Support hemp legalization

Call MT USA Representative Denny Rehberg today — requesting a YES VOTE on the bill [HR1009] federally legalizing cultivation of Industrial hemp in the USA changing jurisdiction from the DEA to the Department of Agriculture.

MONTANA farmers — systematically growing hemp can produce 1,000 gallons of methanol from one acre realizing over $700 an acre. But first call your US Congressman and urge him to VOTE YES on the upcoming Ron Paul bill to federally legalize the cultivation of hemp. MONTANA has, as well as 28 other states, already legalized the cultivation of hemp, but can’t plant a crop without first getting a license from the DEA. The application includes a hefty fee which is not refunded if you don’t get the license. This has gone on since it was made illegal to cultivate in 1937. Over enthusiastic religious groups felt that the prohibition of drinking alcoholic beverages would save the youth of America and made alcoholic beverages illegal, as well as some narcotics. Competitors of hemp, the cotton, wood and petroleum industries took advantage of this prohibition furor and instigated, with the help of Mellon, Treasurer/Secretary of the Bank of Pittsburg, and William Randolph Hearst, newspaper mogul, to place Mellon’s nephew-in-law, Anslinger, in a key position in the newly created federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to destroy hemp, listing it as a narcotic plant causing violent acts. Hearst demonized hemp in his vast newspaper circulation spreading lies that have misinformed the public for over 70 years. Hearst involved himself because he had invested heavily in forest land for wood pulp to produce his newsprint.

Prior to the Prohibition era Rudolph Diesel had created an automobile engine that used pure hemp oil as fuel. He named hemp oil and his engine after himself, DIESEL. Henry Ford, the automobile magnet, made an automobile body of hemp materials, proving it harder than steel. hemp is still used on the inside panels of cars. The petroleum industry developed after the USA used Diesel’s motor car and oil for 30 years. Then it simulated hemp Diesel oil and Diesel’s engine calling them both Diesel.

From 1937 till WWII the importation of hemp came from Manila but came to a halt because Japan blocked USA’s hemp import. At that time President Franklin Delano Roosevelt subsidized farmers to grow hemp also exempting them from military service. After WWII ended the DEA kept the cultivation of hemp illegal. The rest of the industrial world grew it and is still growing it. The DEA still forbids its cultivation although US industries are permitted to import the raw materials from other nations and produce products from hemp: from the fiber (BAST); from the woody layer under the fiber (HURD); from the center pith (TOW); and from the SEED. The products range from a nutritious salad oil, protein powders, hemp milk, toiletries, paints, putty, mortar, wall board, cement-like bricks and blocks that are stronger than cement and are fireproof and waterproof, heavy tarps, denims to silky laces, bird seed, livestock feed, and bedding for people and livestock, plastics, cardboard, paper, plastics, pure Diesel oil, methanol, and on and on — hemp is a carbohydrate, with no after burn, where as petroleum is a hydrocarbon which produces a black, sooty after burn, polluting the atmosphere. Competing fiber crops use more pesticides and fungicides, and require more fertilizer and water than hemp, contaminating the waterways with the toxic run off.

Hemp has been a utilitarian companion to humanity over 10,000 years. Kingdoms survived and fortunes grew because of hemp. Egyptians used hemp mortar in their pyramids. Britain’s Monarchy conquered most of the globe with sails and ropes made from hemp. When the colonists settled in the New World they imported hemp products from England. During and after the Revolutionary War the young country had to produce its own hemp. The first presidents, Washington and Jefferson, ordered all farmers to grow hemp as they themselves did. Jefferson even pirated good seed into the country, as hemp was not native to North America. The first 200 years of life in the New World hemp was cultivated as a required crop.

Industrial hemp (the Canadian cultivars, USO 14, USO 31 and Carp) and marijuana are all cannabis sativa L. plants, but are quite different. Marijuana contains 5 percent to 25 percent Delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) while the above noted cultivars contain .001 percent to .003 percent THC. Industrial hemp contains another chemical cannabidiol (CBD) which nullifies THC in the plant. Marijuana does not contain cannabidiol.

Edna MacDonald

Thompson Falls