Monday, December 31, 2012

New Year's Resolution for hemp

Here we are at the close of 2012...and Mayan calendar or not, we are still here. Maybe not for much longer, so let's make the most of it. Hope that does not sound too pessimistic. Actually, there are harbingers of good for 2013 - Minawear got their petition up ahead of schedule, just before Christmas, and is now nearly at 100 signatures (including Green Party candidate's Cynthia McKinney's). Not bad with no press - and that is an issue I would like to address. Why no press? You hear all about bad things - every idiot who goes beserk gets 15 minutes of fame and we read all about fiscal cliffs and subway pushers, who are becoming a bit of a phenomenon here in New York - but what about some press telling us how to improve our world and create jobs in the US?
Now, the hemp issue takes some time to understand, what with the confusion about hemp and marijuana - created by the Hearst press - and all the different legislations involving hemp from the present status to arguments in the House about US vs Russian hemp for the US Navy (Russian hemp was preferred - I digress into a technical point here that many journalists would only find too much to work out - but the retting process was superior in Russia to the one in the US) to preemptive strikes made against the French by the British in the 18th century - there is a lot to know about what was once the world's most traded commodity.
But I can simplify and provide a focus: we need to have this commodity and we need to unify and get behing making it legal in the US - so please do three things:
First, sign the petition up at www.minawear.com/about-us/
Second, write to you Congressman if you are in the US.
Third, write to the press anywhere in the world, and see if you can get a journalists not too involved with the latest on Lindsay Lohan and get them to do an article - I did this a while back, it took a lot of persistance, but the Guardian finally did a full page feature on hemp which is still up on the web.

So that is the plan, I hope you are all off to a great New Year or already in it by the time you are reading this!

4 comments:

Jokerman said...

Here's to 2013 for hemp - everybody gotta get on that petition! We wasted too much time over the years just moaning about it on blogs and doing nothing and fighting among ourselves and getting stoned.
Time for action, real men stand up for America and sign this.

Carlos said...

That petition is crucial. And that site, Minawear, is really cool, it is a good advertisement for hemp.

Unknown said...

OK, I did the first thing, signed the petition, working on the rest.

Phil Telic said...

There is certainly more attention on this issue, but sadly, not enough, with mainstream journalists being too lazy to write about it.
It is up to bloggers mainly to make this happen.
www.minawear.com is a good place to look.