Newsbrief: Feds Seize Hemp Promotional Vehicle at US-Canada Border Hemphry, a 1971 Volkswagen van used as a promotional vehicle by the Canadian hemp firm Pure Hemp, is currently being detained by Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE, formerly US Customs) in Maine. Hemphry, which sports a hemp field motif and "Pure Hemp" license plates, was impounded earlier this month after driver Johannes Chapman attempted to cross the border while carrying eight pounds of roasted, seasoned hemp seed. Hemp seed is legal in the United States, but Hemphry was seized and Chapman faces mar1juana importation charges. "I purchased three kilos of toasted and salted hempseeds in Montreal" said Chapman. "The owner advised me not to bring hemp seeds over the border, reminding me of America's 'zero tolerance,'" and I said 'hemp seeds are not banned in America.'" Although the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the DEA's October 2001 interpretive rule banning hemp-based foods on June 30, that word apparently hasn't filtered down to line officers. US Customs agents field tested Chapman's hemp seeds and said they found traces of THC, a claim Natural Emphasis, Ltd. owner David Marcus, exclusive distributor of Pure Hemp rolling papers in North America, found hard to swallow. "The validity of this field test is questionable to say the least," he said in a press release. "An official THC test of the seed in question has been obtained from a Canadian lab accredited by Health Canada showing that the seed contains no THC." Furthermore, the field test indicated that both the Pure Hemp cigarette papers and hemp twine in the van's cargo also contained THC, yet both are made from the stalk fibers of the hemp plant which don't contain THC." Hemphry remains in custody pending further tests of the hemp seeds. Chapman was turned back from the United States, but has been invited back to face the mar1juana importation charges September 9.
Can anyone here support the banning of industrial hemp? Industrial hemp makes stronger fibers for rope and clothing than cotton, is a totally renewable resource for paper, replenishes soil for other crops, provides oil that can power existing deisel engines, and most importantly contains so little THC that you could smoke a joint the size of a baseball bat and not get high. Industrial hemp could make $600 per acre for hemp seed oil alone and could let us reclaim the farm subsidies we give out and give the farmers something they could grow profitably.
You know, if you drive around River Oaks when the plants are flowering, many of the older plantings of poppies are Papaver somniferum, AKA opium poppies. Perhaps we should go round up all the rich, old biddies as smack dealers. BTW, I don't smoke pot. I find it incredibly anoying to be rendered dumber than a lump of coal, but I still find the oversensitivity of some of these people to be insane.
This isn't even about pot, it is about a non-psychoactive substance that the lumber industry got banned along with pot so that they wouldn't have to compete with a totally renewable source of paper.
One of the funniest quotes I ever heard about hemp was from a British hemp farmer on the CBS Evening News a few years ago. The reporter was doing a story on the controversy over hemp products and its connection to mar1juana and asked the farmer about the psychotropic properties of hemp. The farmer replied: "To get high off of hemp, you'd have to smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole." Priceless!
That is the quote I normally use, but since some idiot wanted me to prove that (as he called it) "baseless claim," I started using the baseball bat and nobody has questioned me on it since. You go smoke a hemp rope and see what you get. A headache, nothing more.
People are very quick to attribute nefarious motives to any major economic group when they perhaps should be atributing them with apathy and ignorance instead. The claim that there is some sort of vast corporate conspiracy by the lumber industry is completely inane. The lumber industry isn't married to timber, and would gladly switch to hemp if they properly understood that they could avoid having to search for new timber by planting fresh crops every year. Industry is all about the bottom line. You lessen your position by portraying these people as anything but lazy. BTW, in case anybody cares, if it weren't for hemp George Herbert Walker Bush wouldn't be alive -- in WWII when he jumped out of his airplane he used a parachute which was made from naturally strong hemp fibers. He then went on to impregnate his wife several times, giving birth to his many sons. In the end, GW owes his life to hemp.
There is plenty of evidence that the reason mar1juana and hemp were banned after WWII was because of the pressure the logging industry put on the government so they wouldn't have to compete with hemp for the paper business. There may not be a conspiracy these days, but to dismiss the idea that a corporation would lobby the government to get them to do something in the corporations best interest is naive. The lumber industry is married to timber, as all the lands they own are covered with trees. They might try to get some hemp planted if it were legal, but most likely the people who already own farmland would be the ones to plant hemp. Hear, hear. Hemp is an unbelieveably useful product whose time for illegality has passed.
The first two drafts were, the final copy was transcribed onto wood pulp paper if memory serves. The American flag that Betsy Ross was so famous for sewing was made of hemp, however.
