Did you know that the United States government spends over $2 million an hour on the drug war? Or that schoolteachers have been fired for teaching children about a plant that George Washington grew on his farm? David Morris, the vice president of the Institute for Self-Reliance, has written a damning and brilliant piece about the United States' ludicrous policies toward hemp in the latest Journal of Industrial Hemp. I mention it because, with The Body Shop, I have long been a supporter and promoter of industrial hemp (besides being great for textiles and foods, hemp oil is a miraculous emollient, perfect for the skin).
The United States' wrong-headed policies toward hemp stem mostly from its seeming willingness to ignore the facts and to confuse hemp with marijuana. This innocent and potentially revolutionary little plant is the victim of mistaken identity, and has thus been swept up in America's silly and pointless war on drugs. And guess who loses? You & me.
"Consider some numbers. In 1985, the (U.S.) federal war on drugs cost about $1.5 billion. That was about one third of federal spending on the environment, one sixth of spending on energy and only 3 percent of federal spending on agriculture. Today the drug war budget is over $20 billion, three times the environment budget, 50 percent more than the energy budget and approaching 30 percent of the entire agriculture budget."
He offers examples of where this money goes:
"When the Missouri Farm Bureau voted to endorse hemp research, highway patrol officers reportedly personally visited farmers to change their minds. They succeeded. In the mid-1990s, the CEO of Adidas proudly announced the introduction of a new sneaker, The Hemp. After a phone call from the White House drug czar he decided to rename the shoe The Gazelle. ...
In August 1999 US customs agents seized 20 tons of sterilized hemp seed coming in from Canada. In 2001, the Canadian company that supplied the seed, Kenex, sued the U.S. government for $20 million in damages under the provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). As of this writing the DEA plans to spend millions to fight the suit. I suspect that if it eventually loses, the U.S. government will simply pay the damages. After all, it is the equivalent of about 8 hours spending on the drug war."
It's time to reeducate America on the virtues of hemp. After all, hemp was once a primary cash crop there, and the potential is ripe for it to be again. George Washington grew hemp, Benjamin Franklin wrote and published many of his most famous articles on hemp paper (including early drafts of the Declaration of Independence), and Thomas Jefferson smuggled hemp seeds in from America. Were these founding fathers somehow complicit in the terrorism America now likes to equate with marijuana? Hardly.
Here's what you should know about hemp:
The Myths
Hemp is marijuana. Hemp and marijuana are two different varieties of cannabis. Hemp is tall, with a long stalk and few leaves and flowers; marijuana is short and bushy with lots of leaves and flowers.
Hemp can get you high. You'd have to smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole to get high in hemp. Hemp contains less than 1 percent of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. Marijuana has up to 14 percent.
You will fail a drug test if you use hemp-based cosmetics or ingest hemp-based foods or beverages. Hemp products have no THC, or far too little to ever register on a drug test.
The Facts
Hemp is eco-friendly. Hemp cultivation requires no herbicides or pesticides; it is a naturally bug-resistant plant. It returns 70 percent of its nutrients to the soil, maintaining productive farmland.
Hemp is our future. Hemp has over 25,000 uses, including fuel, food, fiber, paper, and skin care.
Hemp is good for the economy. Hemp is a profitable crop, an excellent alternative fuel, a renewable resource, and high in protein.
Hemp is profitable. Hemp brings in US$200 per acre in net profit for Canadian farmers. American hemp sales, like The Body Shop's line of hemp products, have reached into the millions of dollars annually.
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