Pubdate: Sun, 11 Jan 2009
Source: Port St. Lucie News (FL)
Copyright: 2009 The E.W. Scripps Company
Contact: http://www.tcpalm.com/staff/laura-lemmon/contact/
Website: http://www.tcpalm.com/news/news/st-lucie-county/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/973
Author: Ethel Rowland

HELP FARMERS BY LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

Regarding Treasure Coast tree farmers struggling: How about
legalizing the manufacture, production and sales of the cannabis
plant, which is already a multi-million-dollar Florida product?

The state could develop policies that put the management of the
market in the hands of law-abiding adults and which allow society to
assume some of the responsibility for a business whose regulation has
been abdicated to the criminal justice system.

Let our agriculture industry get the profits for manufacturing the
plant to meet the existing market in marijuana for pharmacopoeia and
fun. This existing market would provide the resources needed to
develop a hemp industry for food, fuel and fiber. We are the only 
industrialized nation not growing hemp. It is another potentially
multi-million-dollar agriculture market that is totally untapped in
the United States.

Ethel Rowland

Fort Pierce
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin