Anyone See The Irony Here?
You’ve probably read the story about an estimated 10,000 people gathered on the University of Colorado’s Norlin Quadrangle Sunday, puffing joints till the air turned blue. University police stood by to maintain order, but no one was busted for smoking pot.
In the meantime, the DEA is staunchly defending its policy against American farmers legally growing industrial hemp, citing the law that says all hemp is marijuana.
How’s your war on drugs coming along, anyway, DEA? The sun is shining, and if you’d pull your heads out, you’d see it. Pot is here, lots of it available, if this number of people can show up and get loaded on just one day in one city and no one is arrested.
Where did these pot-heads get their stuff, it surely didn’t come out of a couple of bags, and there was apparently enough to go around to get some 10,000 heads high. How many more smoke-outs were held on April 20th, the annual, internationally recognized celebration of marijuana? How many tons of pot went puff?
Now I’m not in favor of marijuana, primarily because of its affect on the lungs. Pot heads will tell you there’s no danger, but the cigarette companies told us that decades ago, and a lot of us are dying of COPD everyday.
My point here is that while these young people are getting loaded on an illegal drug in public as cops stand by, two farmers in North Dakota are trying desperately to legally grow industrial hemp. Their fight is now in Federal Appeals Court, hoping to overturn a lower court’s decision upholding the DEA’s position.
You can read more about the campaign to legalize industrial hemp cultivation in the U.S. at Vote Hemp.
Farmers in Vermont are ramping up their efforts to the the government to allow farmers there to grow hemp, and other states have passed, or are considering legislation to change the law.
Currently before congress is H.R. 1009, (PDF) the “Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2007″
Why have legal hemp? It’s one of the most useful plants on earth. It’s been cultivated for thousands of years and used for everything from food and medicine to clothing and automobile parts. It’s grown legally in many countries, except in the US, so to take advantage of the many products made from hemp, we must import them.
So what can we do to get the government to change it’s position on hemp? Do you think it will ever change?
Source: Daily Camera
Breathe Mother Nature, Breathe
UPDATE: We’re so pleased that so many of you are chiming in on this topic, and have created a discussion forum for this topic. Come by, and continue to chime in…
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
Max Lindberg
My home state is Illinois, and my hometown a little railroad/farming community named Galesburg.We lived on a small farm during my high school years and I became very aware of nature and it's wonders. I loved the out of doors, working with animals, plowing fields and harvesting crops. Those were very good years.After a stint in the Army during the Korean war my broadcasting career took off at the local radio station, a 250 watt "teapot" as it was called in those days. My first job was as an engineer, then the ham came out and I became an announcer/newsman, graduating after several years to a larger market and a stint as a TV journalist/photographer. Cold, wet weather led me to the southwest where I've lived for most of the last 40 years, with a couple of years out to have fun working as a private investigator in San Francisco, and a few years working in Las Vegas hotels and casinos. In all, its been a real ride.After retiring a few years back I became fascinated with the efforts being made to find alternative energy sources. I've watched our environment deteriorate during my lifetime, and now it's my chance to join the chorus of intelligent and caring individuals making a difference one day at a time.
122 Responses to 10,000 Pot Smokers Have Marijuana Smoke-Out While DEA Says No To Industrial Hemp
Click on a tab to select how you'd like to leave your comment
Moonsafari, Heroin is (scientifically) DERIVED from the poppy flower. Marijuana is grown, and placed straight into a smoking apparatus. there’s a difference
Ummmm…
“In the meantime, the DEA is staunchly defending its policy against American farmers legally growing industrial hemp, citing the law that says all hemp is marijuana”
Once their is a law against something, doesn’t it become illegal? Or is this just a terribly written sentence?
In July of 2007, the law covering possession (in Canada) was shot down. The supreme court said it is not constitutional to charge a person with possession of small amounts for personal use.
However, the likelihood pot will ever be totally legal in this country is slim because – and this is the same in the US – our country’s national police force and the municipal police forces get an absolute TON of funding for anti-drug departments. Were it not for that funding, our police forces would become seriously understaffed.
The reality is that the underground pot trade is very beneficial to a variety of police and political agencies.
More on this subject?
The Union: The Business of Getting High. http://www.theunion.com
This film as been screened at a large number of film festivals for the last two years and has won a variety of awards. There will be DVDs soon. Make a request on the site.
For the record, I am not affiliated with this group, but I am a supporter of people knowing the truth about why marijuana is illegal in Canada and the US (much to do with immigration and nothing to do with health or anything like it) and who benefits from a weed being illegal.
More at The Stupid Files in archives if you’re interested.
The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution states that the States are to be self governed on everything that the Constitution specifically does not state. This means that a Federal ban on any kind of substance is %100 unconstitutional. That is why they put prohibition of Alcohol in the US Constitution because there was not other way to legally make it illegal. We repealed the prohibition of Alcohol so how does it make sense to continue the prohibition of drugs.
I double the notion that vaporizers nearly eliminate ALL of the negative effects from marijuana. Secondly there is a HUGE movement of people who eat their cannabis. Thereby ALSO eliminating any possible health dangers. SO as of 2008 everybody has a choice if they want to use cannabis the healthy way or burn it. In europe their are medical insurance companies that will PAY for and provide marijuana vaporizers. as well as the ganja to go with it. I like this blog, but i wanted to get the facts straight.
I think it is very interesting that the majority of comments focused on cancer because the writer mentioned he is against pot smoking only because of it’s bad effects on the lungs. He said nothing about cancer. There is a chronic, irreversible, terminal disease called COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease which includes asthma, chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Besides which, I think the point of the story is concerning the DEA, industrial hemp and marijuana and the refusal to differentiate between the two. It is ridiculous that because of a 1938 law,(thanks to the oil conglomerate and the U S Congress) we have to pay other countries to obtain the wonderful products made with hemp.
I am an avid pot smoker, first off. However if it came down to it i would much rather see industrial hemp and medical marijuana legalized before recreational use is decriminalized. i will say that if the only reason the author of this article is not in favor of smoking pot because of lung damage, I hardly think that should keep it illegal. However if i have to continue to illegal posses something that grows in the ground, i dont mind as long as industrial and medical can be legalized. When this country was founded farmers were required to grow a certain portion of hemp on their land because it is so damn useful. George Washington even said that “Hemp is the backbone of American innovation”.
First of all, Horsewoman, God is not here to determine what we do with our planet. 2nd, that would never hold up in court, there was a reason we added separation of church and state…
however, the DEA says they keep marijuana, and hemp illegal is to keep people off of drugs. This really makes no sense though, because the DEA allows cigarettes and alcohol to be legal. Those two drugs combined kill over half a million people a year, marijuana kills 0. The fact that it may be bad for a persons lungs is no reason to keep it illegal, people should have the choice to put whatever they want in their body, once they are legal adults.
The fact that industrial hemp is illegal is just ridiculous.I cant even comment on it, because it simply makes no sense. Farmers can grow hemp that contains little to no amounts of THC. meaning, if someone were to smoke it, they really wouldnt get high, making it worthless to even smoke.
Funny how a long time ago people would get arrested if they weren’t growing hemp and now they get arrested if they do grow it. IRONY =P
God’s plant, eh? Presumably you feel the same about God’s poppy providing us with heroin and God’s coca plant and God’s microwave providing us with crack, Horsewoman. But I digress… there’s always one crazy making everyone else look bad.
Don’t expect the DEA to act logically, though. Hemp is a clearly a useful plant, but remember this government will happily carpet bomb a whole Iraqi village to get a few suspected militants. I don’t wish to go off-topic, but it’s just the same philisophy applied in a different way, isn’t it? And isn’t the War on Drugs about as realistic as the War on Terror anyway?
yeah man, right on dude…
you make us sound like geniuses.
Horsewoman, you have smoked yourself retarded.
This happens every year all over the country.
Still can’t understand why the Gov’t would rather people (read “drug dealers”) not pay taxes by keeping a plant illegal.
How much $ of a pack of cigarettes is Tax.
Make marijuana prohibitively expensive and it will stay out of the schools.
Those in adolescence can get illegal drugs much easier than cigarettes or alcohol, so who is to blame?
I blame the war on drugs.
Although smoking cannabis is bad for the lungs, have you ever eatin it?
Nice cup of pot chocolate is amazing and the high lasts longer and is stronger, but there is nothing quite like a joint.
We should stop wasting money trying to stop the use of Pot and use to stop the use of the real killer drugs out there that cause most of the crime in the US and the world for that matter. They need to stop the Cocaine and Crack from entering the Us now, but we all know that the government really doesn’t want to put an end to that. Way to much money to be made here to have that happen.
> puffing joints till the air turned blue.
There was a huge cloud of smoke hanging over Boulder that day, from a brush fire in the foothills just west of town.
We citizens have lost control of our government. The government is telling us what to do when it should be the other way around.
Horsewomen, though you may be right about that, Man came up with the idea of smoking it, so man can make it illegal. I mean I don’t smoke it, but it has medicinal value and should be legalized. But your point is ridiculous. No one will listen to you if you go around saying its god’s will to legalize pot.
Give me a break Horsewoman, you’re a goddamn hypocrite.
God also created anthrax, would you like it if religious fundamentalists (not unlike yourself) were allowed to use it to cause widespread death and terror?
I agree that our current government has too much control, however to say something like “the hell with all forms of government control” just highlights the fact that you’re an ignorant, uneducated hick.
Have a nice day
Dr. Paul, a medical doctor, introduced a bill (HR5842) decriminalizing the use of medical marijuana.
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7582
Take action here with an easy to fill out form.
http://capwiz.com/norml2/issues/alert/?alertid=11280351&type=CO
Congressman Barney Frank and Dr. Paul introduced legislation (HR 5843) to remove federal penalties on personal marijuana use on April 17, 2008.
http://www.house.gov/frank/marijuana041708.html
You can own the beach man, thats gods beach!
“Now I’m not in favor of marijuana, primarily because of its affect on the lungs.”
Considering there are MANY alternatives to smoking the herb, your disapproval is moot. I for one use a vaporizer, which minimizes the effect on the lungs. Plus the list goes on of whats available in the hundereds of dispensaries in cali.
Horsewoman, this isn’t the fucking bible. Not everyone believes in God, and the government sure as fuck isn’t going to change their opinion on legalizing marijuana because “GOD” created it. “power to the people” doesn’t have anything with religion.
You say that Marijuana is harmful due to findings by tobacco companies. This is a completely biased statement from organizations that lobby against their largest potential competitor (Marijuana).
lol “mans’s laws are a burden to god’s people”….. depends on who you ask…
Romans 13:1-7 states: “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
IT MUST BE LEGALIZED! My art would not be what it is without this magical plant.
it’s will be changed , view details about that http://runningthebeauty.com.ua/
‘effect’, not ‘affect’
I would like someone to make one legitimate argument for the criminalization of marijuana. Alcohol by comparison is many times more potent and dangerous than weed. How many people have died in alcohol related incidents as compared to marijuana. It is not a “gateway” drug as many close minded people would want you to believe. It does not promote a sedentary lifestyle. I wish the vast majority of people would wake up and realize there are bigger problems in the world than locking up innocent people for using a harmless PLANT!!
A comparison to tobacco simply because both are consumed via combustion is far too simple a view.
The effect to the lungs by cannabis is significantly different than tobacco. Tobacco damages the small pathways in the lungs, which in turn causes things like emphysema. Cannabis irritates the large pathways instead, and irritation is limited to at most a few minutes of coughing after inhalation.
There is also the matter of radioactive tar, which is present in tobacco but not in cannabis. There is growing suspicion that this radioactivity is more to blame than anything else for cancer. Tobacco cigarettes leave radioactive deposits in the lungs that persist for years after cessation. Cannabis leaves no radioactive deposits.
Vaporizer?
I don’t believe people should smoke anything. Why do anything that harms onself?
Regardless, government has no right to deny people the right to smoke pot. Plus, it costs us, the taxpayers, billions to lock them up.
Good article. I just wanted to comment on what you said about -
“Now I’m not in favor of marijuana, primarily because of its affect on the lungs. Pot heads will tell you there’s no danger, but the cigarette companies told us that decades ago.”
Now i agree that smoking cannabis in a joint with or without tobacco is harmful to the lungs and although it is the primary way which cannabis is taken, it’s not the only way. Vaporising is growing in popularity everyday and ‘space cakes’ and other foods prepared with marijuana are a most delicious way to get your high.
It’s all a matter of education, smoking is bad for your lungs and will eventually have a detrimental effect to your health, but there are many many alternatives.
Horsewoman, did you pull the quote from out of your ass? Try not raving like a lunatic, and then maybe someone will take you seriously.
Myself, I couldn’t care either way if H.R. 1009 passed or not. I’ve seen friends and family turn into complete morons after getting completely blitzed from smoking pot, and have yet to see an instance of someone not doing something they regret later.
Get rid of this bloated federal government that is making our founding fathers roll over in their graves.
“What did we work so hard for?” They would say, “to let your apathy and laziness turn this country into exactly what we were fighting against.” Oust the men behind the curtain. Down with the criminal cartel called the Fed.
Umm.. Cannabis plants evolved here just like everything else. I agree with you that it should not be illegal, but leave the ‘God’s kingdom crap’ out of the argument please – it just makes you look like a lunatic.
Amen.
PROTIP: People who smoke cigarettes habitually usually smoke much more in a day than cannabis smokers.
Now if we legalize Hemp, Where is the goverment going to get money for all of its little secret programs
Can you OD on pot? It is pretty much impossible. How many people you know died because of alcohol poisoning? How many people do you know died from a drunk driver?
How many people do you know died from lung cancer from smoking cigarettes or cigars? How many people do you know died from mouth or trachea cancer because of chew? How many people do you know died from liver or kidney failure because of their alcoholism? How many people die from being too high? How many people die from being high, driving and crashing. How many people die from marijuana overdose? Smoking Marijuana has been proven safe to smoke than cigarettes. Hemp was required to be grown during WW2. There are references to smoke some type of state altering drug in the bible. Some of our founding fathers smoked pot. Marijuana is safer with your life than alcohol that is why people want to legalize and not cocaine or heroin. Because, they prefer the effects of it and we as people just don’t understand why they hold our go given right for the natural substance; when it is safer than what is legal today?? Because if it really was so horrific than the news would read 10,000 pot smokers got arrested at a protest!
I don’t think that everyone believes in “God,” so I think that this argument isn’t that relevant. If you said that it belongs to everyone, then I’d agree. If you are going on that logic, isn’t “God” in everything? So, therefore through my powers of deduction, isn’t pot “GOD”? I don’t know…just tossing that out there.
Your stance on marijuana’s taxation on the lungs does not make any sense, as many people either vaporize or bake their pot, thus eliminating ANY harmful effects on the lungs.
Quote: “Man cannot put laws on God’s plant.”
God made everything… so you’re saying we can’t have any man-made laws at all. That’s a really stupid argument.
No one cares about the writers opinion on pot/hemp. Just report the event.
Marijuana’s effect on the lungs? NO EFFECT if you cook it to eat. If you even smoke it, it’s smoke is BIO-DEGRADABLE, unlike cigarette smoke which has a sticky, tar-like effect on your lungs. The longest the smoke buildup stays on your lungs is about two weeks from marijuana.
Pot will remain VERBOTTEN, until they can figure out a cure for all those DEA Pigs that are addicted to BIG PAYCHEQUES.
My dads a dick
Horsewoman doesn’t know what she’s talking about-
Do these confused hippes really understand how god works? ..NO! So, selling heroine to kids is ok because it is one of gods plants?.. no.. how does he work then?? is this person saying god created – fluffy bunnies, pretty paintings, tasty food and weed for us to set fire to and breah in the tasty fumes, and Satan created – guns, george bush, fluffy bunnies and beautiful heroine for us to set fire to and breath in its fumes??
Damned if i know. We should invent a ”suffering meter” or something to judge weather things are good or evil. a lot of evil things are legal.. but if we banned them pot would slowly rise to the top. causes me suffering when it destroys my motivation or when i don’t have any…
Marijuana is from nature. Humans are from nature. The only laws that are binding are the laws of nature. I will never stop using what my mother Earth has given me, as it is a beautiful gift indeed. People who hate it simply have lost touch with life itself, because to hate it is to hate nature, and to hate nature is to hate yourself.
Well first of all there are people who do not believe in
God. “Man cannot put laws on God’s plant”. So you say man shouldn’t put laws on anything that God made.
So that Man shouldn’t put laws on another man(“The hell with the DEA and ALL other forms of government control!”). So that means total anarchy , I don’t have to explain why is that bad.
Dude, chill out. Just because God made something doesn’t make it awesome. God made plenty of fucked up shit too. As a non-smoker myself, I find it strange governments try to ban drugs – people who want them will always be able to find them. If anything, it just places control of the industry in the hands of some incredibly unsavoury people – the exact opposite of the desired outcome. I wonder if collectively the human race will realise this one day. Probably not. People still think God exists.