The USA-DEA Cabal

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 05 Aug 2002 12:00:00 GMT
Kaz Dziamka at YellowTimes.org - The USA-DEA cabal: an enemy of reason - Though you could argue (badly) that marijuana should be regulated, there is no excuse whatsoever for making industrial hemp illegal. Unless your name is Hearst or DuPont, that is, and you don't mind outrageous fabrications. But you knew that. [smith2004]
As every educated member of the genus Homo sapiens should know, hemp is the world's most important ecological resource - a virtual miracle plant, which, as a Popular Mechanics article pointed out in 1938, can be used to produce over 25,000 products. Industrial applications, which Rowan Robinson lists in The Great Book of Hemp, include textiles; cordage; construction products; paper and packaging; furniture; electrical and automotive applications; paints, sealants and cosmetics; plastics and polymers; lubricants and fuel; energy and biomass; compost; and food and feed.

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Many Americans, brainwashed for over sixty years by misinformation and lies told by the U.S. government and the DEA, don't even realize that hemp and marijuana are not the same plants. (Many Americans don't even know what hemp is!) To be sure, hemp and marijuana are both members of the same plant genus, Cannabis sativa L., yet they are different species. In The Hemp Manifesto, Robinson explains the difference in this way:
Think of a beagle and a Saint Bernard - both Canis familiaris, but with utterly different looks, capabilities, and personalities. So it is with hemp and marijuana. Hemp is a stalky crop that has been grown for its fiber and edible seed for millennia; it is incapable of getting you stoned. Marijuana is a bushy form of cannabis that has been grown for its psychoactive and medicinal properties for an equally long time. The two are different plants and in two minutes a state trooper can be educated so that he will never mistake one for the other.
More objectively, hemp (or industrial hemp, as it should be called) is properly defined as Cannabis sativa with a one-percent or less (usually 0.3) concentration of the psychoactive ingredient delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol. The content of THC in marijuana, on the other hand, may range from 3 to 14 percent. This definition has been accepted by a coalition of farmers, businesses, and environmental groups in a March 6, 2001 letter, asking the Bush Administration to reconsider the current marijuana/hemp laws. Needless to say, the letter - an eloquent plea for sanity - has been predictably ignored by the Bush Administration, which may turn out to be even more foolish in its anti-marijuana campaign than the Clinton, Reagan, or Nixon administrations.

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To return to the problem of the definition: Dr. West in Hemp and Marijuana explains that Cannabis is "the only plant genus in which can be found the unique class of molecules known as cannabinoids" and that it "produces two major cannabinoids -- THC ... and CBD (cannabidiol)." And while THC's psychoactive effect is well known, it is not commonly known that CBD blocks the effect of THC in the nervous system. Concludes Dr. West:
Cannabis with THC below 1.0 percent and a CBD/THC ration greater than one is therefore not capable of inducing a psychoactive effect. Hemp, it turns out, is not only not marijuana, it could be called "anti-marijuana."
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In the 1930's the established timber businesses of Hearst, Kimberly Clark, and St. Regis "stood to lose billions," as Herer points out, if the new hemp processing technology was to be implemented. At the same time, as it happened, the synthetic petrochemical giant Du Pont was facing a potentially formidable natural opponent, hemp, to challenge the company's newly patented processes for oil - and coal-based plastics and the improved method of making paper from wood. According to Herer, "If hemp had not been made illegal, 80% of Du Pont's business would never have materialized and the great majority of the pollution which has poisoned the Northwestern and Southeastern rivers would not have occurred."

And so something had to be done to protect the business interests of the richest and most influential people in the United States against the emerging power of hemp industry. Hemp had to be outlawed, even though it seemed like an impossible task to try to ban the most useful crop in the history of humankind.

Paul Kirby at The Daily Freeman - Unnecessary roughness? Elderly man claims excessive force by police officer - more evidence that the best way to deal with a cop at your door is to shoot first and ask questions later. [kaba]

Bryon Okada at The Dallas/Fort-Worth Star-Telegram - D/FW plays key role in security bill - your luggage won't be sniffed at major airports on schedule, but they're still going to do it eventually. Incompetence abounds. [kaba]

Paul Marks at The Hartford Courant - Texan Learns To Rue Remark: `Rifle' Mention At Airport To Cost Him - $78 for causing someone to feel "uncomfortable". Remind me please, of where in the Constitution it says people have a right to feel anything. [kaba]

"I said, `What do you expect to find in there, a rifle?'" he said. When the trooper asked me, `Do you think that was an appropriate remark?' I said, `I do.'" That's when Hubbell was taken into custody by Trooper Wayne Foster.

Dana Cosgrove, head of the federal security force that moved into Bradley last week, sees it differently.

"What he said [regarding the wallet] was, `You better look at it real good; there may be a rifle in there.' And all that the people around him in the waiting room heard was the word `rifle.'"

Anxiety levels after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are high enough at airports, Cosgrove said, which is why cracks about guns, bombs or terrorism are cause for arrest. The airport's public address system issues regular reminders in both English and Spanish.

"I want to be sure that when people step on that plane they're 100 percent comfortable," Cosgrove said.

Matthew Rothschild at The Progressive via AlterNet - Anti-Bush Protesters Silenced at Ohio State Graduation - not quite an accurate title. The planned protest was to silently turn their backs to GW while he spoke. Eight out of sixty thousand did so. One man was escorted out by the police, but not arrested when he "agreed" to leave. [kaba]

Jeff, who is identified as an OSU alumnus on the group's web site, wrote: "I saw one of Columbus's Finest heading our way ... We were being led out of Ohio Stadium. To the officer's credit, he realized there was a three-year-old in my arms and was not at all hostile. I asked him if I was under arrest, and he did not answer me. When we reached the exit ... he told me we were being charged with disturbing the peace. If we chose to leave, the charges would be dropped immediately. With our daughter in mind, we chose not to fight it ... On this day, June 14th, 2002, I came to the realization that we no longer live in a free society."

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