Pubdate: Sat, 09 Feb 2013
Source: Tulsa World (OK)
Copyright: 2013 World Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.tulsaworld.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/463
Author: Jim Hightower, Creators Syndicate

HEMP: A COMMON SENSE CROP FOR U.S.

Four years ago, Michelle Obama picked up a shovel and made a powerful
symbolic statement about America's food and farm future: She turned a
patch of White House lawn into a working organic garden.

That was a great move, earning kudos from just about everyone this
side of Monsanto and the pesticide lobby. But now, as she begins
another four years in the people's mansion, the first lady is probably
asking herself: "How can I top that? What can I do this time around to
plant a crop of common sense in our country's political soil that will
link America's farmers, consumers, environment and grassroots economy
into one big harvest of common good?"

Thanks for asking, Ms. Obama, and please allow me to intrude into your
thoughts with a one-word suggestion: hemp. Plant a good, healthy stand
of industrial hemp next to your organic garden!

This would, of course, drive the anti-drug zealots up the wall. "Holy
J. Edgar Hoover," they'd scream, "hemp is a distant cousin of marijuana!"

Well, yes, but the industrial variety of cannabis lacks the
psychoactive aspects of pot, so their hysteria is misplaced.
Industrial hemp won't make anyone high, but it certainly can make us
happy, because it would deliver a new economic and environmental high
for America.

Plus, hemp production is firmly rooted in American history. Question:
Besides being founders of our republic, what did Thomas Jefferson and
George Washington have in common? Answer: Both farmed hemp. Most of
America's founders were strong promoters of this extraordinarily
useful agricultural crop, with Jefferson declaring it to be "of first
necessity ... to the wealth and protection of the country."

The first draft of our Constitution was written on hemp paper. "Old
Ironsides" was powered by sails of hemp cloth. As late as World War
II, the government urgently pushed farmers to grow the crop as part of
a "Hemp for Victory" program.

So why are American farmers today prohibited from producing this
patriotic, profitable, pesticide-free plant? Political nuttiness. Most
recently, in a frenzy of reefer madness, U.S. drug police decided that
President Richard Nixon's "Controlled Substance Act of 1970" not only
outlawed marijuana, but also its non-narcotic cousin, industrial hemp.
If ignorance is bliss, they must've been ecstatic, yet their nuttiness
remains the law of our land.

While our nation is the world's biggest consumer of hemp products
(from rope to shampoo, building materials to food), the mad masters of
our insane "drug war" have lumped hemp and marijuana together as
"Schedule 1 controlled substances" - making our Land of the Free the
world's only industrialized country that bans farmers from growing
this benign, profitable, job-creating and environmentally beneficial
plant.

Thus, the U.S. is consuming millions of dollars' worth of products
made from hemp, that hemp comes from producers in other nations.

The good news, though, is that a wave of sanity is now wafting across
America. In Colorado, for example, farmer Michael Bowman and Denver
hemp advocate Lynda Parker helped pass Amendment 64 in last fall's
election. While it legalizes personal pot use, it also directs the
legislature to set up a program for "the cultivation, processing and
sale of industrial hemp."

Bowman hopes to be the first American farmer in generations to plant a
legal crop of it. Appropriately enough, he hopes to do so on April 30
- - the 80th birthday of family-farmer hero and hemp champion Willie
Nelson.

Even red states like Kentucky are on the move. Its Republican ag
commissioner, backed by its Chamber of Commerce, is campaigning to
legalize hemp farming there, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is
cosponsoring a national bill with Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden to take
hemp off the controlled substance list.

Bowman is seeking 100,000 signatures on a online petition requesting
that President Obama include the words "industrial hemp" in his Feb.
12 State of the Union speech. I'm sure the president would appreciate
my advice on this, so I suggest he say: "First thing tomorrow morning,
Michelle and I are going to give a symbolic jumpstart to the
development of a thriving hemp industry in America by planting a stand
of it on the White House lawn."

To sign Bowman's petition, go to the White House website:
petitions.whitehouse.gov. 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D