I am intrigued with how Hemp, a product that goes back thousands of years with archeological discoveries dating back to 10000 B.C. China where they used it for food, clothing and shelter and as medicine became a substance that has been vilified and maligned and now is controlled by the D.E.A. Over 70 years ago Popular Mechanics magazine1 called Hemp “The New Billion Dollar Crop” in which the article stated would create thousands of American jobs and replace imports of raw materials with American grown. It is my belief that Hemp restrictions have been based on emotion not logic and the greed of wealthy men who used fear and smear tactics to convince Americans of the evils of ‘marihuana’.
The purpose of this paper is to examine and expose the truths, the history and the real story of Hemp. The focus will be to critically review the myth and fallacies of what hemp legalization in the United States would mean to us. Thus, I believe the restrictions to grow industrial Hemp in the United States should be lifted because it is a legal product; I plan on showing how it is a vital resource to the world. I believe the U.S. Government should not impede on economic freedoms of its citizens.
One of the concerns that opponents to the legalization of Industrial Hemp has is that it is a gateway to legalizing marijuana2. I do not believe this will happen because marijuana is a drug and Hemp is a product that has major ecological, agricultural, and economic potential. I agree some people who support legalizing Hemp also support legalizing marijuana but should we oppose it because simply because of that? That would be unsound reasoning; most supporters of hemp are manufactures, farmers, consumers and workers. The hemp industry has evolved into one that has become focused on the agriculture and industrial products and potential. Even under the 1970 Controlled Substance Act3, marijuana is labeled a Schedule I drug, while products derived from hemp- are explicitly excluded from the definition of marijuana and from the regulation. Under federal law, these products are legal yet the U.S. DEA control production and growth though restrictive practices.
Currently the U.S. government spends millions of dollars on eradicating Hemp; they have a vested interest in keeping the product labeled a drug so that they may protect their budgets. They call it their cannabis eradication program in which a large portion of their budget goes to destroying ‘ditch weed’ a remnant of the past production farms that doesn’t contain the THC levels of marijuana. These funds could be used to fight real drug issues and criminals. All the time and effort to destroy wild hemp plants could be used to collect valuable DNA of a plant that was cultivated and survived from the beginnings of our nation.
Resources
1. Popular Mechanics, February 1938, pg 236, 239,244, copy located at http://hempfarm.org/BillionDollarCrop.html
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