10,000 Pot Smokers Have Marijuana Smoke-Out While DEA Says No To Industrial Hemp

pot-smokeout.JPG

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

Photo: Kasia Broussalian

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…

121 thoughts on “10,000 Pot Smokers Have Marijuana Smoke-Out While DEA Says No To Industrial Hemp”

  1. marijuana should be legalized, if you think about it more than 500 people get busted and arrested for selling and or smoking it. if you think about it it was legalized there would be less crimes then there is now, the only thing wrong with it, is the fact there are people are still sitting in jail or prison for that but that’s the only thing that would be wrong with legalizing it, honestly would you rather have a drunk ggo home and beat the hell out of his wife or girlfriend or have a stoner go home lay down and eat and fall asleep? over half of the wrecks that go on is because people getting drunk and not realizing what’s going on. here’s an example- after somebody leaves the bar and goes home their most likely not paying attention and are going to hit a car, but if a stoner gets behind the wheel the only reason they wouldn’t get home is because of getting stopped for going to slow, yes there has been people fall asleep behind the wheel and crashed but that rarely happens. so think about why they legalized alcohol, and why they haven’t legalized marijuana

  2. I love how many people mention God. You country was not founded on Christian belief I suggest you read the diaries of your founding fathers and their thoughts on that matter! Pot makes you dumb is something I read all the time on the internet but the sad reality is that THC rewires your brain to actually make you better at things like problem solving not to mention how creative it makes you. FACT. If people bothered to do an ounce (no pun intended) of research on the subject they are so against they would understand in books I might add, but they don’t they read the endless webpages filled with other people opinions and call it fact, or they watch Reefer Madness and think its an accurate representation of what pot smokers do. Its kinda sad just to see how many people with no understanding or have never experienced it for themselves judge it. Yeah, all us stoners sit on our ass and do nothing… not. Thats totally from watching too much TV Cheech and Chong or Idle hands etc etc. Just because you were left out from it when you were at school doesn’t mean you can hold a prejudice against us now. One thing I know for sure is that pot will always be around and will always be smoked and if that annoys you then good at least it leaves more for me. So go out, learn the FACTS before you start shooting your mouth off. I know there will be countless people who read this and think I am all wrong to you I say.. are you a dope smoker and are you in MENSA if your answer is no to any of those questions then your opinion is a useful as my cats on this matter.

    1. exactly, if they really thought about it most singers and actors smoke, hell and most the people that smoke pot are the smartest people on earth, last year at school i went to school sober for a little bit and i was failing but then i got sick for about a month, but yet after i was, i went to school stoned and we had a test and it was over something i wasn’t there for and i aced it just because i was stoned, i passed because of being stoned, when i wasn’t i got an f on almost all my papers

  3. yeh man ,
    me travel alot and smoke alot of pot ….
    i mean it is so funny that people still bothers to talk about this kind of shit , you smoke good for you you dont good for you too … i mean just find your plesures in your time here in this planet … we have only one life … so peace and love no more fighting
    yes man
    ziller

  4. Hey yeah btw weed doesn’t hurt your lungs, it is true what the companies say but it makes you WAY MORE SENSITIVE to the smoke of cigarettes. Marijuana has never caused a death ON RECORD, IT IS A FACT. NO ONE DIES FROM MARIJUANA WHO DOES NOT SMOKE CIGARETTES. EVER. LOOK IT UP. However, someone who smokes marijuana is more liable to die of certain lung related diseases. Also, marijuana can give you short and long-term bronchitis if used very irresponsibly, but this cannot be lethal and is more like a constant sore throat. But I’m down with your hemp thing.
    PEACE

  5. It is true that inhaling SMOKE from anything burning is harmful to the airways. It causes tiny leasions and does cause damage that leads to many diseases. However, Marijauna is not smoked as often on a daily basis. For example, Even if you smoke Pot every day, Multiple times a day- It still does not equate the number of ciggarettes the average smoker consumes each day. You smoke Pot until you achieve your goal- Which is getting high. Ciggarettes are more frequently smoked throughout the day. Also, there are 11 known Chemical additives that are individually known to cause cancer. So on top of inhaling smoke which causes microscopic tears on your airways, your also inhaling multiple deadly cancer causing chemicals at the same time. But isn’t it funny how Ciggarettes are the only product available for public consumption that is NOT REQUIRED to provide an ingredients lable? Now WHY would you think that is???

  6. WOULD LOVE TO DO THIS IN WASHINGTON DC! Like we use to do all the time in the 70’s and 80’s! maybe they will get the point. Could possibly accommadate a million plus people. and suggest April 20 to do it!

  7. Feldwebel Wolfenstool

    …a new study declared that Pot doesn’t cause lung cancer at all…if fact, they theorize that THC somehow PROTECTS You from the disease.

  8. Forget about the morons who want to kill americans, but who also supply high quality weed.
    The best thing that could ever happen is to buy a bag of weed with a label stating “MADE in the USA”!!!!!

    All we need to start with is the seeds. I think we’re set.

    So all you folks with the DEA (I know you’re just doing your job) try to concentrate on the Meth and Cocaine and drugs that ARE a public threat!!!!

    Leave WEED and WEED USERS and growers alone “PLEASE”!!!!

  9. I believe that the reason farmers are having such difficulty legalizing hemp is because the pharmaceutical industry has a powerful lobby in Washington DC. They do not want the public to find an easy to grow, legal, potent pain killer. Although hemp used for materials isn’t very potent, it could be deliberately bred to become so. That makes even hemp a threat to a multi billion dollar industry that influences numerous Congressional Representatives. Big business owns our government. Common sense doesn’t matter.

  10. What’s great about this event is that they reached a critical mass where they simply couldn’t be punished. Whatever you think about marijuana, you have to admire people organizing themselves into such a powerful group force that they essentially achieved immunity for a day.

    The lesson here is that for any context & for any issue, if people organize themselves effectively, you can reach a critical mass that may enable you to take on problems that seem unchallengeable. Imagine if half the nation stopped paying the portion of their taxes that go to the Iraq & Afghanistan wars? Probably there are a lot of people who would like to see that happen but are scared to act alone. So the question is….how are we going to coordinate ourselves people?

  11. sry, jst to clear sumtin up:

    “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.”

    yes there is obviously lung damage taking place because of the ‘smoke’, but cigarette smoke is MUCH worse than marijuana smoke. marijuana is a plant. cigarettes have tobacco (yes, also a plant) but they’re also filled with hundreds of different chemicals, not to mention nicotine (to inflict addiction, (its impossible to get addicted to weed)) and TAR!!! and a lot of other harmful substances.

    but i personally believe sumtin should be called a “crime” only if it inflicts pain onto OTHERS, not urself. who cares what u wanna do to urself, but you? it’s my body, i wanna do wat i want with it.

  12. Michael Stewart

    I, am an original Reefer Raider. We started the first California Marijuhana Initiative in Van Nuy’s, Ca. at Heads & Highs Shoppe.
    Ed Adair, Capt’n Ed, and about seven of us began to solicit signatures for getting it on the ballot.
    We succeeded. It was made legal, by popular vote but,the government decided that we, the people, do not have the ability to say what we want to use.
    Funny, huh? A government that is supposed to be by, for, and of, the people does not care what we want or think. Do it anyway! Plant it! Smoke it! Eat it! Use it for anything you want, and tell the government to shove it. Demand the use of hemp in as many products as can be instead of oil,trees, man-made substances and much more.

  13. It’s basically legal in California. There are pot stores all over LA. It’s called medical marijuana. Mostly comes from Humboldt. That doesn’t mean it’s cheap, tho.

  14. Interesting to note that the disaster at Chernobyl was mitigated by growing Hemp on the affected land. The Hanford disaster in the US is still leaking radiactive waste into the Columbia river. It is truly time to end the hubris and make a positive change.

  15. Perhaps if the government spent less time going after those who use hemp for economic purposes and more time going after those who commit atrocious war crimes for economic purposes, we’d have a safer world.

  16. Hemp or marijuana will never be legalized because it is a threat to the oil companies. The seeds contain a high quality combustable oil. No other reason.

  17. Moonsafari, Heroin is (scientifically) DERIVED from the poppy flower. Marijuana is grown, and placed straight into a smoking apparatus. there’s a difference

  18. 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?

  19. 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.

  20. 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.

  21. 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.

  22. 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.

  23. 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”.

  24. 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.

  25. 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

  26. 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?

  27. 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.

  28. 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.

  29. 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.

  30. > 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.

  31. We citizens have lost control of our government. The government is telling us what to do when it should be the other way around.

  32. 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.

  33. 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 🙂

  34. “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.

  35. 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.

  36. 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).

  37. 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.

  38. James Tidrick Jr

    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!!

  39. 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.

  40. Robert Stevens

    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.

  41. 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.

  42. 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.

  43. 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.

  44. 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.

  45. Now if we legalize Hemp, Where is the goverment going to get money for all of its little secret programs 🙂

  46. 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!

  47. 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.

  48. 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.

  49. 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.

  50. 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.

  51. Feldwebel Wolfenstool

    Pot will remain VERBOTTEN, until they can figure out a cure for all those DEA Pigs that are addicted to BIG PAYCHEQUES.

  52. 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…

  53. 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.

  54. 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.

  55. 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.

  56. Marijuana ITSELF does not cause lung cancer. Smoking it will, just like smoking ANYTHING will. If you ate pure Nicotine HCL every day it would still eat away at your lungs, thats the nature of the drug. If you ate hash brownies or use a vaporizer its actually proven that it reverses the effects of lung cancer.

  57. I think hemp should be legalized world wide. It is one of the most useful plants with an endless list of possibilities which have yet to be studied in full detail.

    Also here’s a fact you might not know: If mankind were to pick a single seed to survive on, the hemp seed would be the most logical choice as we can derive cotton, fuel for cars, fuel for factories, paper and many nutritional foods and medicine from that one little seed.

    I believe the people who were in power were not aware of the many positive aspects of hemp and that it should be reviewed and studied immediately for the benefit of mankind and the planet we inhabit.

  58. hey horsewoman, any violation of mans laws is a sin,sin separates us from God, so sinner, (you) if you don’t like the united states of America and its laws go to Russia they’ll be glad to HAVE you…a couple of weeks, and you’ll be crying like a little whipped pup to come back, what we have here is a clear cut case of idiotitis at it’s finest…do not defile the temple, the body which is to be a living sacrificial temple…open mouth overload ass….
    Christian, American and proud of it !

  59. uh…i think you might want to check you facts. Pot smoke has never caused a single case of lung cancer, in fact there are studies that have shown that it has quite the opposite effect.

  60. 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

  61. i would like to correct something that’s erroneous in this article. almost 2 yrs ago now ucsd published and a study that found that heavy habitual pot smokers had no more chance at developing lung cancer than a non smoker. which was opposite of what the scientists/dr’s were expecting. but what really blew their minds was that most of the subjects also smoked ciggerettes so they theorized that they would have a higher (no pun intended) chance of cancer but they did not. the scientists theorized that one of the dozens varients of thc found in pot somehow prevented things like tar (which there about twice as much in pot as tobacco) and other carcinogens from adhering to lung tissue. the scientists are now engaged in a study to find out why lung cancer isn’t as prevelant amoung pot smokers as it is with tobacco smokers. so put that in your pipe and smoke it.

  62. get rid of the risk of lung damage all together , your article is stupid and biased, there a many ways to induce the relaxing feeling marijuana , ever heard of a steam vaporizer which is GOOD for your lungs , or eat it?

  63. I agree. Cannabis has been proven to kill cancer cells within rats. I think the reason Weed and Hemp are banned is because hemp is useful, clothes made by hemp can last 100years easily, so the clothe industry would lose money. Remember, weed has been legal WAY longer than it’s been illegal.

  64. Don’t forget god is a fictitious character…..lol Religion if based on fantasy fiction and has been a much bigger burden on men and women then any stupid anti pot laws…. Yes the laws need reworking or even be dumped but don’t involve god that just leads to a lot of innocent people getting hurt….

    Pot laws and god talk are evil cousins.. (((yuck)))

  65. God created the elements, and the formulas to change those elements into every non-naturally forming compound, cocaine, lsd, mdma, wait a minute, this article isn’t about god, its about hemp laws and restricting the production of possibly dangerous psychoactive chemicals. I am going to have to agree with the author, hemp is one of the most versatile plants on this planet, to not farm it would be throwing away a very inexpensive tool. There are plastic replacements made of hemp, go green. 🙂

  66. Nobody in recorded history has ever died from smoking pot. Your concerns about its affects on the lungs is unfounded. Certainly pot smoke is not HELPING a person’s lungs, but again — zero recorded deaths.

    Arguments against pot legalization are equally unfounded and biased. Rock on to these kids for making a statement, even if it was the most productive thing they did all week.

  67. Never smoked it myself, free thinker though I am, but son, you go ahead and smoke your asses off because I don’t care and I ain’t gonna try to stop you. I’m not giving you permission, it’s your right as human beings to stay nicely toasted, as long as you don’t threaten my or mine, or ask me for a handout if you fail to take care of yourself.

  68. Although i do agree with legalizing both hemp and marijuana (stupid industrialist deforesting the world, cotton, etc when hemp can and have solved all those needs for thousands of years), and the fact that God put plants here for us to use.. However, i don’t necessarily agree with smoking copious amounts of marijuana.. Marijuana makes you stupid (while on it), and if you believe in God, i think it makes you weak to spiritual attack. You’re basically giving anything (demon or not) the right to come near or into you. So to the above poster, if you believe in God – heck if you smoke a lot of bud, be careful.. The enemy is real. Also, to the argument of plants are God’s domain etc, well, what about the fact that there are hundreds of poisonus mushrooms out there, or the fact that there is food out there that will kill you if consumed/smoked it or what have you. Just because God put it here doesn’t mean you have to consume it.. just a thought.

  69. You know, marijuana can be ingested through food, or ‘smoked’ through a vaprozier, both of which have nil effects on the lungs!

  70. What about cookies, vaporizor’s etc. If your only basis is due to smoke, that is no basis at all. While I understand the hemp problem, to me its always been the constitutional/freedom problem.

    How can you say that you are free but at the same time say its ok for the state to come into your home, into your body, into your mind, and imprison you for a mental state? That concept and individual liberty can not coexist.

  71. Following that logic, since it is “God’s” plant, “God” probably never intended for us to smoke it. No other creature on Earth (that we know of at least) can create and manipulate fire. Furthermore, other than humans, I don’t believe I can run out of fingers counting the number of creatures that actually enjoy the effects of a plant’s self-defense mechanisms.

    Spice, for instance, is a protective device plants use to keep animals from killing and eating the plant, but humans (I for one) literally get high off spicy food. I doubt most animals enjoy the mind-altering effects of hallucinogenic plants as well.

    I agree that plants that have a proven use should be grown and used for those purposes, especially hemp which literally cannot get you high – you have to smoke too much to actually get any effect from it. But smoking pot is probably not what your “God” intended to be done to the plant. It’s literally the same as running over a skunk, putting it on top of a campfire, and sniffing the odor in hopes to get high.

  72. Sir,

    You are on the right page with this, but I’d like to make a comment. You need to be on the right paragraph as well.

    Your primary objection to marijuana is false. It’s not your fault. It’s a very commonly repeated one.

    It’s a fallacy to compare marijuana with cigarettes. No, it’s not good to breathe smoke into your lungs. But marijuana and cigarettes are different animals. Except in extreme, Rasta-style marijuana users, many tobacco smokers smoke more tobacco in a day than marijuana smokers do in a month. Tobacco is also violently addictive, supposedly more addictive than crack or heroin.

    Marijuana technology has also increased dramatically. Vapor pipes and vaporizers “cook” the pot instead of burning it. With a vaporizer you get hardly any particulate matter, and only a slight whiff of aromatic oil. The bad stuff stays in the plant matter and the sweet, sweet goodness goes right to your head where it belongs.

    It’s also possible to ingest marijuana in food or in tea, thereby bringing the threat level down to that of chamomile. Without the artificial scarcity caused by drug laws, this would be a far more common method.

    In short, the health argument is a complete and utter red herring. These people are not talking about making cigarettes or alcohol illegal, though together they kill more than FIVE MILLION PEOPLE PER YEAR and cause untold stress on the health system.

    The War on Drugs has nothing to do with your health. It has nothing to do with preventing crime or terrorism; in fact, the WOD only benefits crime groups and terror networks from Bogota to Kabul.

    The War on Drugs is about social control. It provides the government with a rightless class, perfect to provide jobs for jackbooted paramilitary cops and slave labor in a rapidly growing system of jails that resembles the Soviet gulags.

    Consider this: the War on Drugs is important enough to some people that they are willing to prevent sick people from taking it. The state effectively tells glaucoma sufferers THAT THEY MUST GO BLIND rather than ingest an herb.

    I applaud your position on hemp, but please sir, do some research into the health implications of marijuana. The more I know about this, the more it makes me sick and ashamed to be an American. The War on Drugs is a relic of 1930s and Cold War paranoia and fascism. It’s time to end it.

    I’ve never read your writing before, but you apparently have a voice somewhere. We need your help. Legalization of hemp and legalization of medical and recreational marijuana are not different things. They’re the same thing.

    I think what we’re smelling in Colorado and California is change. More states will follow.

  73. Genesis 1:29

    If this country was founded on christian belief , then there’s no question about what needs to be done , Good blessed cannabis and gave it to us to use in all it’s glory , Jesus used it in oils to heal and for ritualistic purposes.

    “New American Standard Bible (©1995)
    Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;

    King James Bible
    And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

    American King James Version
    And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

    American Standard Version
    And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food:

    Bible in Basic English
    And God said, See, I have given you every plant producing seed, on the face of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit producing seed: they will be for your food:

    Douay-Rheims Bible
    And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat:

    Darby Bible Translation
    And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb producing seed that is on the whole earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree producing seed: it shall be food for you;

    English Revised Version
    And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat:

    GOD’S WORD® Translation (©1995)
    God said, “I have given you every plant with seeds on the face of the earth and every tree that has fruit with seeds. This will be your food.

    Jewish Publication Society Tanakh
    And God said: ‘Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed–to you it shall be for food;

    Webster’s Bible Translation
    And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food.

    World English Bible
    God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.

    Young’s Literal Translation
    And God saith, ‘Lo, I have given to you every herb sowing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree sowing seed, to you it is for food;”

  74. All the pot heads love to talk about harmless and helpful pot is. It cures disease, whitens your teeth, and gives you minty fresh breath too! It does a million and one good things and nothing bad. What the potheads fail to mention is the persistent hacking cough that most of them get from all the tar building up in their lungs. Look at how dirty your bong is. What do you think the inside of your lungs look like? The potheads also fail to mention the lack of drive and ambition that comes from being high all the time. They sit around and talk about saving the world and doing all this great stuff. But, the only time they get off the couch is to go buy some ice cream, twinkies and funyuns over at the 7-11. Pot kills your ambition and drive and makes you lazy and stupid. But, you feel like $10,000,000 in your mind… so it must be doing something good for you. Right? Wrong.

    I support legalized industrial hemp and I think it is a shame that our farmers are prohibited from producing it the way that other countries can. We are only hurting ourselves. There are great things that you can produce with hemp too. Oil. Plastic. Fiber. Clothing. It’s just an amazing plant!

    But, don’t let the potheads fool you into thinking that marijuana is a harmless drug. It will crush your motivation faster than the IRS giving you an audit on Monday morning. Get high on being alive… not on drugs. You only have 20-60 years of life left. Use those years to do something worthwhile.

  75. Support HR 5843 “An Act to Remove Federal Penalties for the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults”! Write your congressman, tell him you want to end this meaningless war on drugs…if you can even consider pot a “drug”!

  76. Why should hemp not be legal. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington both had hemp crops since they could use it for clothes and rope. Plus it is a weed that grows wild in much of the country. Ask anyone over the age of 60 who grew up on a midwest farm what happened when the horses got into it. Besides, more usable pulp per acre can be used than both cotten and timber for paper. Also the clothes are softer and last longer. Look at civil war hemp clothes vs. cotten ones. Cotten ones disintegrate where the hemp can still be worn.

    Finally its oils produce natural pesticides and herbicides. Funny that it doesnt just cause the pests to get lazy and pig out (ha). Also, the DEA never wanted to regulate it since it was a FUCKING WEED and not worth their time originally. Fuck this crap, I can run my car on that stuff.

    I would also like to add I have never partaken, but I am smart enough to realize it doesnt do much except slows people down for a bit and it has tons of practical purposes.

  77. HellBoundAngel

    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…

  78. The gov will do an about-face on industrial hemp when they realize how much biofuel can be made from it.

  79. 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.

  80. The title should read 10,000 wiggers, hippies and trailer trash Have Marijuana Smoke-Out While DEA Says No To Industrial Hemp

  81. 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).

  82. 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?

  83. @ 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.

  84. 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.

  85. 10,000 people smoking .125 grams of pot (assuming an average consumption of 1 “bowl” per day of a weeks supply 3.5 grams) is 1250 grams or 44 ounces.

    Technically ONE grower could have supplied the entire event covertly, just to bring attention to the marijuana laws.

    Now, assuming this is not the case, the DEA would have to see if the volume of marijuana and number of arrests do not balance…business wise…the bust would not make sense. Unless the city was also running PR to show how safe and clean the streets are. In that case plenty of money to arrest 1% of the 10,000 people would exist.

    Anybody local to that area who can speak on actual experiences?

  86. Haha, I didn’t know the 20th was marijuana day, but I was all out anyway. I’ll smoke a fattie after work today to show my respects.

  87. Brandon Elliott

    Wow, Horsewoman, I can’t begin to describe how asinine you sound, and I’m for the legalization of marijuana. I personally abstain from it, as it clogs my mental faculties, but I don’t have a problem with others smoking it. Taxation and regulation are the way to go, I think. Capslock and exclamation points aren’t the way to bring the change about, though.

  88. The US Govt is the one bringing it in. You might say, “say what?????”. Yep, the same one that is arresting you for it is the same one bringing it in. The same one who committed 9/11 are the same ones benefitting from the “War on Terror”. Once you figure out how it works, your life will never be the same.

  89. “Now I’m not in favor of marijuana, primarily because of its affect on the lungs.”

    What about Vaporizers? With them, your dumb generalization (above) is absolutely and completely false.

    Secondly, who the hell cares about hemp? Don’t use 420 as some kind of tool to push your pro-hemp agenda; these people want to get high, not save America.

    Piracy is society’s answer to the pitfalls of Capitalism; if you won’t provide it for us, we’ll just go ahead and take it.

  90. You mention marijuana effecting the lungs but there’s a big difference between pot and cigarettes. People who smoke a lot of cigs (and have lung problems) tend to smoke a LOT of cigarettes (20+ a day) – Even the biggest pot head doesn’t smoke that much pot. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s really not comparable. Which is why pot has never been linked to any such health problems.

  91. 4/22/08

    The PLANT kingdom is God’s kingdom and NOT man’s! God made the plant Cannabis Sativa not man! Man cannot put laws on God’s plant. It is wrong and should be considered illegal for him or any government to do this act. I like to say this quote to people, “MAN’S LAWS, ARE A BURDEN, TO GOD’S PEOPLE!” The hell with the DEA and ALL other forms of government control! POWER TO THE PEOPLE! Right on…….

  92. “So what can we do to get the government to change it’s position on hemp? Do you think it will ever change?”

    ^^We could have elected Ron Paul, who authored the bill to which you refer.

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