TEXAS CHAINSTORE MASSACRES AND

OTHER NEWS FROM THE USA

Image left is of Doug Yurchey, who has just written a sequel to his epic piece on the reasons behind the suppression of hemp and its cousin, marijuana. He got an avalanche of emails from people who use hemp, and medicinal hemp in particular, to attest to the reality that Cannabis sativa is a plant of great value. The FDA and the DEA have even greater access to this information, but guess what...

Much talk on hemp will be taking place this weekend in California, where two great weekend festivals are taking place. One is the Health and Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa, 8/9/10th June. Music by Erykah Badu, Brain Wilson, Rickie Lee Jones et al. Lots of speakers, and vendors to include Minawear and GeoMio. Both companies will also be at the Fairfax Festival in Marin County, 94930. 20 bands will be playing in the redwoods.

Here in the UK the Texas based US giant Wholefoods, known to many as Wholepaycheque as some of their food is soooo expensive, has moved into a giant complex in oh soooo posh Kensington. The Guardian noted of yesterday's opening that the pesticide loving cotton Anya Hindmarch bag was ubiquitous at the event. Kind of like a swastika at a Bar Mitzvah, one wonders if the Guardian reporter can really have that short a memory stick in their brain...only last month the bag was ridiculed by all and sundry, with a front page bash in the Evening Standard. OK, so people with lots of money who went out and bought this on Ebay are now showing off their dosh in Kensington AND trying to be eco-cool. I will relish crashing this party with the hemp bag which says quite brazenly "Real Eco Bags are made of Hemp". Hemp, what's hemp? will probably be the words on many posh, eco-wannabe lips. I can be so uncool! Wait for images of me, Mr. Mean with the inconvenient facts, on this site. Or, if anyone out there wants to join me, give me a bell at cannabissatival@hotmail.com

News from the US would not be complete without at least some mention of that very, very, very, very important person, Paris Hilton. She has apparently checked into a hotel which does not live up to the standards of the Paris Hilton, or any other Hilton for that matter, and has done what any other rich kid would do; she checked out. Officials at the facility have stated that "she had an ache in the tummy and we sent her home to mummy". Or something like that, I did not quite catch the exact wording. However, I lost interest when I learnt that the substandard hotel she checked out of did not even have the class to give her a hemp wardrobe. Most likely they just threw her an orange jump suit made of pesticide loving cotton, probably made at the same sweatshop as the Anya Hindmarch bags. I would of course love to meet Paris Hilton, if only to juxtapose myself next to her with a real eco bag, made of hemp. Not to be mean, but it would be kind of nice if she went back to her hotel without incident and we did not hear another word about her for 23 days...or more.