Pubdate: Sat, 02 Feb 2013
Source: Richmond Register (KY)
Copyright: 2013 Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.richmondregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4305
Author: Ronnie Ellis
Note: Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort.
Page: A4

MYSTIFYING SMOKE AND MIRRORS

FRANKFORT  Frankfort seems suddenly enveloped in a haze. It's not a 
purple haze, but it's close.

Hemp is all the rage and those for it and those against it are raging.

For a person of my age and generation there's something funny here, 
but I haven't quite cut through all the smoke to figure out exactly 
what it is. But the folks once known as the law-and-order bunch are 
fighting the Kentucky State Police and others over whether to 
legalize industrial hemp.

On Monday, Republican Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, who rails 
against environmental regulations, was trying to sell a reporter on 
the advisability of legalizing hemp "because it's so green." The same 
fella who ran for office a couple of years ago traveling Kentucky on 
a "coal-and-corn tour," raging against President Barack Obama for 
declaring a "war on coal," now says hemp is "sustainable" and a 
valuable bio-fuel.

It's enough to make one's head spin, even one who came of age during 
the flower child era.

Take a deep breath. Mitch McConnell now favors legalizing hemp. But 
perhaps we shouldn't be all that surprised.

McConnell's hero is Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser and the man who 
made the job of Speaker of the House a powerful and important 
position. Clay grew a whole lot of hemp in his day. He was also 
father of the American System which proposed federal subsidies for 
roads, canals and other "internal improvements" to develop 
agricultural markets. It sounds now sort of like a stimulus plan, but 
McConnell would rather you didn't notice.

( The current Republican Speaker of the U. S. House of 
Representatives is a notorious smoker but not hemp or marijuana. Ask 
Michelle Obama.)

The tea party in Kentucky favors legalization of hemp, another reason 
we shouldn't be surprised McConnell suddenly sees the light.

Tea, not hemp or marijuana, is now McConnell's favorite herbal leaf. 
Those who long saw McConnell as an establishment Republican 
appropriator have of late been wondering what he's been smoking.

McConnell probably hopes we're all suffering short-term memory loss.

Kentucky is a red state, but maybe it's becoming a purple state. 
Given our apparent collective distaste for Obama it's clearly not 
because of our political sentiments. But proponents of an even more 
liberal approach to cannabis have long claimed Kentucky's real 
leading cash crop is marijuana.

Why couldn't Gatewood Galbraith have taken better care of himself and 
managed to live to see all of this and regale us with his wit and 
commentary? Galbraith said he smoked marijuana to treat his asthma, 
and he was an early supporter of legalizing hemp.

( It reminds me of one of the impish Galbraith's best campaign lines: 
"Thirty years ago, they said: ' Gatewood, you're 30 years ahead of 
your time.' Well . . . here we are.")

Bill Clinton is the most popular national Democrat in Kentucky, but 
he insists he never inhaled, which doesn't sound like it was really 
worth the trouble or risk or all that much fun either. Clinton 
reportedly favors cigars.

Maybe state Sen. Perry Clark, D- Louisville, who won re-election 
despite publicly admitting to "smoking a little weed" and is 
sponsoring a bill to legalize marijuana for medical uses, can join 
forces with Comer.

Then hemp or marijuana might take their places alongside of 
Kentucky's other "signature" industries like coal, Bourbon, horse 
racing, basketball and tobacco.

That would further prove just how wrong Obama is about us. You see, 
we cling to a lot more than our guns and religion. We really love 
quick fixes - and our vices, too.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom