Can anyone give me a good reason for hemp to be illegal?

I've only been given one (and it's stupid):

Hemp looks like pot from the air, so if hemp were legalized farmers would plant real pot in the middle of the field and no one would be able to tell.


is there another reason I'm missing?

but I can at least see the reason for it being illegal (butthe same reason, cigs and booze should be too)

but:

-Nutmeg

-Cough Syrup

-Spray paint

-Salvia

There are even more, but all of these can get you high in one way or another. As long as they are legal, people will abuse them. Does that mean we should remove them from the market?

but yeah, point taken

in particular

Hemp is cannabis, ergo, hemp and pot are the exact same thing. Precisely the same species, only difference is the level of production of psychoactive substances.

On another note, Hemp is grown for fiber produciton in the United States. Illinois is one such state with hemp production happening.

can you tell me more about help? My understanding is that industrial hemp is a strain of Cannibis sativa that hardly produces any goodies in the buds (or are the buds still smokealicious?).

isn't most recreational weed a hybrid of cannibis sativa and cannibis indica?

north dakota has SOME industrial hemp, but I guess there's way too much beurocracy to do it well.

It's still Cannabis Sativa from a species classification viewpoint. Hemp is also Cannabis sativa. The difference between commercial hemp and the illegal stuff is the quantity of psychoactive substances produced by the strains.

Hemp still produces a level of the psychoactive stuff, albeit an extremely low level.

and you'd end up with a little more exciting than a wee headache.

Follow the money trail - there's a lot of people with a lot to lose if hemp became legal again

2) Presidents Washington and Jefferson both grew hemp. Americans were legally bound to grow hemp during the Colonial Era and Early Republic. The federal government subsidized hemp during the Second World War and US farmers grew about a million acres of hemp as part of that program.


As another note, Jefferson personally smuggled hemp seeds into the United States to support rope production for the new navy.

reasons for making it legal abound. that's why i'm asking the opposite :)

would threaten the paper industry based on wood pulp processing.

campaign coffers.

illegal in the 1930's? Dupont had develeped a the pulp>paper process.

just figured there had to be a coporation factored into the mess somewhere.

Not surprised it's DuPont, though.

http://fornits.com/hemp/fibre.htm

....The empirical evidence in this book shows that the federal government--through the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act--allowed this munitions maker to supply synthetic fibers for the domestic economy without competition. The proof of a successful conspiracy among these corporate and governing interests is simply this: In 1991 DuPont was still the largest producer of man-made fibers, while no citizen has legally harvested a single acre of textile grade hemp in over 50 years....... more

thanks!

also agricultural hemp would enrich small farmers and be bad for agribusiness.

Non psycho active (sans THC) cannibis sativa has been hybridized but is still illegal to grow in most states.

Hemp could save our economy and probably our souls!!!

was written on HEMP PAPER. Much more durable...

fundies more of reason to ban it!! They've already shredded it enough.

:bounce: :bounce:

It was outlawed somewhere around the 1940s (IIRC, or maybe earlier) so fuel produced from it couldn't compete with the oil companies.

One of the websites with extensive links on American plutocrats incl. the Bush Family, Henry For, Hearst, etc. and the Nazis has the details. I don't have the link due to hard drive failure, but I'm sure it can be googled.

That link has alot of info on it.

I've heard it said that Hemp can be "turned back" into marijuana, or that the oil is still potent.
The main reason is that the general public (and most politicians) still think that hemp IS marijuana.
Just think... some bureaucrat back in the 1920's equated hemp with marijuana by mistake and it's been banned for over 80 years for that reason alone.

Oh wait, that's why Shemp should be illegal!

Seriously, I don't know of any good reason. none, zilch.


BTW, if you plant real pot in a hemp field, it's ruined by the hemp. The cross-pollination produces a pot so weak you'd have to smoke a joint the size of a zeppelin to get a buzz,

If you saved and planted the seeds, then the next years plants would have decreased potency due to the cross pollination.

Just think of the second hand smoke from something like that!

Way, way too dnagerous!

n/t

or something to that effect :puke:


http://www.parascope.com/mx/hemp02.htm

-snip-

William Randolph Hearst, king of yellow journalism, was going berserk. His massive timber holdings, endangered by cheaper, cleaner and more durable hemp paper, brought him face-to-face with financial catastrophe. Hence, a car wreck in which a marijuana cigarette was found stayed on the front page of his newspapers for weeks, while news of alcohol-related wrecks, which outnumbered marijuana-related wrecks by more than a thousand to one, was relegated to the back pages.

Hearst warned his readers of Negro men raping white women while under the influence of marijuana and anti-white "voodoo-satanic" jazz music. Not only that, but "Negroes and Mexicans," inflamed by the hell-spawned herb, dared to step on white men's shadows, look white people directly in the eye for more than a few seconds, look at a white woman twice, and even go so far as to laugh at white people in public. The sheer horror of it all!

According to Hearst -- and this, he said, "is not an overstatement" -- "If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster marihuana he would drop dead of fright."

people are just afraid of what they dont understand.
unfortunately everyone thinks they understand cigarettes and alcohol.
bah! bah i say!
hehe

There are so many useful things that hemp can be used for that I dont see any good reason to not persue it.
I mean come on.
paper
fuel
rope
clothes

so much stuff from one lil plant! I know my state could stand to gain from it. A transition from Tobacco to Hemp would go MORE than smoothly and MORE THAN MAKE UP for the losses from tobacco sells the last few years.

there IS a way to tell the difference between hemp and pot ya smoke, and thats when they first pop out of the ground. they do have a destinctive different in leaf/stem formation at the VERY BEGINNING of their life. Youd literally hafta look as soon as they popped up. after that tho, you cant tell a difference until they are full grown.

really it all goes back to the countrys fear of people high off marijuana.
oh well, thats what lifes like living in the king country of hypocracy ;)

Could never figure it out myself. I believe there was a news story recently about a car modified to run on hemp oil. It grows faster than trees for pulp and the rope is great. It has so many good uses that somebody really influential must have a ve$ted intere$t in keeping it illegal.

Never could see the sense of booze being OK and real pot being illegal either. Would much rather deal with a pot head than a drunk. And never heard of booze helping glaucoma patients or cancer patients on chemo.

as a person who comes from a family who owns and operates a cotton mill who makes yarn and rope, i can tell you right now they dont want it to happen. my families company actively campaigns for the legalisation of hemp. its simply a stronger substance. farmers want to use it. they know its stronger too. theres nothing better or stronger out there!

unfortunately my familys business will be no more soon, its closing down. lack of sells from former customers going to cheaper products(overseas and the cheaper synthetic counter parts in our country). Sucks. We are one of the oldest family ran businesses in the state. until the end of the year. so much for a legacy that started in the 1830's. infact, we still dye the yarn/rope the old fashioned way. the dying machines are from 1890-1920 still. Infact, they are going to be put in the local museum upon the factorys closing, so maybe itll be appriciated elsewhere.

Thanks to all the hemp hating people out there! way to run my familys business into the ground! lol. nah, but hemp WOULD have saved it.

1. The logging industry hates it because it can be used for cheap, strong paper, rope and other building materials. It also grows much faster than trees.

2. The petrochemical industry hates it because it produces a cheap fuel.

3. The pharmaceutical industry hates it because it produces free medicine.

4. Dupont et al hates it because hemp fiber is just as good (or better) than synthetic fiber.

5. The government hates it because it grows like a weed, and can't easily be taxed. They also hate it because it sometimes opens the human mind.

6. The alcohol industry hates it because it's safer than their product and users can easily grow their own.

I think NOT!

When alcohol is consumed, a person merely swallows it.

But when pot is usually consumed, iot is SMOKED!!!

And that means SECOND-HAND SMOKE!!!!!

We all know how dangerous that is, don't we???

I just read that there are cities in California that ban the use of tobacco products on their beaches.

Because of the fear of second hand smoke.

If second hand smoke is that dangerous, then I'm sure we can all agree that it is for our own good that dangerous products like pot -- which are normally consumed by smoking -- reamin illegal.

No Second Hand Smoke!!

There is always brownies, cookies, fudge, pizza, pasta sauce, the list goes on and on. Smoking is merely the least wastful method of consumption. If legalized, one could afford not to smoke the stuff.

On the other hand, each of the "foods" you have mentioned is either high-fat or high-carb or both.

We just cannot have our population becoming more obese and overweight!

Did you not know that obesity is now the leading cause of death -- surpassing even heart disease and surpassing deaths from seocnd hand smoke?

No, MadHound, I'm afraid that (at least as I understand it) thc needs to be dissolved in some sort of fat (like butter) in order to retain its "potency" as a food item.

After we win the battle against second-hand smoke, we are coming for our next target (I mean the next danger to the lives of Americans). Fatty foods.

It really is for your own good.

how many heavy pot ONLY smokers do you know that have lung cancer, bronchitis, etc? unfortunately not many pot smokers don't smoke cigs, but i am one, i have no adverse conditions because of it. i don't, nor have i ever, known, or heard of anybody that suffered any signifigant adverse effect from consuming pot.

and FAT POTHEADS?

if it really makes you feel better, pot will dissolve in alcohol, is that a safer way to take it in your opinion?

fwiw pot can be dry cooked, it just needs heat to release the THC for consumption, people use butter, etc. because it helps the taste, eating pot and tasting it is admittedly like eating hay, by making pot butter, the thc is released into the butter, and you throw away the crappy tasting fiberous plant matter. geez, you make pot brownies, eat ONE brownie, and you are baked for a few hours, its not like you need to go on a pot brownie binge to feel the effects. is one brownie going to make me obese?

those involved in medical marijuana, have actually made capsules of thc extract, pop it just like a pill. no smoking, none of that fat you say is killing all of us.

even smoked, it's STILL safer than alcohol, and less FATTENING!

they're expensive to buy but a good option if you don't want to smoke

And the best way to vaporize as the process is much like smoking and you get the initial "rush" that you do from a normal hit.

It takes practice and one must be careful of the high heat but it works like a charm.

tobacco smokers, but making tobacco illegal, like pot, puts it in the hands of organized crime. As far as I'm concerned I would rather regulation, like bans in public places as has happened with tobacco, than an underground criminal commerce in the stuff. Remember prohibition? All it did was make a bonanza for the gangsters of that time.

Also, if people want to put shit into their bodies voluntarily, why do we need to be their nannies?

for those that smoke it instead.

Problem solved.

and his friends at DuPont.

formed a monopoly and squashed hemp production.
shortly thereafter, the "smoking marijuana" aspect become illegal and further quelled hemp production (even for fibers and other non-high enducing products)

I would much rather have trees still standing in the forest and tons of hemp products (textile, paper, etc.) but then I'm a lefty wing-nut
:smoke:

nt

a good replacement for water hog cotton

God only knows all the uses for the oil.

It would disrupt the economic playing field.

from second hand smoke?

It is for your own good that hemp is illegal.

Because if hemp were legal, then farmers could plant real pot in the middle of their field and no one would be able to tell.

That real pot would then be sold to pot-heads.

And they would smoke it.

And there would be lots and lots of second-hand smoke.

It really is for everyone's good. You see?

Also we should not assume that the overall level of smoking would increase. Nicotine addicts might be inclined to smoke pot instead of tobacco. Combine the environmental benefits and the aggregate level of air quality most certainly would improve.

Please.

Ladies and Gentlemen -- I implore you.

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Even if the public smoking laws would still apply, there would be countless numbers of children living in houses where Second Hand Smoke wouild exist.

And, unless somehow smoking of any product were completely banned, the second hand smoke produced in the privace of a person's house could make it out into the atmosphere and pollute an otherwise pristene air mass. Bird and other creatures could die.

I don't want any of that on my conscience, thank you very much.

No -- no more products that can be legally smoked.

The risk from second-hand smoke is just far too great.

Especially to the children.

its so hard to tell these days

Second hand smoke is very, very, VERY dangerous.

It rivals spent nuclear fuel rods and anthrax-soaked blankets as in terms of the danger to human health it poses.

It is so very dangerous that cities in California have banned the use of tobacco products on their beaches. THAT Is how dangerous it is.

It is so dangerous that one DC suburb a few years ago tried to ban smoking altogether within its town limits.

Make no mistake about it -- second hand smoke is dangerous, deadly, and one of the most toxic substances known to humanity.

In fact, I would not be at all surprised to learn that right now there are no doubt hundreds of terrorists plotting to enter the United States and to simultaneously light up cigarettes in bars, restaurants, beaches, and other places.

What a weapon on mass destruction! Think of the suffering!

A Joke, you say? No, Sir or Madame, whatever the case may be, second hand smoke is not joke.

I still think you're joking. Well, maybe not??? Ugh, you're just weird.

All I am trying to do is to protect people from the many documented dangers of second hand smoke.

Ask anyone who is engaged in this great crusade to stamp out second hand smoke.

They will tell you that they are motivated by nothing else than a desire to tell other people what they may and may not enjoy.

No, wait a minute...that's not it......

They will tell you that there motivation is their own enjoyment at being n asty little busybodies.

Damn.

That's not it either. Why am I so hungry and forgetful right now?

They will tell you that they now what is best for everyone else and that they only want the best for everyone.

There. That's it. It really is for your own good. See?

I. Pot and Tobacco both illegal

II. Pot Legal but Tobacco illegal

III. Current System

IV. Both substances legal


Despite your attempts to hijack this thread into a liberatarian pro tobacco direction exposing the hypocrasy in regards to marrijuanna policy fights racism, corporatism and is good for the environment. Those reasons above and beyond personal liberty considerations makes it a topic worthy of discussion.

"THINK OF THE CHILDREN" is a Simpsons thing, so it's a good "tell" of when you're being fucked with.

Ya spoiled my little secret!

whatever your smokin' I'd like some. :evilgrin:

You can make a clarified butter concoction and bake with it :9

legalized hemp as long as all bongs, cigarette papers, blunts, and other IMSHS's (that's Instruments of Mass Second Hand Smoke) were destroyed and banned forever.

A nice hemp tea along with a brownie or two might be nice.

I could live with that.

BUT NO SECOND HAND SMOKE!!!!

If I catch anyone with any second-hand smoke endangering the lives of children or endangered species, I'm seeing my lawyer.

Fair warning.

Wouldn't our prison incarceration rates sore with all the Tommy Chongs thrown in the slammer. We might even have to release violent offenders to make room for them.

No, by the way, I am not John Ashcroft.

John Ashcroft does not seek the good of people.

I do.

I realize just how dangerous second hand smoke is.

So any effort to ban it -- like banning smoking in bars -- is a good thing. A very good thing. We just can't have people causing second hand smoke. Someone, somewhere, just might breathe some in. And then they would die.

I'm a GOOD person. Not like John Ashcroft.

And since second hand smoke is so very very VERY dangerous, any efforts to ensure that it is never produced is a GOOD thing.

Even if iot makes otherwise decent-law-abiding citizens into criminals. Simply because they smoke.

So, throw any one who possesses IMSHS's into jail. They are dangerous, violent rude people.

They smoke.

NOT! your anti-hemp arguments are as ridiculous as your anti-choice arguments.

And transportation?


mq/wp

Cooking could be done without generating even a whiff of second-hand smoke.

Use electric heating devices powered by the sun.

Tranposrtation couild also be done without generating even a puff of second-hand smoke.

Bicycles.

What is mq/wp??/

wouldn't want their plants anywhere near a hemp field.

The cross pollination would severly weaken the potency of future crops.

Took some land from William Randolph Hearst as part of his pay for the Mexican revolution. It was prime hemp growing land, but not much good for anything else. Hearst lobbied congress to have it made illegal so Villa could not sell it to the paper industry. Hearst had been making newsprint out of it.

found to originate with this business need of Hearst - aided by the fact that the perception was that folk of color were the ones hurt, so that was a good.

The GOP will never admit the racist basis of the law - just as they can not make cocaine powder use punishment as long as crack cocaine use punishment - since the crack/urban poor connection is a nice way to be racist, putting more folks of color in jail and for longer periods than the white population that amazingly enough uses the stuff at the same freq. and amount levels - as you preach family values.

Hemp makes wonderful clothing and can be made into very durable goods that leather is often used for.

Harry Anslinger, who testified in front of the Senate in 1937 re: marijuana legalization had the following to say:

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers.”
Note: There is no racially-based motivation for marijuana's illegal status and you'd be a fool and a Communist to assume one.

He continued “Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others."
Note: I don’t know about the validity of the part about white women seeking congress with Negroes but I can tell you that he was sadly mistaken about white women and entertainers. I speak from personal experience.

and thanks for your humorous post :7
signed,
a fool and a Communist :smoke:

Why should the government tell people what they can or cannot do.
If I want to eat McD's everyday, than it is my choice. If I wish to smoke pot, my choice. If I want to smoke, my choice. No one else is responsible for my choices, not tobacco, brewers etc...
The government needs to stay out of our lives.

The government, with help from companies like DuPont, began to stamp out the Hemp industry in the 1930's because DuPont didn't want competition with their Petrol-based products, since Hemp was on the verge of a new technological boom. They came up with lies about the effect of pot (ie. "Reefer Madness). Hemp used to be one of the America's LARGEST crops, especially in the antebellum South, where it was a significant part of the plantation economy. Henry VIII in England even required farmers to allot some land to grow it, and the earliest colonial bibles were made from hemp. Also, if we want to rid ourselves of forgien oil and go biodiesel, then hemp oil is the best option, since it gives off little no CO2 emissions, and can be gorwn a lot easier than other biodisel crops, like corn and canola.

Hemp should definately be legal.

banning liquor and dancing, or any other way of enjoying oneself. Marijuana should be legalized anyway and regulated like liquor.

Careful, there, Cleita.

You bias is showing.

Please be more explicit so I can agree or disagree with you.

Really, I live on a farm in Iowa and we have a problem with hemp being a weed. We have to worry that planes may fly overhead, see a large group of hemp and be investigated for real weed.

It is a very strong and easy plant to grow and I can see many uses for it!

why farmers where I live havn't lobbied hard for hemp to be made legal again. We have a bizarre situation of people trying to grow cooler climate crops in Australia - a country heavilly effected by droughts. They need copious amounts of water, which is taken from nearby rivers which has led to some of Australia's greatest waterways drying up and disappearing. They have to use a tonne of pesticides/herbicides which stuff up the land even further AND they have to contend with drought.

From my own experience I know that cannabis grows without an awful lot of effort (especially if THC potency isn't something you're aiming for) and needs considerably less water than many of the traditional crops.

All the Australian farmers struggling, getting deeper into debt and going bankrupt each year should be pushing for the legalisation of hemp - and if the farming bodies weren't all in the hands of big producers I bet they would be.

then the drug running in the CIA couldn't make a profit and where would our Black ops be then. Shucks, they would need to go to congress to get funding. Dang that would ruin everything for the organizations that depend on the USA to enforce the pillaging the international corporations are undertaking.

dude pass that bong man.Hey dude you got any doritos...

just kidden.

If pot was legal America wouldnt be such cocks to every one else.
Hell we may even be nicer to each other.

"ayy brotherman ayy wat you say gimmie some of your sensai". I want to get high..unknown artist

Simple as that.

per acre of hemp, planted like corn? its nothing for HEMP to grow 12 feet tall or so. you would have to be pretty ignorant to try to smoke hemp, and you would only try it once.

hemp grows very tall and slender, it is bred to produce the maximum amount of fiber, and the least amount of psychoactive substances. marijuana grown for smoking, is generally bred for the shortest possible plants, with the least fiber content, and to have big fat sticky buds. hemp has practically no buds. grown together, the hemp would tower over the marijuana, shading it, and being counterproductive to growth of the MJ. not to mention the seeding of the good stuff.

if they REALLY wanted people to not get stoned, they would plant hemp EVERYWHERE, gardens, ditches, etc, so the pollen would be everywhere, and pollinate the high quality pot grown indoors. THAT would piss off real growers!

for those who haven't smoked since the 70's, people prefer to smoke sensi, thats seedless pot, made seedless by keeping make pollen from the female plants, easy to do indoors, difficult outdoors, especially on a large scale. you just are not going to see pot and hemp grown together, it will be seedy, and of low quality, it would be the same as mexican dirt weed that some people smoke. its less risky to have trucks hauling it across the border than risk being caught with acres of crappy weed growing in the states.

that's why. :-)

it would be an enforcement nightmare to try to distinguish strong hemp from weak pot. Plus, I'll bet when people engineered hemp up to the legal THC limit you could buy bales of it cheap and make strong tea or smoke it like regular cigarettes and get some harmless enjoyment from it, and that would be WRONG.

that there would be people who would develop some diseases from this harmless enjoyment.

And I bet some of those folks would go out and find some sharp attorney eager to make lots and lots and lots of money.

And they would show that THC is a highly addictive substance.

And then none of us (I mean, none of you) would be able to enjoy this ever again.

Give it 20 years or so.

that fact sort of negates your (non)argument...

is to exercise power over the populace. Pass enough pointless laws and pretty soon, everyone is a criminal of one degree or another. I don't remember the exact quote but the gist of it is that it is impossible to rule inocent people.

The war on drugs has no other conceivable benefit than the errosion of the people's liberty.

the pot seeds used for next planting would be ruined by cross pollination.

There is no reason they should not be legal (pot and hemp)
hemp is a very versatile and useful plant. Can be used for many things from paper to oil.
KL

Wish the other candidates did.

http://www.kucinich.us/issues/hemp.php

It was great. Right after Dean dropped out, it made my choice easy and it felt good voting for someone that is not a complete asshole like who we got.