Governor Jerry Brown Vetoes Hemp Legalization in California
In a veto message, Jerry California Governor Brown said federal law considers industrial hemp to be a regulated, controlled substance, and that failure to obtain a federal permit would subject California farmers to federal prosecution.
“Although I am not signing this measure, I do support a change in federal law,” Brown said in a veto message. “Products made from hemp – clothes, food, and bath products – are legally sold in California every day. It is absurd that hemp is being imported into the state, but our farmers cannot grow it.”
Nutiva CEO John W Roulac commented ” This is a sad day and this veto will only hurt California farmers, workers, and business’s such as Nutiva who want to grow this renewable non-drug crop.”
Nutiva imports millions of dollars worth of Canadian hempseeds every year due to antiquated laws that prevent US farmers from growing industrial.
Another great story on hemp research to provide cutting edge green raw materials for industry. If folks in Canada can grow and research hemp, why not America ?
As combines mowed farmers’ fields across Canadian prairies this fall, there was a scene near Edmonton right out of a time warp: – a crew of workers actually using their hands to harvest plants.
The workers were taking down three-metre-tall hemp plants at a breeding nursery outside of Vegreville, AB. The plants, which dwarfed the workers, were being bundled, numbered, bagged and transported to researchers, who see a high-tech future for the ancient plant.
The Alberta Research Council (ARC) is working to help hemp find its way into everything from homes to cars to clothes. It’s part of a campaign to see our agriculture and forestry industries compete in the global push for sustainable products.
“ARC is evaluating hemp as a fibre crop for mature, large-scale industries looking for green products,” ARC crop and plant physiologist, Jan Slaski said. “Alberta’s soil and climate are perfectly suited for growing hemp crops.
“We analyze the seed and plant for biomass and fibre yield, as part of the breeding program for creating the perfect industrial hemp,” he added. ARC uses advanced breeding techniques to develop traits such as water- and nitrogen-use efficiency, with no useable trace of the psychoactive compound THC, which is found in marijuana. It is hoped the breeding program will ultimately lead to a stronger plant with a bigger yield.
In ARC’s Edmonton facility, advanced materials program leader John Wolodko picked up a boat part made from material pressed from hemp and plastic. “This is traditionally made from fiberglass,” he said. “Products made from biocomposites work as well as those made from conventional materials, with the advantages of being lighter and less expensive. The ability of environmentally friendly products to compete with non-renewable products like fiberglass makes for a competitive and promising future for the biocomposites industry.”
Continue reading this article at Troy Media Corp, HERE.
This important story comes to us from The Bismarck Tribune, and covers one fourth-generation farmer with the courage to speak out in favor of Industrial Hemp farming in America.
Author Credit: WAYNE HAUGE.
Enjoy!
I am a fourth generation farmer, grandfather of three, and have never been arrested for anything. I traveled to Washington, D.C. to join hemp business leaders in a symbolic planting of hemp seeds on DEA headquarters’ front lawn. This action was taken to raise awareness of the distinction between industrial hemp and marijuana. Today non-dairy milks, protein powders, cereals, soaps and lotions are made from the nutritious omega 3 rich hemp seed, while everything from clothing to building materials to automobile paneling is made from the fiber and woody core.
Along with another North Dakota farmer and state Rep. David Monson, I am involved in a lawsuit against DEA, now in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, to prevent DEA interference with licensed North Dakota farmers cultivating and processing industrial hemp under North Dakota’s state industrial hemp program. However, it has been almost a year since the case was given to the judges to decide if states can act without federal government intervention.
I personally do not harbor a grudge nor have an agenda against the DEA, I have the greatest respect for those who serve our country, whether local police or members of the armed services who are now abroad. The DEA is carrying out its Bush-era mandate to not allow cannabis in the United States, just as any soldier given an order by a superior officer and I respect that. It is time, however, to change the order and make the international non-drug standard of 0.3% THC the point at which hemp cultivars of cannabis are under control and regulation by USDA as an agricultural crop.
The ideal immediate policy approach, similar to the recent medical cannabis directive from the Dept. of Justice (that oversees the DEA) directing DEA and US Attorneys to respect states’ medical cannabis laws, is for the DOJ to simply direct DEA to respect and not interfere with state industrial hemp programs.
The story continues at The Bismarck Tribune. Click HERE to continue reading.
This article comes to us from hempnewstv.wordpress.com, and brings up some very important connections between global climate change and the beneficial CO2 to oxygen conversion created by large hemp crops. Enjoy!
The hemp plant can be used in thousands of different products, including large-scale things such as houses and cars. Hemp is also able to be made into smaller goods as well, from health products to paints.
An extremely important goal that hemp must be applied to immediately is the reversal of global warming. Upon first hearing such a statement, it may seem ridiculous that one thing could solve a world problem. However, utilizing hemp on a massive scale could indeed achieve this objective.
To understand how hemp can stop global warming, you need to understand how climate change is occurring. Greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, build up in the atmosphere. This high concentration of gas traps heat inside the Earth, leading to a general increase in temperature.
The negative effects of the advanced stages of global warming would be devastating and destructive. We cannot afford to wait; we must act now to counter these horrible consequences.
To put this in context, North Dakota and Vermont are the only two states that have adjusted their laws (We did this while I was chair of the Agriculture Committee) to allow farmers to cultivate and harvest hemp. However, both states laws are trumped by federal law due to the interstate commerce clause of the US constitution. This section has been interpreted widely by the US government to take control of many policy areas that used to belong to the states. It does this by the idea that any product that can cross state borders for commercial purposes is to be regulated by the federal government.
Hemp was brought into the federal law jurisdiction back in the 30’s and 40’s when it competed with trees as the main ingredient in paper as well cotton as a fiber. The paper and cotton industries went after it with false media claims and corporate propaganda to tie it to marijuana use as well as to the latino/a culture (racism). While the general public had used and known hemp as a very good product (as both paper and fiber) public opinion was swayed over a very short period of time. Soon, through an act of Congress, it was made illegal to grow by categorizing it a schedule 1 drug under our drug laws. Thus becoming the only drug that has been classified by Congress instead of through the regulatory process (Crack, Cocaine, Morphine, Heroine, all classified by the DEA, not Congress). As a schedule 1 drug, it is deemed to have no useful purpose to society whatsoever.
Click HERE to read the rest of this article at the Prog Blog.
Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species Cannabis sativa L. It is a tall, slender fibrous plant similar to flax or kenaf. Farmers worldwide have harvested the crop for the past 12,000 years for fiber and food, and Popular Mechanics once boasted that over 25,000 environmentally friendly products could be derived from hemp.
Unlike marijuana, hemp contains only minute (less than 1%) amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. In addition, hemp possesses a high percentage of the compound cannabidiol (CBD), which has been shown to block the effects of THC. For these reasons, many botanists have dubbed industrial hemp “anti-marijuana.”
More than 30 industrialized nations commercially grow hemp, including England and Canada. Nevertheless, US law forbids farmers from growing hemp without a federal license, and has discouraged all commercial hemp production since the 1950s.
Introduction from Industrial Hemp
Written back in 1997 by Nutiva founder and CEO John W Roulac.
Imagine a crop more versatile than the soybean, the cotton plant, and the Douglas fir tree put together…one whose products are interchangeable with those from timber or petroleum…one that grows like Jack’s beanstalk with minimal tending. There is such a crop: industrial hemp.
Hemp was once indispensable to world commerce. New World colonists and traders were able to cross the Atlantic Ocean because the hemp ropes and sails of their ships, unlike other natural fibers, resisted salt damage. Not so long ago, it was inconceivable for an economy to
function without hemp. The 1913 Yearbook of the U.S. Department of Agriculture called hemp “the oldest cultivated fiber plant,” mentioned how the crop improves the land, and said that it yields “one of the strongest and most durable fibers of commerce.”
Then, in 1937, fiber hemp fell victim to the anti-drug sentiment of the times when the U.S. Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act. The intent of this law was to prohibit the use of marijuana, but it created so much red tape that the production of industrial hemp became nearly impossible. Now hemp’s natural fiber and seed oil were no longer available to compete with wood pulp, cotton, and such newly patented petroleum products as inks, paints, plastics, solvents, sealants, and synthetic fabrics.
The fact is that hemp grown for fiber, whether by George Washington in 1790, by Kentucky growers in 1935, or by English farmers in 1994, has never contained psychoactive qualities. If one were to roll leaves from an industrial hemp plant into a cigarette and smoke them, no euphoric effects would be experienced even if a thousand hemp cigarettes were smoked. The potentially psychoactive chemical in hemp is delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). A plant cultivated for marijuana has a 3 to 15 percent THC content or more, while industrial hemp generally contains one percent or less.
Industrial hemp is a valuable, low-cost biological resource that can be grown in most climates. It is a hardy plant whose rapid growth and high resistance to diseases largely eliminate the need for costly herbicides or pesticides. Hemp can play an important role in rural economic development: new jobs and businesses can be created to produce hemp products, for both local consumption and marketing to other regions.
This important story comes to us from The Bismarck Tribune, and covers one fourth-generation farmer with the courage to speak out in favor of Industrial Hemp farming in America.
The hemp plant can be used in thousands of different products, including large-scale things such as houses and cars. Hemp is also able to be made into smaller goods as well, from health products to paints.
Strawberry 3-2-2-1 Protein Shake | Recipe
Cranberry Orange Muffins Recipe
Cashew Coconut Squares Recipe
