King Hemp

The sordid tale of hemp prohibition in America is a superlative example of power working against the population, of corporate profits trumping We the People. Today, if we follow the money, we quickly find the War on Drugs, and the kinds of insanity our various “Wars on Things” engender. For instance, during research for the novel, Castling, I found a most Twilight-Zonish story from Nebraska. A project to elevate a Boy Scout to an “Eagle” involved jerking 40,000 “marijuana” plants…though in fact they were “ditchweed”—wild remnants of industrial hemp varieties bred and cultivated by the Department of Agriculture from 1900 to 1935, and also during the “Hemp For Victory!” war campaign. Ditchweed grows wild across several states, and like all industrial hemp varieties, has no drug potential because of ultra-low THC levels. Undeterred by reality, the young Scout, aided by gung-ho! adults and supervised by police, jerked the 40,000 plants and saw to their entombment in a landfill. For the press, DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) agents estimated the street value of the plants at over fifteen million dollars. That’s called blatant lying. The monetary value was zero—if those weeds were on the street, somebody would have to pay to have them hauled away. However, the weeds had plenty of value if they’d been left in the ditch where they belonged; migrating birds prefer hemp seed above all other foods. So in reality the whole farce simply wasted a lot of time and energy to rob migrating birds of a vital meal. To top that, the DEA pours tens of millions every year into state and local police forces to dig up ditchweed. What’s next, a DEA proclamation of America’s War On Birds…? Industrial hemp is not marijuana. Yet, unlike in countries advanced enough to farm the world’s most useful plant, where the issue of hemp is handled by agricultural, or food or health agencies, in the U.S., it’s the DEA standing in the way of hemp. Industrial hemp has nothing to do with drugs, yet the road to restoration of hemp farming goes straight through our drug enforcement bureaucracy. An end to hemp prohibition in this country is perhaps the DEA’s greatest fear because, they believe, decriminalization of marijuana would automatically follow, killing their ultimate cash cow. Without marijuana, the War on Drugs might suffer an attack of peace—disaster for any war profiteer such as the DEA. Half of all drug arrests nationwide are for marijuana. Nearly 15% of America’s bloated prison population represents incarceration mostly for marijuana possession. Privatization of America’s prison industry is one of the country’s top growth industries, along with slave labor provided by prisoners. The statistics are as horrifying as primary testimony of high-ranking government official Harry Anslinger before Congress in 1937 regarding why America’s hemp industry should be killed: “If the monster Frankenstein should come face-to-face with the evil monster marijuana, he would surely die of fright….” Hey, that’s good enough for…ahem, good enough for seventy-years-and-counting of denying We the People all the benefits of the world’s most valuable crop, don’t you think? In “King Hemp” part 2, read of the fantastic potential of hemp uniting with modern technology in the world’s agricultural and entrepreneurial superstar! Benefits extend all the way to countering the Devastating Duo: global warming, and globalization. Rand Clifford is a novelist and essayist living in Spokane, Washington, with his wife Mary Ann, and their Chesapeake Bay retriever, Mink. His novels CASTLING and TIMING are published by StarChief Press: http://www.starchiefpress.com and exactly what is "wrong" with an Altered conscience? http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=161 [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on July 26, 2007]

Note: http://www.starchiefpre... http://www.bestcyrano.o...