10,000 Pot Smokers Have Marijuana Smoke-Out While DEA Says No To Industrial Hemp
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…
Although, I do not live in the United States, I was recently effected by the war on drugs. Last week I was arrested, after being caught rolling a joint. Although the punishment was little, the very fact that I was placed under arrest for it was an outrage. Laws against marijuana are put into place, and upheld by bureaucrats, who spend their days making up, and enforcing these laws, and then go to their comfortable homes, and pour themselves a nice cold glass of rye and coke on the rocks. Where are the marijuana lobbyists? If only those in the drug community had the money of the cigarette and alcohol companies, so they too could buy the opinions of the congressmen.
@ Horsewoman or anyone with a brain
God would not like to find man destroy burn and twist the beauty of life that he has so eloquently created for a sole use of hedonistic pleasure.
In response to Horsewomans comment, Heroin is derived from the Poppy flower which is in the PLANT Kingdom or as you say Gods kingdom, should we also legalise that too?
Wow! comparing the lung effects of marijuana to that of cigarettes which contain of 4000 added chemicals (including formaldehyde), whereas there is none added to marijuana. As such you should really fact check your findings on the effects of marijuana on the lungs — a great documentary, ironically, released on 4/20/2008 called Superhigh me which is based on the “supersize me”documentary, in which a heavy user quit for 30 days then smoked all day everyday for 30 days, all the while getting medically and mentally checked. Guess what? No permanent damage what so ever (and I want to say he has been a pot smoker for over 17 years and was 2007 high times pot smoker of the year). Funny, with all that government propaganda out there say how horrible it is for you; and that if you smoke, you and your high friends will drive your entirely baked out car through a drive through and run over a little girl riding her bicycle (WTF is she doing on her bike in the drive thru anyways!!). Cigarettes, alcohol, nitrous, and salvia (although salvia won’t last long) are all legal to purchase and are far worse, and cause PERMENANT damage (you can find any of those things at your local grocery store or smoke shop).
The title should read 10,000 wiggers, hippies and trailer trash Have Marijuana Smoke-Out While DEA Says No To Industrial Hemp
while horsewoman comes off a bit too hippy, i agree with her in principle, pot is harmless compared to alcohol and tobbacco and hundreds of perscription drugs that the FDA approves every year, its flat out ridiculous to punish people for possession, now i wouldnt be against laws the prohibit driving under the influence obviously or sale to minors, but other than that, let a man smoke a J or 3 after a hard days work.
God made Poison Ivy and Hemlock too…
The gov will do an about-face on industrial hemp when they realize how much biofuel can be made from it.
God’s kingdom? I think not. This has to stop. I’m so sick and tired of hearing about people and how they got high, or how they got drunk, or how they’re fucking up there lives because their heads are so high up in the clouds that they have no idea what reality is. It’s sickening, the smell of it is asphyxiating, and your weak attempts at justifying the war this drug and all drugs has created is mind-numbing. I hope and I pray that the drug realm is destroyed. We need LESS people like you, not more.
That is all…
OH btw, this also goes to all other drug users/abusers, alcoholics, substance abusers ect. None of these are okay, none of them should ever be acceptable from anyone. There are better solutions out there, solutions that will only better you and not destroy you. There is always hope and a better life, it’s up to you to find it, not take the easy way out and resort to substance/alcohol abuse. Life is not easy, it was never meant to be and never will be.
Thanks All…
Every year Seattle holds a hemp festival to raise awareness about Hemp. I learned about this last year and read up on hemp at the time. I was, once again, appalled at the stupidity of our government. Hemp is an awesome plant and with the “Go Green” evolution on the rise, hemp is one of those plants that can be used to make lots of earth friendly items — but we outlaw it in this country.
Here’s a quote from the the Seattle Hempfest site at http://hempfest.org/facts.php.
“Hemp played a major role in the stabilization and economy of our nation for many decades. It wasn’t until it became a threat to the natural resource companies back in the thirties did it first experience a ban on its growth. After all, hemp oil is clean, renewable, cheap, and clean while fossil fuels were limited, expensive and dirty. Those who stood to make a fortune in fossil fuels couldn’t compete. Also contributing to hemp bashing was William Randolph Hearst. Seems he had a huge financial interest in the timber market. It was his newspapers that spear-headed the hemp bashing in order to influence public opinion. Using the Mexican word for hemp, “marijuana,” Hearst turned the public against hemp by playing on their fears and misled the public concerning the nature of hemp/marijuana. Until then people were comfortable with hemp-but this Mexican marijuana was a whole new ball game.”
This is a very important commodity. We need more awareness in order to legalize it once again.
Ginger Coleen
AskMyHealthCoach.com