Headline: October 13, 2009 – Activists Dig into Efforts to Legalize Hemp in U.S. – American farmers yearning to grow industrial hemp came to Washington, DC to commit an act of civil disobedience at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration, to dramatize the stubborn refusal of the DEA to differentiate between hemp from marijuana  and to encourage the U.S. government to join the rest of the world growing this amazingly versatile and environmentally crop. The potential hemp farmers were joined by David Bronner, President of Dr. Bronner’s Soaps – a company that has included hemp oil in its products for years. Vote Hemp, a non-profit group advocating hemp agriculture, organized and documented the action:Hemp Farmers Arrested Planting Hemp at DEA Headquarters

The farmers were from Vermont and North Dakota -  among six states that have legalized industrial hemp farming, soon to be joined by Oregon, whose governor has said he would sign the Industrial Hemp Farming Act recently passed by the state legislature. The North Dakota farmer sued the DEA to force it to yield to the state law – he is appealing a negative ruling.

In a post from last year, we covered the legal effort by North Dakota farmers, having paid $2,300 to the DEA for a permit, to force the federal government to do the right thing. Another post featured North Dakota’s Commissioner of Agriculture extolling the benefits of hemp and details of the federal Industrial Hemp Farming Bill introduced by Re. Ron Paul (R-TX) (The federal bill was re-introduced this year). It should be noted that few crops can grow well in harsh prairie conditions without extraordinary amounts of water, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides – but hemp thrives naturally in these conditions.

In another video from Vote Hemp’s You Tube channel, a Nebraska farmer, having lost his wheat crop to Fusarium Head-Blight, considers the possibility of hemp saving his farm:Controversial Crop

As a charming interlude, please enjoy this music video of a song composed from the words that the spiritually-oriented Dr. Bronner printed on the label of his 18-in-1 Hemp Peppermint Pure-Castile Soap. From the chorus:

Full-truth our god, half-truth our enemy,
Hard work our salvation, unity our goal,
Free speech our weapon, all-one our soul,
Listen children,
Eternal father, eternally one.

Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap Song

Hempseed Photo courtesy of Hempology.org

The peak month for government marijuana eradication efforts in North Carolina is August. The Marijuana Found In Six Western North Carolina Counties this year was minimal. It took three federal and three state agencies, law enforcement specialist, helicopter pilots and National Guard  to eradicate 815 plants.

Law enforcement agencies using fly-over operations…
The August raids netted 815 plants In Western North Carolina… Three people face trafficking charges.

Federal agents seize about 4,000 pounds of the finished product a year in North Carolina, according to the U.S.  Drug Enforcement Administration.

Authorities so far this year seized 45,000 plants statewide, which the N.C.  State Bureau of Investigation says is on pace with last year’s rate.

“It is ongoing,” said Haywood County Sheriff Bobby Suttles…we are going to be looking for it.”

Eradication teams typically work in August at the end of the growing season when plants are tall and easier to spot from the air.

Deputies and police work with helicopter pilots from the N.C.  National Guard and the N.C.  Highway Patrol to spot and destroy patches.  SBI agents and the U.S.  Forest Service also join the effort.

Haywood County started at the county fairgrounds, where deputies and federal police went over target areas with Highway Patrol pilots.

When the helicopter took flight, deputies and U.S.  Forest Service police rode in a caravan to the first area in a remote section off White Oak Road.

The team that day hit several more spots with no luck.  …The Highway Patrol aviation unit averages about 400 hours a year on flights searching for marijuana. Since 2007, it has helped eradicate 74,151 plants.

The National Guard averages 2,000 hours in the air each year helping state authorities find pot.

Some communities are tired of the Drug War and Stopped Taking DEA Money for eradication. http://cannabistv.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/drug-war-funds-cut-digging-our-way-out-of-prohibition/

Haywood County deputies seized 431 plants from patches in the White Oak and Fines Creek communities and off Rabbit Skin Road in the first of two fly-overs.

Some of the plants were 10 feet tall and had four-inch buds, the part marijuana users smoke.

“It was a success,” said narcotics detective Mark Mease.  “we had good air support.” Authorities said they found 20 plants in a garden .  A search of the property the next day uncovered an indoor growing operation in a shed.

Sometimes the operations just aren’t productive.

A fly-over in Transylvania County turned up nothing last month and a brief outing in Jackson County uncovered just one plant. Investigators found nothing in Swain County.

How It’s Done In Amsterdam- “The Sniffer Chopper”

Blog Posted by Ray Pague

I remember it well – in 1998 the United Nations General Assembly declared a ten year plan of action, “A Drug Free World – We Can Do it!”, with the goal of eradication of all drug crops, from Coca to Cannabis.  A blasphemy against Nature and laughable even to a novice drug policy reform advocate, the declaration underscored the disconnect between government and reality on the issue of drug use amongst humanity.

UK: Column: Never Mind The Evidence – A Drug-Free World Is Nigh

Well, ten years passed with no abatement of drug “abuse”, while the number one prohibitionist, America, continued to incarcerate more of it’s citizens than any other nation- breaking families, destabilizing communities and corrupting the mission of law enforcement. Amid this dismal failure of vision, the U.S. delegation led the prohibitionist charge at the UN’s Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting in Vienna, Austria last week. Despite numerous European countries’ successes with harm reduction and health models in drug policy, and with several South and Central American leaders even calling on America to end the zealotry that is destroying their homelands, the final position and “Plan of Action” from UN CND in 2009 is the same, dangerous, head-in-the-sand denial of reality of which we’ve all grown so sick.

But the UN heard the new voices for change and so has the world, even prompting  the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to admit the failures and unintended consequences of our modern prohibition - even praising harm reduction to the media. Several NGOs (Non-governmental organizations) presenting reform agendas in Vienna educated the UN delegates with sometimes novel methods. In this video produced by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, the HCLU, Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Britain’s Transform Drug Policy spoke from behind bars to passing delegates about tragedies of the drug war.Protest Against the Global Drug War – 11.03.2009

In this next video, from the United Nations’ You Tube channel, the head of the UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa sounds like a reformer himself, saying that drug addiction is an illness that has to be dealt with “by doctors and not by policemen”. “Drug addiction is an illness” (Antonio Maria Costa, UNODC)

Also featured on the UN’s channel is a remarkable plea for sanity and indigenous cultures, from Bolivian President Evo Morales, who chews on a cocoa leaf while urging the CND to remove the Cocoa plant from it’s list of banned substances, as the natural plant  is “not a drug but a traditional medicine”.Morales at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs

Headline: March 14, 2009 – NY: OPED: Let Me Chew My Coca Leaves

This recognition of our God-given right of people everywhere to interact with the plant kingdom (the “Standing Silent Nation” , as the Sioux Indians say) certainly applies to Cannabis – a time-tested natural medicine and not even a narcotic, which should ease the fears of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.  A recent poll in Canada and pending legislation in California shows that people are ready for legal cannabis.

In fact, the anti-prohibition bandwagon is rapidly filling with unlikely allies in drug policy reform. The drug war chaos threatening the stability of Mexican government is spilling over into the U.S., opening many eyes to the evils of prohibition.

Headline: March 8, 2009 – US AZ: Column: Legal Drugs: The Only Route To Ending Mexican Violence

 The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law.  For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this
country is closely connected with this.
Albert Einstein, My First Impression of the U.S.A., 1921

Wow, CNN’s American Morning just did a fairly balanced segment on the chaos in Mexico, which is descending into real civil war, with “100 beheadings of Police Chiefs” who dared to battle the narco-traffickers. CNN even had a brief statement from Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, a long time rational voice for harm reduction policies for all drug issues. Ron Paul appears, calling for outright legalization. CNN has a video report, “Drug Violence Crosses Border” that outlines the spillover of violence into the U.S. Here are a few newspaper headlines and You Tube videos following the carnage this month:

Headline: Feb 23, 2009 – Mexico: On the Border, a Crisis Escalates – This USA Today report is heart-wrenching with personal tragedy and dire predictions for the future, as 30% unemployment in Mexico threatens to swell the ranks of criminal organizations perpetrating unimaginable horrors – gangs that already have a presence in at least 230 cities across America, according to a Justice department report. The U.S. State Department has issued travel alerts for Mexico’s border areas and other tourist destinations.Drug Shootout in Mexico

Headline: Feb 23, 2009 – Mexico: Drug Violence Tarnishes Mexico’s International Image – From the Christian Science Monitor: “Some 6,000 have been killed since last year, double the number from the previous year, with 78 soldiers and 500 police among the victims.”

Headline: Feb 15, 2009 – Mexico: Juarez: Soldier Among 25 Slain During Violent Day – Just another day in this forsaken border town, where 230 people have been killed since the first of the year.Exploding Violence In Mexico, from CBS You Tube

Feb 23, 2009 – OPED: The War on Drugs is a Failure – In this important guest editorial in the Wall Street Journal, three former Presidents of Central and South American countries call on the Obama administration to rethink the modern prohibition – a catastrophe of epic proportions for the citizens of their countries.  Fernando Henrique Cardoso (former President of Brazil), CeSar Gaviria (former President of Colombia) and Ernesto Zedillo (former President of Mexico).

Headline: Jan 18, 2009 – Texas: 70% Now Back Drug Legalization – Across the border from Juarez is the American city of El Paso. Last month, things got interesting in the El Paso City Council when Rep. Beto O’Rourke persuaded his fellow council members to include a call for debate on the legalization of drugs as part of a resolution by the Border Relations Committee. The Mayor vetoed the debate amendment, but reports of federal pressure against this excercise in free speech and a visit by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition have sustained interest in the issue.

LEAP consists of law enforcement personal, judges, DAs, lawyers and others who feel that the current “War on Drugs” is a total failure - only a repeat of the notoriously ineffective alcohol prohibition of the last century. In this video, a former federal agent with 30 years of experience on the front lines of the drug war testifies before the El Paso City Council last month.Former Fed says Let’s Legalize Drugs

Students For Sensible Drug Policy, a dynamic organization with chapters across the nation, also spoke to the El Paso City council in the following video, which includes a local newscast on the quelling of free speech in Texas, with Rep. Beto O’Rourke SSDP Advocates Drug Legalization in El Paso

 Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil –only evil– and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs.
- Roger Q. Mills of Texas from an 1887 speech

Still reeling from the sight of Olympian Michael Phelps partaking of a plant steeped in their own cultural traditions, modern Earthlings – from Japan to British Columbia, Jamaica to Quincy, Mass - are grappling with taboos and prohibitions of the most popular, relatively benign (even medicinal) plant on the planet.

Headline: Feb 4, 2009 –  Japan: Editorial: Marijuana Use Spreading – Gird you loins, sports fans - “incipient cannabis pollution”  has claimed another revered athlete. Sumo wrestler Wakakirin was expelled from the ancient sport in his native Japan – where Shinto priests employ Cannabis hemp wands to bless everything from marriages to buildings – check it all out in Jack Herer’s “Emporer Wears No Clothes”. In the meantime, here is Wakakirin practicing his craft:Bloodfest-Wakakirin -Asahimaru

The article also mentions several Russian Sumo wrestlers busted for pot last year. As these guys obviously need a hearty appetite to excel at Sumo, their preference for Cannabis is not surprising. Skinny snowboarders must like it for some other reason. Many athletes probably like the smooth muscle relaxation; extra oxygen from dilated blood vessels (reason for red eyes); non-narcotic relief from aches and pains; and other side-effects of Cannabis use. Speaking of medical:

Headline: Feb 2, 2009 – Canada – BC Supreme Court Rules in Favour of Medical Marijuana – A federal judge in British Columbia has ruled the government’s monopoly on growing medical Cannabis to be unconstitutional and has given Ottawa a year to incorporate compassion clubs and other private growers into Health Canada’s medical marijuana program. Health Canada grows it’s Cannabis in an abandoned mineshaft and the medicine has a reputation for contamination, low potency and high price, with few takers among patients in the program. So, others have stepped into the breech.

The case leading to this ruling involved a man growing for the Vancouver Island Compassion Club. The executive director of VICS, Philippe Lucas, described the mission and goals of the club, including research protocols for strain/symtom correlation, at the 2004 Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics, hosted by Patients Out of Time.Medical Cannabis in British Columbia, by Philippe Lucas

Headline: Feb 9, 2009 – Storm Over the Sun’s ‘Jamaica Druggies’ Slur -  When Amy Winehouse went to Jamaica to record a new album, a  British tabloid said the Caribbean island was “awash with drugs like crack cocaine and cannabis”. Jamaicans on both sides of the pond were irate – “You can buy drugs in the UK as easy as buying a loaf of bread. And after all, Amy did get hooked on drugs in this country!’

Jamaica does have a long tradition of Ganja (Cannabis) use and, as everywhere, hard drug problems. Interestingly, there is a new tradition emerging, supported by science - using Cannabis to treat addictions to narcotics (see previous post). As the Rasta says in this video, “Alcohol – it’s not good. Herb is for the Use of Man“. Ganja Field, Herbal Meditation by Smoking Holy Medication

 Headline: Jan 16, 2009 – MA: Police Chief Seeks Additional Marijuana Penalties- After Massachusetts decriminalized small amounts of Cannabis last November (previous post) , a loop hole in the new law has caused chaos, as several municipalities are attempting to enact ordinances that would levy additional fines for marijuana possession. Melrose may enact, but Worcester has rejected these punitive measures: Editorial: Weed Whackers No Need For New Local Marijuana Laws

When the City Council of Quincy put a proposal on it’s agenda that could slap a pot possessor with $700 in fines, the towns people turned out – check this great video of democracy in action, from Boston Freedom Rally’s You Tube channelA Strength in Numbers in Quincy - City Council Sees, But Won’t Listen to Marijuana Supporters

If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being a gift from God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
Samuel Adams, Father of the American Revolution.

President-Elect Obama’s transition team has opened a second forum for questions submitted and voted on by Americans – http://Change.Gov/OpenForQuestions

After the first round of questions was closed two weeks ago, the Change.Gov team posted responses to the most popular topics , including:

Question: “Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?” 

Answer: President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.

This brief response to the most voted on question (according to NORML – see Previous Post) underscores the disconnect between government policy and the new silent majority recognizing Cannabis Hemp’s proper role in America - past, present and future. Thirteen states have now legalized medicinal Cannabis (an issue that has polled at least 75%  for decades); our farmers are suing to grow a crop their ancestors depended on; and thirteen states have now decriminalized small amounts of marijuana despite efforts by government officials to misrepresent and thwart reform.

This morning the good folks at Vote Hemp alerted me to the second round of questions now open at Change.Gov,  asking hempsters to search and vote for this question:

“Agricultural hemp is oilseed and fiber varieties of Cannabis that are low in THC. Please see CRS report RL32725. What is your position on supporting farmers in the U.S. having the opportunity to once again farm hemp, an important agricultural crop?”

Vote for this question (search “CRS RL32725) at:

http://Change.Gov/OpenForQuestions

* Current news and videos about industrial hemp – from the U.S. & Canada:

Headline: Nov 13, 2008 – US: Hemp Growers Take Case to Higher Authority - After paying $2,300 for a DEA permit in February 2007 and losing in federal court, two farmers in North Dakota are taking the federal government to the next legal level - in hopes of taking America to the next economic and environmental level. In a previous post, you can see ND’s Commissioner of Agriculture extolling the benefits of returning hemp to Dakota fields. Here is a local newscast, provided by Vote Hemp at You Tube:Wayne Hauge on KXMB Bismrck

Headline: Nov 13, 2008 – CN MB: Demand For Hemp Soaring, Firm Moves To Bigger Plant -  “In the last 10 years, the Canadian hemp industry has grown from an emerging niche market to a point where we are now being recognized as a global leader in hemp production”, said Mike Fata, chairman of the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance ( CHTA ) and president and co-founder of Manitoba Harvest Hemp. The following, a video produced by Manitoba Harvest , is hosted on  Mike Fata’s You Tube Channel:Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods & Oils – Harvest Video

Headline: June 25, 2008 – CN MB: Growers Breeding New Hemp – In another story from Manitoba, the Parkland Prairie Hemp Growers Co-Op announced exciting results from eight years of work – cross breeding modern hemp varieties with 18th century genetics- the hemp of our grandfathers. PPHG has just received a grant from Canada’s Agri-Food Research & Development Initiative (ARDI) to further pursue the science and profit of hemp genetics.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S.A., the only hemp fields to be found are feral remnants of the 18th & 19th century genetics so carefully selected by our ancestors. Recently, Cannabis TV visited one gene pool oasis in eastern Nebraska, where the famous “Kentucky Hemp” variety was introduced to support the cordage industry.  In this video, plant breeder David West, PhD examines the ripe hemp seed heads so important to pheasants and other wildlife, details history of hemp in the region and laments the loss of an important American legacy.Feral Hemp Patch, with Dr. Dave West

“An acre of the best ground for hemp, is to be selected and sewn in hemp and be kept for a permanent hemp patch.” – Thomas Jefferson’s Garden book 1849

Headline: November 28, 2008 – China: Oldest Stash of Marijuana Unearthed in Ancient Tomb - Once again, the theory that Cannabis high in THC (aka “skunk“) is a recent phenomenon to be feared is debunked. Preserved in desert conditions in northwestern China, about 27 ounces (enough to get you in serious trouble in modern times) of still green Cannabis was found in a tomb near Turpan. Dated at 2,700 years old, the herb was “relatively high in THC” and “clearly cultivated for psychoactive purposes“, according to a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany: Phytochemical and Genetic Analyses of Ancient Cannabis From Central Asia  http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/59/15/4171

” To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent” , said lead author of the study, neurologist Ethan Russo. An expert in modern medicinal applications of Cannabis, Dr. Russo has done extensive research into the symbiotic history of Cannabis and humanity. In this video from a Cannabis Therapeutics Conference in 2002, he examines studies conducted over the last couple of hundred years – specific to chronic (prolonged) use of Cannabis.Marijuana Use Studies – A History, with Ethan Russo, MD

Headline: Nov 28, 2008 – China: Researchers High On Ancient Pot Find – Another Canadian newspaper covering this story goes into more detail on the contents of the supposed Shaman’s tomb. “It was common practice in burials to provide materials needed for the afterlife.  No hemp or seeds were provided for fabric or food.  Rather, cannabis as medicine or for visionary purposes was supplied”, states Dr. Russo as he ponders the oldest sample of prehistoric Cannabis to be scientifically examined.

However, there is voluminous written history to document the use of Cannabis Hemp by peoples all over the world (see our “Why do we call it Cannabis? page). In Dragons of Eden, Carl Sagan postulates that Cannabis was the oldest cultivated crop, circa 12,000 BC. Canadian author Chris Bennett wrote a wonderful book, Green Gold, The Tree of Life – Marijuana in Magic and Religion, that provides a view into the sacred herb’s influence in many lives and cultures. Here is Chris Bennett speaking on the history of Cannabis at the Global Marijuana March in British Columbia, 2007:Chris Bennett @ Global Marijuana March

“The Land of Hemp and Mulberry” – The following video refers to 10,000 years of Cannabis hemp history in China - first as food, then as fiber for paper, fishing nets, textiles and “5,000 other uses” – even playing a role in war.Hemp History

Next, this You Tube producer documents Cannabis Hemp in modern China, where it is “quite normal” to see hemp growing around houses, ponds and fields. Also, he visits an industrial hemp processing facility.Fields of cannabis in China

“The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.” – Carl Sagan