Legalize Hemp

Hemp is one of the planet's most useful plants.  It grows wild on every continent except Antarctica and it has scores of important uses.  It grows rapidly, resists plant diseases and enriches the soil.  And yet our Congress makes it a federal crime to grow, transport or possess hemp.  Why?

Many people think it's because hemp is "marijuana" and you can get high by smoking it.  It is not!  Hemp and cannabis ("marijuana") are in the same class but have very different qualities - think Chihuahua and pit bull.  You'd have to smoke a rope of hemp to get a buzz, and you'd be long dead before you got there.  No, our government created and purposefully spead that lie (more on that in a minute) to stop its legitimate use.

The real reason hemp is illegal is because Big Business, especially the oil and forest industries, want it that way.  Corporations!

Hemp can substitute for fuel, such as diesel fuel, which would reduce carbon monoxide and leave oil in the ground.  It can also replace countless forms of plastics - bottles, cellophane, etc.  And it's biodegradable, which would go a long way toward relieving our plastic-choked landfills. Think Big Oil would be happy with any of that?

Hemp also can replace wood in erecting buildings, including foundations, walls, paneling, roof shingles, even pipes and paint.  It also makes the finest papers known, and they are naturally acid free and do not become yellow and brittle over time.  Think of the trees that could be saved.  Think the forest industry would go for it?

There is so much more.  Medicines?  Hemp can be used to make an astounding number of medicines.  Food?  Hempseeds and hemp oil are excellent sources of protein, minerals and dietary fiber; hemp is the only plant on earth that contains all of the essential fatty acids and amino acids required by the human body.  Textiles?  It can do everything cotton can do but do it better, especially with heavy materials such as jeans, tents, sails, ropes, webbing.  The word canvas comes from the Latin word for hemp.

Now, about our government's blatant lie to prevent hemp's legalization.  Here's a bit of history:

People have used hemp for myriad purposes for thousands of years.  Until the early 1880s, as much as 90 percent of the world's paper was made of hemp.  During the American Revolution, Congress made it mandatory for larger farms to grow hemp. 

But hemp was hard to harvest in large quantities, so beginning in the late 1880s industrialists started looking for other sources. The Dupont Corp. patented oil- and coal-based plastics production methods.  Papermakers turned to forests and began felling trees.

That lasted until 1930 when a hemp harvester was developed that could make hemp industrially viable again.

Green Left Weekly tells the story from there:

"Dupont's  chief financial backer, Andrew Mellon, was US President Hoover's  secretary of the treasury.  He appointed his nephew, Harry S. Anslinger, to a position in the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.  Anslinger whipped up a scare campaign about hemp, which referred to hemp as 'marijuana' so that people would begin to associate the whole plant with drug use only."

Not only did Anslinger's campaign work, it's still working nearly a century later.  The public remains so stirred up about "marijuana" that it seems almost impossible to get a calm discussion going about hemp.

And deep-pocketed Big Business lobbyists are going to make certain it stays that way.  All Congress has to do to end this lunacy is pass a law (there are no constitutional questions involved) but the issue isn't even on the table.

That's a shame.  It should be a crime.

-Skip

Drug Test the Legislators

Conservative legislators throughout the nation are backing proposals to force umemployed people to pass drug tests before they can receive unemployment insurance.  I think we should drug test the legislators.

Legislators make decisions every day that deeply affect every one of us, so why shouldn't we verify that they're free of drugs while they're making those decisions?  We already test other people whose decisions affect us all, such as fiefighters, police officers and military personnel.  Why not legislators?

For that matter, why not test all public officials?  One can only guess at how many decisions former South Carolina treasurer Thomas Ravenel made while flying around on cocaine before he was caught and kicked out of office.

Does anyone really think Ravenel was the only one?  Or that Ravenel's colleagues in state government weren't aware of his habit long before he was caught - and let him go on with it while saying nothing?  How many others must there be.

I hope some legislators somewhere will see the value in drug-testing public officials and introduce a bill to accomplish it.

Why would any responsible legislator oppose such a bill?

Why don't they all demand one?

 -Skip

Romney's Motivation

I can understand why a person of conservative bent would vote against Barak Obama, but I cannot understand why anybody would vote for Mitt Romney.

The man is the king of flip-floppers.  He's been on both sides of every issue there is.  He was for abortion on demand; now he's against it.  He was for gun-control; now he's against it.  He was for providing health care for everybody--he even wrote the rules; now he's against it.  He was a moderate Republican govenor; now he's a Tea Party Favorite.

So what would Mitt Romney do as president?  It doesn't matter what he says he'd do because everything he says today is open to revision tomorrow.  That's how it always has been with him.  He will sail with the wind wherever the wind originates, and we all know where that is for him:  that small band of super-rich who are investing mind-boggling amounts of money in their effort to buy the White House for him (and especially for themselves).

It has never been truer than now that the rich would get richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class smaller.

Did I hear someone say Oligarchy?  Plutocracy?

-Skip