BISMARCK, N.D. – Two farmers granted the first licenses in the nation to grow industrial hemp filed a federal lawsuit Monday to get final permission from the Drug Enforcement Administration. The lawsuit asks a federal judge to recognize that hemp is allowed to be grown in North Dakota, said the farmers’ attorney, Tim Purdon.
Industrial hemp, a cousin of marijuana, is used to make everything from paper to lotion. But without permission from the DEA, the farmers could be arrested for growing the crop in the U.S. Hemp contains trace amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, a banned substance, and it falls under federal anti-drug rules, the DEA says.
Hemp proponents say it is safe because it contains only trace amounts of THC, a mind-altering chemical — not enough to produce a high. “What they say is hemp, we say is marijuana,” said Garrison Courtney, a spokesman for the DEA in Washington. “As long as the active ingredient is THC — that’s what makes it illegal, and it’s still marijuana under the law.”
| Here we go again with idiotic government. Hemp is a really excellent crop and has multiple uses.Here’s some interesting information about hemp. |
Yay to my State!
There’s a lot of businesses that don’t want hemp grown because it would threaten their model.
The funniest thing about all the pot heads pushing the growth of hemp is that Australia did just such an experimental program back in the90’s and the side effect of hemp growing was the total destruction of the pot crop in the province (high thc content is a recessive trait, and the cross pollination with hemp turned the pot crop into a hemp crop)
Now THAT’S funny!
Using this stuff commercially seems obvious, but it will never happen because anyone advocating it is labeled a “pot head”
What this really needs is the law to be changed at the federal level. To read amounts over X will be considered illegal and therefore punishable by law. Amounts of X and under will be considered safe under jurisdiction of federal law.
Pretty simple to write and easy to pass in both houses. Attach it as a rider to a homeland security budget increase and you’re in.
These guys might want to consider having their lawyer draft it up and send it to the Senators in ND>
Cursor_
3.
any pot crop is best grown hydroponically anyway. pollination of any kind reduces thc levels.
This rediculous prohibition is causing so many unnecessary problems
To many have been brain washed into belieaving WRONG stories of what hemp is and does.
Uhhh, drugs are bad mmmmkay?
#6 – What this really needs is the law to be changed at the federal level. To read amounts over X will be considered illegal and therefore punishable by law. Amounts of X and under will be considered safe under jurisdiction of federal law.
I have a better idea. Let’s have a law that says:
“We are the Federal government. We have no vested interest whatsoever in what you do in the privacy of your home and in your choice to consume a safe and natural plant to catch a buzz, just like we do with the legal drug at our three Martini lunches.
We apologize for the years of oppression and we’ll be sending you all a free bag or pot for your troubles. If you’ll excuse us now we need to get back to real matters, like looking after national security and making sure anyone who wants to go to college can.”
hhopper
Related to Dennis Hopper?
Submits story about Pot.
Coincidence?
Naaaa
Dennis Hopper is a fourth cousin twice removed, or something like that.
The story was about HEMP. HEMP is NOT pot.
No coincidence.
My bad.
Now going to find a blackboard and write Hemp 100 times.
There should be a side listing of qualified postings in various categories. Just today we have 3-4 on “The Nanny State Making Bad Laws.”
How much time, energy, attention, money, people need to be spent by the GOUSA government interfering in its citizens lives?
Silly- – — – Wasteful – – – – Ineffective- – — Insulting- – – – and so forth.
Really funny: The link leads to a document referring to John E. Dvorak. Odds on that?
These documents and many more are published online by USA hemp historian extraordinaire, John E. Dvorak. His Digital Hemp History Library is the most complete source for historical hemp documents and data anywhere.
10. That’s all we need are more drivers under the influence of another mind-altering substance.
Besides, MADD would be forced to change their acronymn to something totally unworkable like
Mothers Against Zonked-out Drivers (MAZOD)
RBG
Myth: Marijuana Use is a Major Cause Of Highway Accidents. Like alcohol, marijuana impairs psychomotor function and decreases driving ability. If marijuana use increases, an increase in of traffic fatalities is inevitable.
Fact: There is no compelling evidence that marijuana contributes substantially to traffic accidents and fatalities. At some doses, marijuana affects perception and psychomotor performances- changes which could impair driving ability. However, in driving studies, marijuana produces little or no car-handling impairment- consistently less than produced by low moderate doses of alcohol and many legal medications. In contrast to alcohol, which tends to increase risky driving practices, marijuana tends to make subjects more cautious. Surveys of fatally injured drivers show that when THC is detected in the blood, alcohol is almost always detected as well. For some individuals, marijuana may play a role in bad driving. The overall rate of highway accidents appears not to be significantly affected by marijuana’s widespread use in society.
From http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/
There are only a few things preventing hemp growth in the US:
1) Ignorance. Hemp won’t make you high, whether you smoke it, eat it, or shoot it in your arm – it will give you a pretty bad headache.
2) Greed. Too many large corporations (as usual) make vast sums of money off artificial fibers derived from – you guessed it, OIL. So you’re up against fiber producers, and oil companies (re: Bush/Cheney).
3) Conformists. Over half of all Amerikans will believe anything the government tells them. You know, because the government works in the citizens’ best interest.
That’s about it. Here’s a good one: the FDA pays farmers to not grow human foodstock crops on some land. So, the farmers grow alfalfa or some other grass/grain they can feed their animals (or sell to market). If these unused areas were planted with hemp or marijuana, it would help global warming. The ganja is such an energetic, thriving, active plant, that it just gobbles up CO2 and spews out LOTS of O2.
Irony would be the human race dying out because it considered pot/weed/hemp all too evil to grow. 🙂
#16 – The legal status of marijuana has no bearing on whether or not someone will drive under its influence… and as you know about me, I have no tolerance at all for driving under the influence of X, where X equals any drug or alcohol at all.
Funny… We make pot illegal because we might hurt ourselves or others under its influence. We make chemistry sets illegal because we might hurt ourselves or others with one. We seem to outlaw many things because we might hurt ourselves or others with these things…
I wonder, why are guns legal again?
I’m not advocating banning guns… I’m just saying its a hypocritical position for the federal government to take.
Look. If you all want a nanny state, vote for one. Wrap the country in Nerf, ban everything, and make it all safe, generic, boring, and suburban… Make America into an Olive Garden nightmare and a housewife’s dream. Give me time to pack my shit and move to damn near any non-Islamic nation on Earth, which would surely be better than that.
But I don’t think any of you advocate that. So drop the bullshit hypocrisy and let’s legalize marijuana. You know it was only outlawed to make it easier to put blacks and Mexicans in jail in the first place. It was never a danger to anything other than the rich, white, male status quo.
#16 – RBG
“10. That’s all we need are more drivers under the influence of another mind-altering substance.”
Jeebus X, it’s incredible how such nonsense just ‘pop!’s outta you at the drop of a hat.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, O Naîve And Blissfully Ignorant One, but you have been driving among them – many, many, many of them – for the last 35 or more years, if you’re even that old.
Big fucking impact they’ve had on your safety, innit? I mean, considering how you’ve been sufficiently unaware and unaffected for it to not even occur to you that they’re there and have been there all along…
Many years back, some minor research was done which confirmed what dope smokers already knew; those who smoke and drive do so slower and more cautiously than those who don’t. Like virtually all research into the real-world impact of marijuana consumption, it didn’t support our eternally wise gov’t’s professional propagandists, so it was towed out of sight of land and sunk.
Well, guns are legal because there is a specific CONSTITUTIONAL provision that has been (erroneously) interpreted to protect such ownership and use.
Now why the “general right of privacy” recognized as “within the penumbra” of the Bill of Rights does not extend to mere possession and use of drugs is beyond me.
Silly- – — – Wasteful – – – – Ineffective- – — Insulting- – – – and so forth.
I love Hemp clothes. My hemp jacket is the most comfortable, hard-wearing, breathable jacket I’ve had.
Hemp-cotton mixes (where there is at least 40% hemp) are some of the best fabrics. No contest.
Hmmm…..DEA says it contains THC, even just in trace amounts, so that is bad. I wonder if you can be arrested then for drinking a dealcoholized beer or cooler in an inappropriate place? They do, after all, contain ‘trace’ amounts of alcohol. Come on….hemp as grown for industrial and commercial purposes is not the same as marijuana that is used for pleasure or pain control. They could go ahead and monitor the farms that grow hemp if it makes them that nervous, but denying it altogether seems rather silly.
#21…bobbo….that general right of privacy is only recognised by the **living constitution ** bunch. It was used as the basis for ROEv WADE and some of the follow up rulings on abortion. It was also used as a basis for decisions about state laws on homosexuality. While granting a woman the right to choose and citizens who happen to do sex differently than the rest of us is a good thing, it still is based on a false premise.
There is no right to privacy, implied or otherwise in the constitution. The constitution was written as the founders wanted it to be and if you wanted to change it later, they provided a method for doing that. But it was not left to be interpeted by parsing words. It says what it means and means what it says.
I think that a lot of things that have been decided in the courts are good(2 above), but they are worthless decisions if they are based on faulty law. I think Liberals dodged a bullet with the implosion of the Republicans this past 2 years. If the Democrats should actually not shoot themselves in the foot and elect a President, there is probably going to be at least 2 members of SCOTUS who will be stepping down in the next 2 to 3 years…..both Liberals…..so the Dems will be able to hold the line on the 4/4 split with 1 decider. Otherwise, I’ll bet the ranch Roe v Wade will fall in the next 4 years.
#24 – YOU think its a false premise. You are entitled. But many a fine legal scholar does not think it is a false premise including past and present Supreme Court Justices, so it isn’t as if you can make your proclamations as fact.
I firmly believe the right to privacy is inherent in the Constitution, but granted, a valid debate could be had.
So, joshua, do you agree that the 2nd Amendment does not grant an individual right to bear arms?
#26
Only of you’re a very hairy man and work out a lot.
So we’re all in agreement that you can smoke enough marijuana to be impaired as a driver? (Much like too much alcohol.)
And we’re all in agreement that that level of impairment does kill people on the road? (Much like too much alcohol.)
We’re all in agreement that decriminalizing marijuana would result in some increase in its use? (At least among those who are guided by laws.)
Now all we have to do is quantify how many additional kids will die on the road from the increase in usage.
RBG
Let’s not forget.. Most people killed in traffic accidents aren’t under the influence of anything but their own stupidity or poor driving skills..
The statistics prove this..
Yet no one seems to be crying out for better driver education..
I guess it’s just easier to continue the fight against civil liberties.
#27: Haha, good catch. Damn, I need a grammar checker in Firefox to go along with the lovely little spell checker…