I love David and Goliath stories, and the recent news from North Dakota is just that: two farmers and a publicly funded land grant university sticking it to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). As you know from an earlier article on Green Options , and my subsequent podcast Greening the Golden Years Podcast: Hemp, The North Dakota Story, two North Dakota farmers, State Rep. Dave Monson and Wayne Hauge filed a lawsuit to end the DEA’s ban on state-regulated commercial hemp farming in the U.S.

Now comes North Dakota State University, with a current student body of around 12,000, filing an amicus brief in support of the two farmers. And NDSU has its own bone to pick with the DEA: an almost unbelievable snub of the small school.

In 1999, according to a news release from Vote Hemp, the university applied for permission to grow non-drug industrial hemp to create varieties best suited for the North Dakota climate and soil conditions. The DEA, according to the release, has chosen to ignore completely the 8 year old request. How’s that for big brother arrogance?

The DEA still holds that industrial hemp, almost completely bereft of the hallucinogenic compound that produces a "high," can be used as a drug. I read somewhere that smoking industrial hemp would produce nothing more than a bad headache.

According to the news release,

Gold can hypothetically and has in some instances been extracted from seawater, but the minimal concentration makes it technically and economically inefficient and commercially non-viable to do so. There are trace opiates in poppy seeds consumed on bagels, that could also be hypothetically be concentrated; but just as with industrial hemp is not a practical source of drugs for the illicit market

So what’s the big deal, DEA?

The farmers’ case will be heard in federal court on Wednesday, November 14, 2007, in Bismark, North Dakota. A press conference will follow, and I’ll have an article and hopefully an interview that same day.

In any case, let’s hear it loud and clear for the "Davids" of this world who aren’t afraid to stand up and cry "foul." It’s time someone put the DEA’s feet to the fire. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California could have set up the same scenario by signing a bill that passed through the state legislature, asking for approval to grow industrial hemp in four California counties. Arnold obviously didn’t have the stomach for a possible showdown with the DEA, and vetoed the publicly supported legislation. Strange, too, because Schwarzenegger has been a big proponent of environmentalism, but, on the other hand had the temerity to tell a columnist that "marijuana is not a drug, it’s a leaf."

Today’s podcast is a follow-up of my earlier article, Opinion: California Governor Nixes Industrial Hemp While North Dakota Moves On. I felt it necessary to further investigate the North Dakota story and help bring you up to date on other activity around the country.

Twenty-eight states have introduced hemp legislation and fifteen have passed legislation; seven, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, West Virginia and North Dakota have removed barriers to its production or research. Of those five, only North Dakota has set into motion a state regulatory system administered by the state’s agriculture department. It placed into law strict guidelines concerning the cultivation and harvesting of hemp seed and oil, and a licensing process that makes it completely legal under not only North Dakota Law, but federal law as well, to grow industrial hemp and harvest the sterilized seeds and oil for sale in the marketplace.

But no matter what they’ve done, it’s still a catch-22 situation. The farmer’s intent doesn’t matter in the eyes of the DEA, plant one stalk of industrial hemp and the DEA can charge you with growing and possessing a controlled substance, fine you, and possibly take away your property.

Two North Dakota farmers, State Representative David Monson and Wayne Hauge have done something no one else has apparently done in the country, sue the DEA, asking it to make a distincting between industrial hemp and marihuana.

I spoke with the attorney who filed the suit in Federal Court in Bismark, North Dakota, Tim Purdon, a member of the Vogel Law Firm in that city. He explains the lawsuit.

Other sites of interest:

H.B. 1009 in PDF

Vote Hemp

Washingtonwatch

Well, California’s "Fearless Fosdick" Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger has again stifled any hope of bringing the industrial hemp industry to California and the United States. Unlike his more forward-thinking and courageous counterpart in North Dakota, Schwarzenegger bowed to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and useless fears that industrial hemp will get you high, and vetoed Assembly Bill 684 which would have allowed a four-county, five-year pilot program of industrial hemp production in California.

In his veto message to the Assembly, he again stated, as he did before, that "Under federal law, all cannabis plants, regardless of variety or THC content, are simply considered to be ‘marijuana,’ which is a federally regulated controlled substance." He said signing of the bill "would give legitimate growers a false sense of security and a belief that production of ‘industrial hemp’ is somehow a legal activity under federal law." To me, that’s an insult to the intelligence and integrity of the agricultural community in California. He also suggested that enacting such a law could strain law enforcement resources and cause "significant problems" with drug enforcement in the state.

In all fairness, he’s right: that’s the law as written, back in 1938. I’ll refer you to my story on hemp and marijuana of May 10th, "Green Myth Busting; Hemp is Marijuana."

So let’s move forward. Mr Schwarzenegger doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to the feds and force the issue, as has the state of North Dakota. That state’s government set a strict set of rules concerning the growth of industrial hemp, and licensed farmer Wayne Hauge to plant and harvest hemp seed. The DEA stonewalled the application long enough so that Mr. Hauge was unable to plant a crop this year. As a result, Mr Hauge and State Representative David Monson filed suit against the DEA, asking for a declaratory judgement separating industrial hemp from marijuana as long as the industrial variety contains less than .3% THC, the psychoactive agent in marijuana. The DEA has asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, saying DEA policies can only be reviewed by a federal appeals court, and reiterated that federal law does not distinguish between industrial hemp and its cousin, marijuana. That action is still languishing in the courts.

Governor Schwarzenegger has loudly proclaimed his support of environmental issues over the years, but iced this one with a whimper. I’ve said it before: there’s a lot more to this hemp issue than just the fear of increasing marijuana production in the US. There must be some incredibly powerful lobbies intimidating Congress enough to not even touch the issue, when production of industrial hemp can bring so much to the American lifestyle. I refuse to believe it’s that simple, besides, there seems to be enough pot to go around right now, it’s coming across our borders by the ton and I suspect there’s still plenty of "home grown" cannabis to fill in for the few busts law enforcement makes during a year.  But, let’s give the devil his due: the Governor has just signed into law several bills aimed at cleaning up the state’s environment.

That law needs to be changed, the North Dakota lawsuit against the DEA should go forward, and the federal government should listen to its citizens, something I fear has been lacking for several years now. Be sure to read the story at the Environmental News Network website, and roam the links to learn more about hemp.

As for Arnold, I’ve never liked his movies.

MYTH: The United States Government considers ALL strains of hemp as marijuana.

Facts: Partially true, although things are changing. For in its more than 8000 years of cultivation, hemp and its psychoactive drug Cannabis Sativa have been inextricably linked. The name marijuana is a recent moniker. It was first called K(a)N(a)B(a) (cannibas) in early Sumeria and in is referred to as hashish in the Middle East.

We’re not going to address the marijuana culture here and around the world in this article. Our focus is about hemp and it’s use as a biodegradable, highly versatile resource.

Even if the Federal Government approved cultivation of what’s termed “industrial hemp” today, most sources say it will take 10 to15 years before full-scale cultivation and commercialization of the crop is realized. Hemp is a complicated subject, and my first inclination was to write a series of blogs on the subject, but realized all that’s necessary are the basic facts. Below you’ll find links, scholarly and otherwise, to my sources.

There are dozens of species representing some 22 genera, and Cannabis sativa has emerged as the one multi-purpose plant, used primarily for fiber in the stem, and preparations from that fiber such as paper, textiles, construction, plastics, food, medicines and oil from the seeds. Of course, the third part of the Cannabis sativa equation is the intoxicating resin, (Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) or THC, secreted by epidermal glands, and that’s what gets a person high.

So, why aren’t we growing it America? Easy — you already know the answer: the Federal Government says ALL hemp is marijuana, and that’s the myth, almost.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp, and refusing to grow the plant was against the law in the US during the 17th and 18th centuries. Its fiber was used to make sails and ropes for ships, paper for books and writing paper and clothing. The seeds have been used as food for centuries, and two 19th century famines in Australia saw hemp seed used for protein and it’s leaves for roughage.

You get the idea: this is one versatile natural resource, and our government calls it dangerous. How did all that start? I’ve researched dozens of verifiable sources and settled on some facts and, of course, some conspiracy theories.

Part of the reason apparently goes back to Mexico’s Pancho Villa, who relieved William Randolph Hearst of some 800,000 acres of prime timber he planned to use in the production of paper products. Hearst’s vilification of the Mexican people in his newspaper empire could well have come as a result of his loss.

Hearst, along with Lammont Dupont, Andrew Mellon, John D. Rockefeller and the DuPont family were apparently alarmed by hemp’s ability to provide an alternative source for paper, fiber, plastic and more, which would threaten their growing empires. DuPont developed fuel additives and a process to make paper from wood pulp that proved to be less expensive than manufacture by hemp, along with synthetic products such as plastics and nylon. The problem with hemp at that time was the man-hours it took to harvest the crop to make it usable, but a man named George W Schlichten invented a machine called a decorticator, which shortened the harvesting process to such a degree that hemp became the best and most inexpensive material for making paper and other synthetic products. Development of the decorticator was believed to make Hearst’s vast timber reserves worthless, and DuPont’s synthetic petrochemicals would become less attractive. An alleged conspiracy was hatched to derail the development of hemp and destroy the decorticator. It worked, and the developer of the decorticator, George Schlichten, died a broken man, his patents expired and the machine scrapped.

Hearst’s nationwide newspaper chain launched an intensive propaganda campaign portraying hemp, or Cannabis, as a dangerous drug, turning "normal" (meaning "white") people into psychotic killers. Yes, race was a major part of that campaign, and racial slurs were directed especially at African-Americans and Mexicans. The campaign was successful, and when the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was brought to a vote, most people didn’t know that hemp and marijuana came from the same plant. As a matter of fact, most had no idea that the law would aid in destruction of the hemp industry, which is exactly what happened.

The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 imposed a levy of one dollar on everyone who buys, sells, raises, imports or in any way deals in the commercial use of marijuana. The hook was the penalty provisions of the act, which called for five years’ imprisonment and fines up to $2,000 or both for anyone not buying a Treasury Department tax stamp and dealing in marijuana.

The act says “The term ‘marihuana’ means all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L, whether growing or not; the seeds thereof, the resin extracted from any part of such plant and every compound, manufacture, salt derivative, mixture or preparation of such plant…”. Hence our laws today say hemp is marijuana and it’s illegal.

According to Biomassive.org,

Thus, the Marijuana Tax Act and other similar tax policies in the years to come not only placed petrochemical and timber industries at the center of our country's physical and technological development, but as a result even shaped our very social, economic, and spatial structures. It converted a largely rural, agricultural nation into an urban, industrial one in a matter of a few decades.

So that’s where we stand today. While America sleeps at the wheel of hemp, other countries are cultivating and producing a wide variety of hemp products. Canada, The Netherlands, France and the UK are leading the world in hemp technology.

Research is ongoing in the US, Canada and European Union to breed of low THC plants, although none have at this point created a strain 100% free of THC. It’s said that in theory, low-THC strains do not completely solve the drug abuse problem because the other principal cannabinoid, CBD can be converted to use as a starting material for manufacturing THC. Experts at Purdue University say there are easier methods of synthesizing THC than by first extracting it from the non-drug strains.

The movement to legalize cultivation of industrial hemp in America is continuing. Just recently, legislators in the State of California passed a bill legalizing cultivation of hemp in the state. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, citing federal law which states all cannabis plants regardless of variety or THC content, are simply considered to be marijuana. And that’s a federally regulated schedule one controlled substance.

So yes, it is a myth that all hemp is marijuana, with the CDB caveat stated above. Will we ever see American farmers raising hemp legally? It would open up millions of acres of ground now deemed unsuitable for cultivation. Hemp could be used for development of an environmentally correct ethanol type fuel, or biodiesel, not to mention the plethora of environmentally safe products, but the infrastructure isn’t in place, and the feds are still adamant: hemp is marijuana.

Here are my sources, enjoy…

The Emperor Wears No Clothes
North American Industrial Hemp Council
Marihuana Tax Act of 1937
DEA controlled substances act
Purdue University A New Crop with New Uses for North America
USDA Monoecious Hemp Breeding in the U.S.
Hemp History
The Threat to DuPont and Friends
Hemp History
Marijuana Timeline
Schlichten Papers