America's Missing Hemp Market

Hemp was abandoned, even though it is a multi-purpose crop that aids in weed suppression (and is thus useful in crop rotation), provides superior paper products, is the best source of EFAs for humans, and even has the capacity to make a car body that is structurally superior to steel. While the U.S. continues to make all cannabis crops illegal, even those varieties bred for low THC content, Canada is at work manufacturing an electric car whose body is made out of hemp.

via CBC News

The article above notes a hemp car was first created by Henry Ford.

Popular Mechanics, December, 1941

Over in England it's saccharine for sugar; on the continent it's charcoal "gasogenes" in the rumble seat instead of gasoline in the tank. Here in America there's plenty of sugar, plenty of gasoline. Yet there's an industrial revolution in progress just the same, a revolution in materials that will affect every home. After twelve years of research, the Ford Motor Company has completed an experimental automobile with a plastic body. Although its design takes advantage of the properties of plastics, the streamline car does not differ greatly in appearance from its steel counterpart.

The only steel in the hand-made body is found in the tubular welded frame on which are mounted 14 plastic panels, 3/16 inch thick. Composed of a mixture of farm crops and synthetic chemicals, the plastic is reported to withstand a blow 10 times as great as steel without denting. Even the windows and windshield are of plastic. The total weight of the plastic car is about 2,000 pounds, compared with 3,000 pounds for a steel automobile of the same size. Although no hint has been given as to when plastic cars may go into production, the experimental model is pictured as a step toward materialization of Henry Ford's belief that some day he would "grow automobiles from the soil."

When Henry Ford recently unveiled his plastic car, result of 12 years of research, he gave the world a glimpse of the automobile of tomorrow, its tough panels molded under hydraulic pressure of 1,500 pounds per square inch from a recipe that calls for 70 percent ofcellulose fibers from wheat straw, hemp and sisal plus 30 percent resin binder. The only steel in the car is its tubular welded frame. The plastic car weighs a ton, 1,000 pounds lighter than a comparable steel car. Manufacturers are already taking a low-priced plastic car to test the public's taste by 1943.

I posted a video of Ford's Hemp Car via YouTube here.

Popular Mechanics, February, 1938. Hemp: The New Billion Dollar Crop

The natural materials in hemp make it an economical source of pulp for any grade of paper manufactured, and the high percentage of alpha cellulose promises an unlimited supply of raw material for the thousands of cellulose products our chemists have developed.

It is generally believed that all linen is produced from flax. Actually, the majority comes from hemp--authorities estimate that more than half of our imported linen fabrics are manufactured from hemp fiber. Another misconception is that burlap is made from hemp. Actually, its source is usually jute, and practically all of the burlap we use is woven by laborers in India who receive only four cents a day. Binder twine is usually made from sisal which comes from Yucatan and East Africa.

All of these products, now imported, can be produced from home- grown hemp. Fish nets, bow strings, canvas, strong rope, overalls, damask tablecloths, fine linen garments, towels, bed linen and thousands of other everyday items can be grown on American farms.

Our imports of foreign fabrics and fibers average about $200,000,000 per year; in raw fibers alone we imported over $50,000,000 in the first six months of 1937. All of this income can be made available for Americans.

The paper industry offers even greater possibilities. As an industry it amounts to over $1,000,000,000 a year, and of that eighty per cent is imported. But hemp will produce every grade of paper, and government figures estimate that 10,000 acres devoted to hemp will produce as much paper as 40,000 acres of average pulp land.

World War II era propaganda to encourage farmers to grow cannabis to produce material for the war effort.

North American Industrial Hemp Council 1997 Fact Sheet

Prosecutor who indicted Marc Emery ("king of pot") : Legalize It

Seattle Times

As Emery's prosecutor and a former federal law-enforcement official...I'm not afraid to say out loud what most of my former colleagues know is true: Our marijuana policy is dangerous and wrong and should be changed through the legislative process to better protect the public safety.

Congress has failed to recognize what many already know about our policy of criminal prohibition of marijuana — it has utterly failed. Listed by the U.S. government as a "Schedule One" drug alongside heroin, the demand for marijuana in this country for decades has outpaced the ability of law enforcement to eliminate it.

Not only does our policy directly threaten our public safety and rest upon false medical assumptions, but our national laws are now in direct and irreconcilable conflict with state laws, including Washington state. So called "medical" marijuana reaches precious few patients and backdoor potheads mock legitimate medical use by glaucoma and chemotherapy patients. State laws are trumped by federal laws that recognize no such thing as "medicinal" or "personal" use and are no defense to arrests by federal agents and prosecution in federal courts.

So the policy is wrong, the law has failed, the public is endangered, no one in law enforcement is talking about it and precious few policymakers will honestly face the soft-on-crime sound bite in their next elections.

While I don't share McKay's stereotypes about many cannabis users, his rational approach to the issue of cannabis laws in this nation is necessary and long-overdue from the many, as he notes in his op-ed, who are in law enforcement who recognize the law is the worst offender in regard to cannabis drug policy in this U.S.

McKay's op-ed only touches briefly, however, on the real problem with making rational changes to current law: the toxic political environment promoted by right-wing politicians who care more about scoring points on a political opponent than they do about the welfare of American citizens.

John McKay knows this aspect of American political life personally. He was one of the attorneys who was ousted by the theocratic quislings in the Gonzales Attn. General's office, most likely because of his attempt to keep an investigation into the murder (in his home) of Asst. U.S. Attn. General Tom Wales (who took on the NRA, the death penalty and white-collar crime.)

Jeffrey Toobin wrote about the incidents leading to the firing in The New Yorker:

On September 22, 2006, McKay’s office received a glowing evaluation from the Department of Justice. On December 7th, McKay, along with six other U.S. Attorneys, was fired.

...Gonzales’s justifications for McKay’s dismissal now seem unlikely to be true, because it has become clear that Justice Department officials were seeking to fire McKay before 2006. On March 2, 2005, Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’s chief of staff, included McKay’s name on a list of thirteen U.S. Attorneys to be fired, in an e-mail to Harriet Miers, the White House counsel. Sampson sent the e-mail four months after the 2004 elections, and after McKay decided not to bring charges against the Democratic Party, or people affiliated with it, in Washington State, in the wake of a narrow victory by Christine Gregoire, the Democratic candidate, in the governor’s race. The contest, which was resolved after two recounts, prompted a lawsuit by the state Republican Party alleging widespread voting irregularities.

Several of the fired U.S. Attorneys had declined to prosecute Democrats in electoral disputes. Many Democrats have suggested that the prosecutors were dismissed by Gonzales and the Bush White House in retaliation for failing to advance Republican political objectives.

Vancouver, B.C. Concerns on the Impact of Prop. 19 on the Canadian Economy

Cannabis News via The Victoria Times-Colonist

In a column on the Guardian’s website this week, B.C. writer Douglas Haddow writes that a move to legalization would be “devastating to the Canadian economy, halting the flow of billions of dollars from the U.S. into Canada.”

B.C. marijuana activist Marc Emery – the selfstyled “Prince of Pot” who is awaiting sentencing in the U.S. for distributing cannabis seeds – - recently told a Vancouver website that “the homegrown market will evaporate.”

Marijuana production generates at least $3 billion to $4 billion in B.C. alone – due, in large part, to heavy demand from potheads south of the border, said Darryl Plecas a criminology professor at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford.

Plecas said he estimates that about 70 per cent of all marijuana produced in B.C. is sent to the U.S. and much of it goes to California.

(I love the criminology professor's "judicious" use of language.)

Other observers, however, are more circumspect about how crippling legalization would be for Canadian producers, pointing out that “B.C. Bud” still enjoys a reputation in many circles as “the Rolls-Royce” of marijuana and that there are many other U.S. states – besides California – that covet Canadian-grown marijuana.

The article goes on to note various opinions about the the immediate impact (Mexican bud will fare worse, the illegal exchange of Canadian pot and cocaine will continue, the rise of the loon against the dollar hasn't hurt exports...)

Toronto Hosted Its First Medical Cannabis Expo This Month

UPI

Organizers of Toronto's International Medical Marijuana Expo say they want to attract people tired of taking pharmaceutical drugs with adverse side-effects.

CBC

A view from 2009 about medical marijuana in Canada.

In 2001, Ottawa came up with a solution to the problem, becoming the first country to adopt a formal system to regulate the medicinal use of marijuana — the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations.

The policy allowed people suffering from terminal illnesses or severe conditions such as epilepsy, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and cancer to use the drug if it eased their symptoms.

Some people would be able to grow marijuana themselves under strict guidelines. Others would be allowed to buy it from companies licensed by the government. Ottawa awarded the first (and so far, the only) federal licence to supply marijuana to a Saskatoon-based company, Prairie Plant Systems. The pot is grown in an underground mine in Flin Flon, Man.

In early 2003, the Supreme Court of Ontario ruled that the medical access regulations were unconstitutional because they were failing to provide a legal supply of the drug. Ottawa responded later that year with a plan to provide dried marijuana or seeds to Canadians authorized to take marijuana for medical reasons. That plan — occasionally tweaked — remains largely intact to this day.

Who qualifies for medical marijuana authorization?
Condition Symptoms
Multiple sclerosis; spinal cord injury; spinal cord disease Severe pain, persistent muscle spasms
Cancer; AIDS; HIV infection Severe pain, cachexia, anorexia, weight loss, severe nausea
Severe arthritis Severe pain
Epilepsy Seizures
People with terminal illnesses
People suffering from symptoms of medical conditions other than those above (assessment by specialist required)
Source: Health Canada