genders. Male plants don't have buds, they have pollen sacks. When the buds on the female plants are pollinated by the male plants, they produce seeds. If the female plants are never pollinated, the buds stretch and become larger, seeking pollen, and the plant produces more THC. If pollinated, the plant's energy is focused on producing seeds. The buds are smaller and contain less THC on pollinated plants. Marijuana that is not pollinated is called sinsemilla, which is derived from the Spanish language and means "without seeds."

Hemp is cannabis sativa, just like other marijuana. Marijuana is often broken down in other categories though. There is cannabis indica and cannabis ruderalis. Indica are short plants with fat buds and lots of resin. It came from cooler mountainous regions like Afghanistan. Most indoor grown pot is indica, or a hybrid of indica and sativa. Sativa are taller, less resinous plants that thrive in warm, tropical climates with lot's of sun and long growing seasons, like Mexico, Vietnam, and so on. I believe ruderalis comes from Russia. They are a foot to three feet high plants with extremely low THC. That variety also auto-flowers. With other marijuana, flowering occurs when the days shorten. Indoor growers switch from an eighteen hour or twenty-four hour light regimen down to a twelve on twelve off regimen to induce flowering. Ruderalis has been crossbred with indicas and sativas to create small auto-flowering plants as well, most of which are low on the THC spectrum and not particularly desirable to most marijuana growers because they want high THC and usually like to use cuttings from female "mother plants" kept in a perpetual "vegetative state" rather than seeds. This way they don't waste time, energy, or space on male plants they will have to throw away, and they know the plants from cuttings will be genetically similar "clones" of the mother plants. This can't be done with auto-flowering plants because they can't be kept in a vegetative state by giving the plants sixteen or more hours of light per day. They'll flower before it's time to take cuttings and live their life cycles out in a couple of months, whereas clone mothers kept in a vegetative state won't flower and can provide cuttings for several years that can be flowered after they root.

Hemp is marijuana. It's just a variety that grows tall that has been bred for fiber rather than THC. Industrial hemp has been bred such that THC is extremely low. It's so low that people would have to smoke piles and piles of it to get a little buzz. They'd have a big headache and a sore throat by the time they felt any mildly intoxicating effects, if they ever felt any intoxication at all.

[ArrogantBustard]

You would have to smoke the equivelent of a telephone pole sized joint

I don't think these guys would have a problem with that...