From In the Public Interest
An Excerpt from Industrial Hemp of June 24, 2005
Congressman Ron Paul, a libertarian from Texas and an obstetrician who has delivered over 6000 babies, is trying to deliver our farmers from a bureaucratic medievalism in Washington that keeps saying "No" to growing industrial hemp.
Many farmers want to grow this 5000 year old long fiber plant that has been turned into thousands of products since being domesticated by the ancient Chinese. That is their heresy. The enforcer is the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in Washington, DC, which has placed industrial hemp on its proscribed list next to marijuana.
Detailed petitions signed by agricultural groups, agricultural commissioners, International Paper Co. and others were presented to both Clinton and Bush to take industrial hemp off the DEA list and let the states allow farmers to grow it. The DEA turned the petitions down cold.
The arguments for this great, sturdy and environmentally benign plant are legion. In over 30 countries where it is commercially grown, including Canada, France, China and Romania, industrial hemp has been used to produce hemp food, hemp fuel, hemp paper, hemp cloth, hemp cosmetics, hemp carpet and even hemp door frames (Ford and Mercedes).
Factories, food stores and paper manufacturers are free to import raw hemp or finished hemp materials from foreign countries. Last year, about $250 million worth of hemp products were purchased from abroad. But federal law in the US prohibits farmers or anyone else from growing it on US soil.
Why? The DEA says that industrial hemp grown next to marijuana can camouflage and impede law enforcement against the latter. Strange. This problem doesn't bother Canadian police authorities or similar officials in other nations. Besides, since industrial hemp is only 1/3 of 1 percent THC, growing it next to marijuana would cross-pollinate and dilute the illegal marijuana plants. No marijuana grower wants industrial hemp anywhere near his or her pot plots.
History of Hemp & Marijuana (1 of 5)Many farmers want to grow this 5000 year old long fiber plant that has been turned into thousands of products since being domesticated by the ancient Chinese. That is their heresy. The enforcer is the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in Washington, DC, which has placed industrial hemp on its proscribed list next to marijuana.
Detailed petitions signed by agricultural groups, agricultural commissioners, International Paper Co. and others were presented to both Clinton and Bush to take industrial hemp off the DEA list and let the states allow farmers to grow it. The DEA turned the petitions down cold.
The arguments for this great, sturdy and environmentally benign plant are legion. In over 30 countries where it is commercially grown, including Canada, France, China and Romania, industrial hemp has been used to produce hemp food, hemp fuel, hemp paper, hemp cloth, hemp cosmetics, hemp carpet and even hemp door frames (Ford and Mercedes).
Factories, food stores and paper manufacturers are free to import raw hemp or finished hemp materials from foreign countries. Last year, about $250 million worth of hemp products were purchased from abroad. But federal law in the US prohibits farmers or anyone else from growing it on US soil.
Why? The DEA says that industrial hemp grown next to marijuana can camouflage and impede law enforcement against the latter. Strange. This problem doesn't bother Canadian police authorities or similar officials in other nations. Besides, since industrial hemp is only 1/3 of 1 percent THC, growing it next to marijuana would cross-pollinate and dilute the illegal marijuana plants. No marijuana grower wants industrial hemp anywhere near his or her pot plots.
