Rolling Stoned

As a hemp blog, this is certainly bound to be confused with, and share some attention with, drug sites. Hemp is, after all, Cannabis sativa, perhaps the world's most used drug, with a wide range of applications medicinally and many varieties of hash and marijuana.
However, I happen to be a drug free person; and I am also a victim of drug related violence, when here in Manhattan I was held down and stabbed on East 23rd Street at the notorious Kenmore Hotel, which was later taken over, with some assistance on my part, by local, state and federal law enforcement.
Enigma thus casts its shadow over my work, with  my hand forced to deal with a wide range of issues and characters, including marijuana. And much as I endorse making both industrial hemp and marijuana legal, I am not about to support in any way drug addiction or the sick, violent world of drug dealing.
As a victim of violent drug dealers, I am disgusted by the recent article in Rolling Stone in which not only a drug dealer, but a terrorist who has killed American citizens while living in the lap of luxury from his ill gotten gains, is interviewed by Sean Penn. This self serving thespian sees no duty to turn in a criminal; he gains attention and money from his chat with the lowlife, and does not take into account the deaths of his fellow American, many of them babies and children, who die each year due to the greed of  drug dealers.
In some countries what he has done is illegal. It is immoral anywhere. The only interaction with El Chapo should be to make an arrest, such as I performed on drug dealers here in Manhattan, after they came to my attention by slashing the face of a former Marine. Navy man that I am,  I did not see fit to let this go. And it did not have to be a fellow serviceman who was their victim; I feel the same obligation to anyone, including  babies and children, and that is the reality that Penn and Rolling Stone seem to lack awareness of. In the world of Hollywood and hip mags, drugs are just par for the course or even way cool.
They are not. Drugs kill, drugs destroy lives, and drugs are a MAJOR part of the economic woes in America today. But noting such issues and caring for them is NOT cool in some circles; in fact, it can get you sneered at.
Rolling Stone has to learn to draw the line. It does not need to give the perception of glamorizing drug dealers, terrorists and fools to remain hip. I  count myself among its readers,  partly for the music angle, and partly for works by veteran journalists such as Matt Taibbi. But I am in the mood to boycott this publication and call upon everyone in America to do the same.
A tough line against drugs and any parties promoting drugs or making them seem cool is what is needed. But before I call a boycott - standing outside their 6th Avenue midtown offices with posters and sign up sheets, I would like to talk to them and work on remedy.
If they are man enough to meet with me, we can work this out. If not, and I end up 'talking to the hand' with unanswered emails and labyrinth like phone systems to waste my time, then I am left  no choice but to get in their face, like I did when drug dealers got out of line.
I am a man. A man stands up for real issues and meets the needs in his society. Talking to El Chapo may be 'way cool' and help to sell magazines, but it is not how to meets no need. Arresting him and having information on his whereabouts is; and that part took real men, not hipster actors.
Real men, in fact, died performing that, while actors went to the bank and partied, seeking the attention they did not deserve; and Rolling Stone was a vehicle for them to grab this attention.
Enough already. Rolling Stone will be hearing from me, with an amicable remedy in hand.
Part of which will be not about what they published; which, as one politician succinctly said is grotesque, but about the conspicuous absence of any major article on C. sativa as hemp. That is  not just a cool issue, but one which affects the US economy. Hemp gives farmers an easy to cultivate crop, producing a raw material that was used, incidentally, in the making of the first American flag. Let's hope that Rolling Stone did not run short on resources giving Penn and his pal the limelight, but that they are able to allocate time and funds to a seminal piece about something that has place in America's past, present and future.
Or would that just not be their kind of cool?

California governor approves hemp bill

(Editor's note: the article is mistaken about nine states cultivating and processing this plant. That number or more are considering such action, and Colorado farmers did plant hemp this spring.)

San Francisco Bay Guardian Online
28 September 2013

After being stuck in legislative limbo for 14 years, industrial hemp is now a sanctioned agricultural crop in the state of California.
The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act (SB 566) was signed into law on Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown, after years of deliberation dating back to 1999, a process that included multiple gubernatorial vetoes. The freshly signed law will allow approved California residents to grow hemp for industrial purposes by reclassifying the once-felonious plant as a "fiber or oilseed crop."
SB 566, a bill championed since 2005 by Sen. Mark Leno (D), defines industrial hemp as the "nonpsychoactive types of the plant Cannabis saliva L. and the seed produced therefrom, having no more than 3/10 of 1 percent of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) contained in the dried flowering tops."
In simpler terms: It doesn't protect marijuana, but rather marijuana's less mind-bending cousin, which is far more useful as a raw industrial material.
"We are very pleased to have the signature," Sen. Leno told the Guardian. "It's been a 10-year effort to get here. It's a job still, but [the passing of SB 566] will help sustain family farms in California for the future and likely create more job opportunities. Hemp is a $500 million a year industry in California, and it's growing at 10 percent annually."
California now follows in the footsteps of nine other states and 30 other countries that have reclassified the innocuous plant as a crop with agricultural and commercial value. And it is quite valuable.
"This is a miracle plant that has served the planet earth well for, literally, millennia, and that we currently legally manufacture and sell thousands of hemp products including food, clothing, shelter, paper, fuel, all biodegradable products," said Leno. "It's renewable every 90 days, grows without herbicides, pesticides and fungicides, and needs less water than corn. It is the definition of sustainability."
But the reputation of hemp hasn't always had champions like Sen. Leno. Since the initial proposal of HR 32 back in 1999, the bill has been vetoed four times by three different governors. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cited a "false sense of security" he feared would be cultivated amongst the growers of the crop, due to its illegality at a federal level.
Gov. Brown had previously shot down the proposed legislation in 2011, citing a gap in state and federal law as the reason. However, he did remark in his veto message at the time that "it is absurd that hemp is being imported into the state, but our farmers cannot grow it."
And it would seem that Brown's recognition of hemp’s merits finally outweighed his concern over the potential for California growers to face federal prosecution, which is a major relief for the architects of SB 566. Now Californians can stop relying on imported hemp from Mexico and Canada (among other places) and start legally manufacturing their own.
"We currently manufacture literally thousands of [hemp] products — legally — and sell them," said Leno. "This is why this issue has been so nonsensical."
The "nonsensical" issue has had deep roots, given hemp's historically ambiguous federal standing. As Brown’s 2011 veto message noted, "federal law clearly establishes that all cannabis plants, including industrial hemp, are marijuana, which is a federally regulated controlled substance."
But that isn't a universally held assertion. Back in 1970, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970 "explicitly excludes nonpsychoactive hemp from the definition of marijuana," a decision that the federal government never appealed. It's a decision that Sen. Leno agrees with.
"We've always believed that there is no federal preemption, because we believe that that court case ruled that Congress had knowingly exempted industrial hemp from the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 –because it's not a drug," said Leno.
Now the state of California can do what more than 30 countries (including Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany and China) and nine states are already doing: Cultivating and processing a plant that many have touted as the "miracle plant."
Now that SB 566 has passed, however, the looming question still remains as to how the federal government will respond. But Leno is confident that it will respect the will of California lawmakers.
"I have great confidence in a recent statement by Attorney General Eric Holder," said Leno. "He's said that if a state puts into place a legal allowance and regulatory scheme, that the federal government would not interfere with marijuana. Now, we need clarification between hemp and marijuana, but there's no sensical way that that could be interpreted that hemp is excluded, given that hemp's not a drug."
Either way, hemp is on the horizon here in California.

Oregon set to grow hemp

A historic federal decision not to challenge marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington is also a green light for industrial hemp production in Oregon, advocates say.
Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, who co-sponsored a 2009 law legalizing hemp production that has since been on hold, said the new federal stance on marijuana should allow the state to start crafting rules on hemp.
"Sounds like we will be having a conversation with the Department of Agriculture and figuring out what the next steps are," said Prozanski.
And federal authorities appear unlikely to question Prozanski's interpretation of the Aug. 29 memo, written by the Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole, laying out the administration's new approach to state marijuana laws.
Amanda Marshall, the U.S. Attorney for Oregon and the state's highest ranking federal law enforcement official, told The Oregonian that her office would not interfere with hemp production in Oregon as long as the state creates "robust" regulatory controls and well-funded enforcement.
"Hemp is cannabis," Marshall said. "It's marijuana, and under federal law, it's exactly the same thing."
Oregon is one of seven states with laws that permit the production of industrial hemp, a non-intoxicating relative of marijuana grown for its sturdy fiber and seeds. But Oregon agriculture officials have held off implementing the 2009 law, saying they would wait until the federal government reclassified marijuana from a substance prone to abuse and lacking medicinal value.

Sen. Floyd Prozanski Tyler Tjomsland / The Oregonian

Elsewhere in the country, hemp advocates have reacted to the federal government's new position on cannabis by moving ahead with legal hemp production.
Kentucky's top agriculture official said the Cole memo is all he needs to move forward.
James Comer, the elected Republican commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, said U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, also a Republican, plans to fire off a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.'s office making clear that Kentucky will implement its new industrial hemp law.
"We are going to say, 'This is our how our legal counsel interprets it. We are going to proceed unless you specifically tell us otherwise,'" Comer said.
During a break from meeting with Congressional staffers in Washington, D.C. to press his case Tuesday, Comer said Kentucky has a long history of hemp cultivation. It dates to the 1800s through 1920, and then again during World War II, when hemp was a major crop used in rope.
"It grows well in Kentucky," said Comer, who opposes legalization of marijuana and medical marijuana. "We have been looking for an alternative to tobacco."

Hemp history

Hemp and marijuana are different types of the same species, Cannabis sativa.
But hemp lacks marijuana's most coveted component: THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol. In hemp's case, the gene that fires up marijuana's high THC production is essentially turned off. So while hemp's sturdy stalks provide fiber for textiles and its seeds can be added to yogurt and smoothies, the plant is a lousy choice for people seeking marijuana's high.
"Basically, the breeding of hemp has removed the ability to make THC in that plant," said Jon Page, a plant biochemist and adjunct biology professor at Canada's University of Saskatchewan.
For 50 years, growers have bred strains of hemp for its seed and fiber while dramatically reducing the plant's THC content.
Countries that allow hemp production today sanction a select list of well-established strains that have been bred to have exceptionally low THC. Canada and European countries cap hemp's THC level at less than .3 percent.

Amanda Marshall

Industrial hemp in the United States was regulated beginning in 1937, then outlawed with the passage in 1970 of the Controlled Substances Act. Federal law makes no distinction between hemp and marijuana.
Traditionally, opponents of hemp have worried its cultivation would complicate efforts to enforce marijuana laws. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has said any amount of THC is a concern. The agency also has warned hemp production could be used to conceal marijuana production, because it's difficult to tell the difference between the plants, and that state-sanctioned hemp could lead to legalized marijuana.
Kevin Sabet, an outspoken opponent of marijuana legalization, said prevention experts worry acceptance of hemp "softens the attitude" toward marijuana.
But "aside from a core group activists who think hemp can be an economic boon," he said, hemp is a side issue in the marijuana debate.
Advocates envision a vast American market for the crop.
Federal marijuana policy, however, has been a hurdle. The government can file forfeiture proceedings against assets of people suspected of breaking the law.
"The biggest elephant in the room is civil asset forfeiture," said Tom Murphy, national outreach coordinator for Vote Hemp, an advocacy group. "You would literally be betting the farm to find out if you could grow hemp."
Last month's Cole memo, which spelled out eight priorities that will guide the government's approach to marijuana enforcement, changes the equation, hemp activists hope.
Marshall, Oregon's top federal prosecutor, shed some light on the memo's implications for hemp in an interview last week. The government, she said, would require states to provide the same stringent rules for hemp production that federal officials expect of states that allow recreational and medical cannabis.
"And if they fail to do that, then my office would come in and take action, either by criminally prosecuting individuals or civil forfeitures or potentially attacking the regulatory scheme in court," she said.

A new crop?

David Bronner, in a 2012 photograph, stands with a vat that feeds an assembly line for Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, which contains hemp oil as a key ingredient.Associated Press/Lenny Ignelzi

For a glimpse at what hemp production might mean for states like Oregon, look to Canada and China, major international exporters of hemp.
According to data provided to The Oregonian by Statistics Canada, a government agency, India is the largest market for Canadian hemp by weight, though the United States buys more hemp seed than any other country, generally for food and beauty products. China, also a major international exporter of hemp, tends to produce hemp that's used for textiles.
The value of Canadian hemp has mushroomed since 2008, government statistics show. Last year Canada exported about $20.2 million in hemp, $17.7 million of it to the United States.
However, Canadian industrial hemp production, legalized 15 years ago, remains a niche industry dwarfed by conventional crops like wheat, said Anndrea Hermann, who grows hemp in Canada and teaches a course on industrial hemp at Oregon State University.
Even if states move forward with plans for hemp production, the crop faces considerable challenges. A 2013 report by the Congressional Research Service said the international market for hemp remains small and that global competition is bound to be stiff.
And in the Pacific Northwest, hemp farmers may encounter difficulty growing the crop. A 1998 OSU study concluded hemp would likely need irrigation to maximize productivity, putting it in "direct competition with the highest value crops" in the region.

The next steps

Oregon agriculture officials said they plan to research whether the federal memo has implications here. Lindsay Eng, a certification manager with the agency, said officials will seek a legal opinion from the Oregon Department of Justice. The chief concern, she said, is marijuana's outlaw status.
Prozanski, the state lawmaker, said he hopes to arrange a meeting with top agriculture officials this month.
Hemp supporters are watching closely what happens in Oregon and elsewhere.
David Bronner, co-owner of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps and a major financial backer of the hemp lobby, said his Escondido, Calif., company imports 40,000 pounds of unrefined hemp seed oil from Canada each year. Hemp makes Dr. Bronner's soaps smoother and less drying, said Bronner.
Bronner said he hopes the Cole memo clears the way for an American hemp industry to take root.
"There is no way that the feds could justify a hands off approach to recreational marijuana and then interfere with industrial hemp," said Bronner. "It makes no sense."
-- Noelle Crombie

Kentucky to challenge feds on hemp

<sup>One more state is willing to just let it grow: Kentucky. Colorado farmers planted
hemp despite the federal ban earlier this year, and now Kentucky is considering doing the same.  The petition is still up to sign for lifting the federal ban, it goes to the White House when we get 25,000 signatures, please be one of those - www.minawear.com/about-us/ is where to go, just takes a few moments to do!
The article below gives us the latest in this saga from Kentucky:



Kentucky’s Commissioner of Agriculture James Comer said Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement last week of changes in the Justice Department’s marijuana policy could mean that the state can move ahead with industrial hemp farming. Louisville’s WDRB reported that Comer intends to forge ahead with industrial hemp in hopes that federal policy will continue to mellow with regards to marijuana.
“This is going to happen sooner than many of us thought,” said Comer. The state’s industrial hemp commission intends to meet next week and decide whether to proceed with hemp farming in Kentucky. Comer is sanguine enough about the outcome that he is already courting hemp processing companies in hopes that they will do business in the state.
Hemp and marijuana are both species of the plant Cannabis sativa L, but marijuana contains high amounts of THC, the psychoactive chemical that produces a “high” in users. Hemp does not contain enough THC to get users high, but both species of Cannabis are illegal to grow and cultivate in the U.S., except in the 20 states that have legalized medical marijuana for medical use or Colorado and Washington, which have also made marijuana legal for recreational use.</sup>

Hemp is grown for its oil, seeds and fibers, which Comer believes will re-invigorate Kentucky’s agricultural economy. He is eager to move forward.
“The DOJ is saying that is saying that it’s legal to grow marijuana in states that have a regulatory framework but not legal to grow hemp? I don’t think so,” said Comer to reporters. “We’re going to proceed unless the DOJ specifically tells us not to proceed.”
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) issued a statement supporting Comer on Wednesday.
“I support Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer in his efforts to move forward with the production of industrial hemp in the Commonwealth,” Paul wrote. “This fight has always been about jobs and providing another opportunity for Kentucky’s farmers, and I expect the Obama Administration to treat all states equally in this process. I will continue to fight at the federal level to enact legislation to secure this new industry for Kentucky.”
The Kentucky state state legislature passed a measure earlier this year legalizing hemp production in the state. Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear withheld his option to veto, saying, “I strongly support efforts to create additional legal cash crops for our farm communities. At the same time, we have a tremendous drug problem in Kentucky, and I want to make sure that we don’t do anything that will increase that drug problem. I still share the same concerns our law enforcement officers have about the impact hemp cultivation may have on our drug eradication efforts.”

WDRB 41 Louisville News

Irvin Rosenfeld in the New York Daily News rebuts the naysayers medical marijuana

As New York State considers legalizing medical marijuana, opponents have called it a scam, asking, If it’s a medicine, why doesn’t the federal government treat it like one?
Well, I am here to tell you: It does. I know. The feds send me marijuana every month, and have for more than 30 years.
I spent my youth like millions of other American boys, until I turned 10. I was playing shortstop and made the throw to first to end the game and seal our one-run victory. I was going to celebrate by tossing my glove in the air. Only, I couldn’t: My entire arm was paralyzed.
After seeing an orthopedic specialist, I was told I had multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses, a rare, hereditary bone disease that limits growth and mobility. I also suffer from the elaborately named disease pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism, which means I have low calcium and high phosphate levels.

Doctors told me I had bone tumors throughout my body, and chronic pain became something I simply lived with.
I was taking the most powerful prescription drugs on the market to relax my muscles and help me sleep, but the side effects were serious. I had many dangerous operations to remove bone tumors before they became malignant.
When I first enrolled at Miami-Dade Community College in the early 1970s, a roommate of mine lit up a joint. I kicked her out after she refused to put it out.
At the time my medicine cabinet was filled with heavy narcotics — Dilaudid, Quaaludes and Valium — but I was not going to have pot in my apartment.
But pot was unavoidable, and to make friends, I eventually tried it. The first nine times I didn’t even feel a high, and I rarely do to this day. Many patients don’t get high.
But, the pot did have a profound effect on me. The 10th time I smoked, it occurred to me I had been seated for half an hour. For most, that would qualify as a lazy afternoon; for me, it was remarkable. I hadn’t sat for 30 minutes straight in almost five years. The pot had eased my pain and muscle tension. I did some research and found that prior to 1937, almost every American pharmaceutical company manufactured cannabis-based drugs. I also found out the federal government had its own marijuana farm.
Starting in the late 1960s, the University of Mississippi operated a federally approved and legal marijuana farm and production facility. The National Institute on Drug Abuse contracts with the university’s lab to grow, harvest, process and ship marijuana to licensed facilities across the country for research purposes.
Armed with these two nuggets of information, I decided to experiment. For three weeks at a time, I’d smoke marijuana every day, and feel less pain and more alert. I cut back on Dilaudid and other meds. When I stopped smoking the pot, the pain would return and my prescription med intake would go back up. I knew I needed this medicine, even though the federal government said it had no medicinal value.
In 1972, I began challenging the federal government. I wrote my own scientific study and submitted it to the Food and Drug Administration. The agency stonewalled me until 1978, when I met Robert Randall, the first federal medical-marijuana patient, and we turned my study into a Compassionate Care Investigational New Drug Protocol, which was what he was on.
But the FDA told my doctor that it was still looking into other alternatives.

We pressed our case and finally received a hearing with the FDA in October 1982. I had 15 minutes to convince a board that marijuana dramatically improved the quality of my life. I received my first tin of medical marijuana about a month and a half later: 300 rolled marijuana cigarettes, courtesy of Uncle Sam.
The feds started to call the program the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program. In the late ’80s and early ’90s it expanded to include some HIV patients. Despite its success, the program was closed in 1992. The 13 of us then on the program were grandfathered in, so that we wouldn’t sue the government.
Today, there are only four of us still alive, who continue to receive our medical marijuana from the feds — living, breathing symbols of our government’s medical marijuana hypocrisy. By sending me my medicine every month, it acknowledges cannabis works as medicine — which is why it is inexplicable to me that pot continues to be classified as a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law.
The federal government says pot has no medical use, but it’s doing so with one hand behind its back and its fingers crossed.
State lawmakers need to know that marijuana is indeed a gateway drug — away from pain and suffering and toward a better life.
Rosenfeld is the author of “My Medicine: How I Convinced the U.S. Government to Provide My Marijuana and Helped Launch a National Movement.”


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/real-dope-medical-pot-article-1.1431275?pgno=1#ixzz2cXgFVSHO


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/real-dope-medical-pot-article-1.1431275#ixzz2cXfoRkFl

New York Times article on hemp sowing in Colorado

Groundwork Laid, Growers Turn to Hemp in Colorado

Matthew Staver for The New York Times

“I’m not going to hide anymore,” said Ryan Loflin, who sowed hemp on his 60 acres in Springfield, Colo. The state has a hemp commission to write rules.

By JACK HEALY

 

SPRINGFIELD, Colo. — Along the plains of eastern Colorado, on a patch of soil where his father once raised alfalfa, Ryan Loflin is growing a leafy green challenge to the nation’s drug law.

Matthew Staver for The New York Times

As part of regulation, Colorado will be able to randomly test hemp crops to ensure that they have only trace amounts of THC, a chemical in marijuana.

His fields are sown with hemp, a tame cousin of marijuana that was once grown openly in the United States but is now outlawed as a controlled substance. Last year, as Colorado voters legalized marijuana for recreational use, they also approved a measure laying a path for farmers like Mr. Loflin, 40, to once again grow and harvest hemp, a potentially lucrative crop that can be processed into goods as diverse as cooking oil, clothing and building material. This spring, he became the first farmer in Colorado to publicly sow his fields with hemp seed.

“I’m not going to hide anymore,” he said one recent morning after striding through a sea of hip-high plants growing fast under the sun.

Mr. Loflin’s 60-acre experiment is one of an estimated two dozen small hemp plantings sprouting in Colorado. Hemp cultivation presents a vexing problem for the federal government, which draws no distinction between hemp and marijuana, as it decides how to respond to a new era of legalized marijuana in Colorado and Washington State.

State agencies have worked quickly to create new rules, licenses and taxes for hemp and recreational marijuana. Many towns have voted to ban the new retailers; others have decided to regulate them. Denver, for example, is proposing a 5 percent tax on recreational marijuana sales.

Colorado has set up an industrial hemp commission to write rules to register hemp farmers and charge them a fee to grow the crop commercially.

“It’s something that can be copied and used nationally,” said Michael Bowman, a farmer in northeastern Colorado who sits on the state hemp commission. “We’re trying to build a legitimate industry.”

The state will also be able to randomly test crops to ensure that they contain no more than 0.3 percent THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, far below the level found in marijuana.

Opponents say that hemp and marijuana are essentially the same plant and that both contain the same psychoactive substance. But supporters say that comparing hemp with potent strains of marijuana is like comparing a nonalcoholic beer with a bottle of vodka.

Still, farmers and marijuana advocates worry: will drug agents stand on the sidelines and allow Colorado and Washington to pursue their own experiments with legalization? Or will the federal government crack down to assert its authority over drug policies?

A spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Denver said hemp farmers were “not on our radar,” but R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Obama administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, has offered stern words against both marijuana and hemp, saying that no matter what states did, the plants were still illegal in the federal government’s view.

“Hemp and marijuana are part of the same species of cannabis plant,” Mr. Kerlikowske wrote in response to a 2011 petition that sought to legalize hemp cultivation. “While most of the THC in cannabis plants is concentrated in the marijuana, all parts of the plant, including hemp, can contain THC, a Schedule I controlled substance.”

Lately, hemp has been tiptoeing toward the agricultural mainstream, gaining support from farmers’ trade groups and a wide array of politicians in statehouses and in Washington. In the Republican-controlled House, a provision tucked into the farm bill would let universities in hemp-friendly states grow small plots for research.

A handful of states, from liberal Vermont to conservative North Dakota and Kentucky, have voted to allow commercial hemp. In Vermont, any farmers who want to register as hemp growers under a new state program have to sign a form acknowledging that they risk losing their agricultural subsidies, farm equipment and livelihoods if federal agents decide to swoop in.

Every year, the federal authorities seize and destroy millions of marijuana plants — a crackdown that has rattled the medical marijuana industry in California — but the pace of seizures has dropped sharply in recent years. In 2012, federal officials reported that 3.9 million cannabis plants had been destroyed under D.E.A. eradication efforts. A year earlier, officials said they had eradicated 6.7 million plants.

Beyond the risk of federal raids and seizures, Kevin Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Obama administration, said the market for hemp goods is still vanishingly small and questioned whether it could really be a panacea for farmers.

 

Matthew Staver for The New York Times

Ryan Loflin and other hemp farmers walk a precarious line, as the state said it would not authorize planting until next year.                           

“Hemp is the redheaded stepchild of marijuana policy, and probably for good reason,” said Mr. Sabet, who is now the director of the Drug Policy Institute. “In a world with finite capacity to handle drug problems, my advice would be for people to think less about an insignificant issue like hemp and more about the very real issues of drug addiction, marijuana commercialization and glamorization, and how to make our policies work better.”

Even without the threat of federal raids, transforming hemp into a cash crop will be like asking a clear sky for rain. Viable seeds are illegal and scarce. Few working farmers or experts in the United States have any expertise in growing hemp. And there is basically no infrastructure to process the plants into legal components like oil, fibers and proteins.

In Colorado, Jason Lauve, the executive director of Hemp Cleans, an advocacy group, said he has spoken with about two dozen small farmers and landowners who are cautiously growing their first hemp crops.

“We’re really walking gently,” Mr. Lauve said. “We don’t want to put people at risk. We want to see how much states’ rights really protect us, versus the jurisdiction of the federal government.”

Even here, farmers like Mr. Loflin are walking a precarious line. Although Colorado voters opened the door to hemp farming last year, the state warned would-be hemp farmers in May that they would not be authorized to plant until early in 2014.

But this spring, Mr. Loflin decided it was time. For years, he had read about how hemp could replenish undernourished soil and be woven and squeezed into a wide array of products. He drinks a shot of hemp oil for his health every day — “It tastes kind of like grass” — and believes the plant could one day lift the fortunes of struggling small farmers.

He spent the winter assembling a seed collection from suppliers in Britain, Canada, China and Germany, where hemp is legal. They entered the country via U.P.S., labeled “bird seed” or “toasted hemp seed.” One bag was seized by customs officials, he said. Some 1,500 pounds of seeds were not.

At the end of June, with more than $15,000 invested in the venture, he planted his crop. He said he alerted his neighbors and has not gotten any complaints from people around Springfield, or from federal officials.

When Mr. Loflin visits the farm from his home in western Colorado, he half-expects to see D.E.A. cars racing down Highway 160 to burn down his crop before harvest. But he believes he can stake a living in hemp’s oily seeds and versatile fibers. He has gotten tired of his day job building ski homes in the mountains. To him, hemp’s outlaw status is just another hazard of starting a business.

“It’s well worth the risk,” he said. “It’s hemp. Come on, it just needs to be done.”

Vermont: Grow Hemp or Die

Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham, chair of the House Agriculture Committee. Photo by Andrew Stein

Last week, the House Agriculture and Forest Products Committee unanimously voted to create a state-sanctioned process to grow hemp, despite federal regulations essentially prohibiting the action.
Under the bill, hemp is defined as Cannabis Sativa with a tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, concentration of 0.3 percent or less. The low-potency form of marijuana is touted in the bill for its long-standing market presence and strength in industries like textiles, clothing, bio-fuel, paper, cosmetics and more.
Rep. Teo Zagar, D-Barnard, supports the bill. “The governor likes to say we have an agricultural renaissance happening, and I think this bill could accelerate that,” Zagar said. “Hemp is an amazingly versatile, valuable and productive crop that could serve a number of needs in Vermont and give farmers a bunch of new tools.”
The House Agriculture Committee re-drafted S.157, which passed out of the Senate at the end of March. The bill would replace a Vermont statute that permits the growing of industrial hemp, but only when federal regulation permits it.
The new provision, however, runs afoul of federal regulations, and House members say Congress must step in to legalize hemp.
“We’ve got to send a message,” said Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham, who chairs the House Agriculture Committee. “This is the kind of message I think will mean something to the federal delegation, and Sen. Leahy’s committee has a hemp bill before them.”
In January, Sen. Patrick Leahy wrote to the Drug Enforcement Administration asking for information about the way in which the agency regulates hemp. Last week, Leahy received a response from Eric Akers, deputy chief of the DEA, reiterating that cannabis is an illegal, controlled substance.
“Under the Controlled Substances Act, cannabis is a Schedule I controlled substance regardless of potency,” Akers wrote. The DEA allows growers to register for the the legal cultivation of cannabis with a long list of requirements.
Akers wrote that he couldn’t tell the senator how many people had sought to cultivate cannabis for industrial purposes because the administration doesn’t track the information. Since 2000, three of eight applicants were granted permission to grow hemp, according to Akers, and one of the registrations is pending until “required security measures” are taken. The other four applicants were denied because they would not install the feds’ security measures.
“DEA believes the current regulatory framework governing these types of applications … remains adequate,” Akers concluded. “In this vein, please note that even those cannabis plants that have a relatively low THC concentration provide a substantial source of psychoactive material that would be readily exploited by drug seekers — for example, manufacturers of ‘hash oil’ — if inadequate security measures were tolerated.”
The registration process that the State of Vermont would impose under the House bill would be much more lax than the federal law. It would require the grower to submit to the Secretary of Agriculture his or her name and address, a statement that the cannabis variety does not exceed the state potency threshold, and the location and acreage of the hemp parcels. The bill would give the Agriculture Secretary the power to leverage an annual $25 registration fee for administration purposes.
The Vermont registration literature would also come with the following caveat: “Federal prosecution for growing hemp in violation of federal law may include criminal penalties, forfeiture of property, and loss of access to federal agricultural benefits, including agricultural loans, conservation programs, and insurance programs.”
One person who might be willing to risk such penalties is Rep. Will Stevens, I-Shoreham, who owns Golden Russet Farm.
“I’ll look into the option as part of my management plan,” Stevens said. “I’d be happy to look at it as part of our crop rotation. If hemp fits into that, fine. And if we can figure out ways to harvest it and market it, even better.”
Robb Kidd, an organizer for the advocacy group Rural Vermont, said he knows numerous farmers who are interested in the prospect. Rural Vermont has been advocating for the legalization of industrial hemp production for almost a decade. He says the bill that passed out of the House Agriculture Committee is the group’s “ideal, dream bill.”
“Times have changed dramatically,” he said. “Everybody has realized the economic opportunity. They have realized we need to get this moving, and the federal government delay is not helping.”
Correction: Rep. Teo Zagar represents Barnard, not Woodstock.

Hemp plants under cultivation in Colorado

Brandon Rittiman on 9NEWS in Colorado reports on the latest on hemp:

 

DENVER - The Colorado Senate recently did what the voters asked, passing SB241.

Senate Bill 241 would legalize growing of industrial hemp in Colorado.

That vote was unanimous, but the bill still needs to pass the House.

In a warehouse North of Denver in Lafayette, 9NEWS toured a small operation growing about a dozen hemp plants.

The plants are Cannabis sativa, the same species as some marijuana plants, but this would be the marijuana equivalent of non-alcoholic beer.

When grown to produce an intoxicating drug, the plant's weight is typically five to 15 percent THC. By definition, industrial hemp must contain less than 0.3 percent of the drug.

"It'd be like smoking cabbage," Erik Hunter with non-profit group HempCleans said. "You'd get a taste in your mouth and nothing else. You wouldn't get high."

Because of the trace amounts of THC, hemp remains illegal to grow under federal law.

That wasn't always the case.

A 1942 film title "Hemp for Victory" was produced by the US Department of Agriculture to encourage farmers to grow more hemp crops for the war effort.

The stalks of hemp plants contain fibers that are useful in textiles and rope.

Without textile mills geared for hemp production, Colorado's first hemp crops will likely be harvested for hemp seeds.

Seeds can be pressed for oil, used whole in food, or ground into meal. The THC is eliminated in processing.

"Nobody has ever failed a drug test from eating hemp seeds," Hunter said.

There have been concerns that the low amount of THC in hemp could be concentrated into a drug-grade material, or that hemp crops could be used to disguise fields of drug-grade marijuana.

The bill working through Colorado's legislature would require hemp farmers to register and pay a fee with the state to cover mandatory sampling of plants. Farmers would also need to show they have an agreement with an in-state processor who will take the crops.

LA Times editorial supports hemp

The following appeared in the LA Times, and wow, it really is the press we need to be getting! Congratulations to their editor, and let's hope other papers care enough about America to follow suit. The LA Times by the way did a large feature on hemp years back by Lee Green, which is noted on this blog.

Editorial

Give this plant its due: legalize hemp

The highly useful weed has been entangled too long with that other 'weed.' That's silly.

The global market for hemp consists of some 25,000 products, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, including fabric, paper, rope, auto parts and home furnishings. (Los Angeles Times)

• Also
• A blow to California potheads
• Science isn't on the drug warriors' side [Blowback]
• The DEA's pot defense [Blowback]
• The DEA's marijuana mistake
• Forget the Russians: The drug cartels are coming
• Hey DEA dudes, drop the 'Reefer Madness' mentality
• X
  Overkill in the war on potMarijuana legalization: States send message, feds aren't listening Marijuana's hazy futureMarijuana: A failure to regulate, but not by dispensariesIn a haze on pot policy Putting a lid on L.A.'s pot dispensariesPhotos: L.A.'s marijuana dispensaries by type

 

February 25, 2013

As states of a more liberal bent battle the federal government over the legalization of medical and even recreational marijuana, another cannabis battle has reemerged in the farm states. But if pot smoking raises troubling moral and safety questions, industrial hemp does not.
Activists have been struggling to legalize hemp for decades in the U.S., but only recently has the issue seemingly caught fire in Congress. Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signed on to legislation that had for years been championed by Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the former GOP presidential contender, and has now been taken up by his son Rand, the Republican senator from Kentucky. It would remove hemp from the federal government's list of Schedule 1 controlled substances and make it legal to cultivate the plant.
What's so hep about hemp? Supporters tout it as a wonder fiber with dozens of potential uses that would find a lucrative market in the U.S. But while that may be an exaggeration — hemp is unlikely to become anything more than a specialty crop for a few hundred growers supplying goods to high-end food markets and low-end textile producers — there's no denying that it's a highly useful weed. The global market for hemp consists of some 25,000 products, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, including fabric, paper, rope, auto parts and home furnishings. Hemp seed, meanwhile, is an alternative protein source used in a variety of food and beverages, and can be pressed to make body oils, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.
Despite all this, it is illegal to grow hemp anywhere in the U.S. without permission from the Drug Enforcement Administration. There are currently no active federal licenses, so all hemp products produced here are made from imported material.
Based on its classification under the Controlled Substances Act, one might suspect that hemp provides a cheap high for pot fiends, but one would have to smoke an absurd amount of rope to catch a hemp buzz. The plant seems to have been deemed guilty by association with marijuana because both come from the same species, Cannabis sativa. But just as some mushrooms are magical while others are only good in a salad, not all varieties of cannabis are the same. The intoxicating chemical in marijuana, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is heavily concentrated in the marijuana plant: anywhere from 10% to 30%. The THC content of hemp, by contrast, is less than 1%, and in the varieties legally cultivated in the European Union and Canada must be less than 0.3%.
Historically, hemp was an important crop in the U.S. before it was caught up in an anti-marijuana crusade in the 1930s. When the Controlled Substances Act was approved in 1970, it took the definition of marijuana from the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, which considered all varieties of Cannabis sativa to be dangerous and narcotic. Despite court challenges, the DEA continues to insist that any plant containing THC, no matter how little, must be tightly controlled.
Legalization opponents, including the California Narcotics Officers Assn., argue that legalizing hemp would complicate the enforcement of laws against cultivating marijuana because the plants are almost indistinguishable from each other; marijuana growers, in other words, could easily conceal their plants in hemp fields. The association opposed a 2011 state bill to create pilot programs for hemp cultivation, which was approved by the Legislature but vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown because hemp production violates federal law.
Of course, few sensible growers of marijuana would raise their plants in a hemp field. The two varieties would cross-pollinate, severely lowering the pot's THC content and rendering it all but useless medicinally or as a recreational drug.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether marijuana should be legalized. But the dangers of growing industrial hemp are next to nonexistent. To date, nine states have approved its cultivation, but none has any active fields because of a refusal by the DEA to grant growing permits.
Enough. Hemp is a rare issue that Republicans and Democrats, and members of Congress from both rural and urban states, ought to be able to agree on. Legalize it.

Drinking hemp in Florida

Nectar Brewing's Humboldt Brown. / Tim Dohms/News Journal correspondent

An article by Tim Dohms in the News Journal tells us they are drinking hemp in the Sunshine State!

Hopjacks Filling Station

 

There’s an elephant in the room that many are very reluctant to talk about. It’s a polarizing issue that you’re either for or against with very little middle ground. It’s been lionized and demonized as much as it’s been supported by logic, history, fact and the occasional comedy. Its name is cannabis.
Just typing that word, I can hear the conservative readers’ muscles tensing up.
Bear with me here. I’m not out to proselytize the virtues of marijuana; I don’t use the stuff. There is enough evidence available that shows that it does, indeed, have numerous medical benefits to those ailing from, say, cancer or AIDS or glaucoma.
We could go 12 rounds on the topic , but we’re not. This is, after all, a beer enthusiasts’ column, and I need to stick to topic.
To put a very fine point on the subject, I feel I need to remind the public that marijuana’s closest cousin, botanically speaking, is hops.
Before any parents get into a lather over little Johnny running out to score some whole-cone Cascade hops, let me reiterate that ganja and hops are from the same family — Cannabaceae — and not a narcotic unto themselves.
Brewers have a different approach to utilize non-THC hemp product, however, and that’s by using hemp seed as an ingredient. It makes sense; if one of beer’s main ingredients is related to that other plant, let’s see how they play together.
Nectar Brewing has just such a product called Humboldt Brown. It’s off-brown with red highlights around the edges and a tan head that leaves behind sticky lacing.
As a brown ale, all the classic scents are there: caramel malt, toasted nuts and a little toffee. What the hemp seed does is introduce a toasty, buttery note to the bready, cocoa-ish, light coffee-like flavors along with a slick and slippery texture. Just enough hops show up at the end to impart a twinge of bitterness to the finish.
A beverage this good should be illegal. Oh, wait … forget I said that.

Hopjacks Filling Station, 3101 E. Cervantes St., www.hopjacksfillingstation.com. Hopjacks Pizza Kitchen and Taproom, 10 Palafox Place and 204 E. Nine Mile Road. 497-6073, or visit hopjacks.com.

History of hemp in China

The cultivation and use of hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) in ancient China


by Xiaozhai Lu and Robert C. Clarke




Hemp in ancient Chinese literature Hemp was one of the earliest crop plants of China. Through long term efforts, the ancient Chinese domesticated hemp from a wild plant into a cultivated crop. According to the Chinese historic records and archeological data, the history of Chinese hemp cultivation and use spans approx. 5,000 to 6,000 years. The archeological record shows that China was the earliest region to cultivate and use hemp. From the time of the earliest primitive societies (about 4,000 -5,000 years ago) to the Qin and Hah dynasties (221 BC to 220 AD) ancient Chinese techniques of hemp sowing, cultivation, and processing developed rapidly and became fairly advanced.

The earliest Neolithic farming communities along the Wei and Yellow rivers cultivated hemp along with millet, wheat, beans, and rice. The oldest Chinese agricultural treatise is the Xia Xiao Zhengwritten circa the 16th century BC which names hemp as one of the main crops grown in ancient China (Yu 1987).

Remains of Cannabis fibers and seeds have been recovered from archeological sites especially near the Yellow and Yangtze rivers.

In the ancient Chinese works The Book of Songs (a book of culture and social customs) and The Annals (written by Bu-Wei Leu during the Warring States period (476 to 221 BC), there are records of six kinds of crops that the ancient Chinese generally planted. These crops were named "he, su, dao, shu, ma, and mai". 'Ma' is Cannabis hemp.

The Book of Odes or Shih Ching, written during the Western Zhou dynasty, describes the life of the Chinese people from the 11th to the 6th century BC and discusses hemp cultivation for both fiber and seed. The area whose description is encompassed by The Book of Odes lies south of present-day Beijing (Ho 1969).

There are also records about hemp cultivation and fertilization methods from the Zhou dynasty (1100 to 256 BC):
"Hoe up all the weeds in the field during the summer solstice (June 21), let them dry in the sun, and then bum them into ash. All these ashes will permeate into the soil after a heavy rain and the soil will be fertilized."

This is also one of the earliest mentions of using potash fertilizer in agriculture. There are other ancient Chinese agriculture books such as the Si Min Yue Ling written by Cui Shi during the Eastern Han dynasty (25 to 220 AD), Ji Sheng's Book written by Ji Sheng during the Western Han dynasty (206 BC to 24 AD), and Qi Min Yao Shu written by Gui Shi Xian during the Northern Wei dynasty (386 to 534 AD). All of these books contain accounts of hemp cultivation.

Ancient Chinese hemp cultivation techniques of collecting seeds, sowing time, field controls, and their influence on hemp quality were also recorded in the Essential Arts for the People or Qi Min Yao Shu which is a precious legacy of ancient Chinese science written 1,400 years ago. The Essential Arts for the People systematically summarized the ancient Chinese techniques of hemp cultivation.

In the Essential Arts for the People there are accurate records about the relation between the male hemp plant scattering pollen and the female hemp plant bearing seed.

"If we pull out the male hemp before it scatters pollen, the female plant cannot make seed.

Otherwise, the female plant's seed production will be influenced by the male hemp plants scattering pollen and during this period of time, the fiber of the male hemp plant is the best."

This ancient Chinese discovery of the dioecious nature of hemp came at least 1,500 years earlier than any mention in European publications.

The Essential Arts for the People also recommends that adzuki beans (Phaseolus angularis) is the best green manure crop to follow hemp (Bray 1984). This is one of the earliest mentions of the use of green manures, cover crops, and rotational cropping.

The Record of Rites or Li Chi is an ancient Chinese book of classical Confucian works written by his followers during the Qin dynasty (221 to 207 BC) and contains many detailed references to hemp. The Record of Rites describes the uses of hemp as the cloth of the peasant masses. Hemp textiles were common items of early Chinese culture used for many purposes throughout life, then, from swaddling clothes to funerary shrouds.

The cultivation technique of hemp was increasingly perfected during the Qin (221 to 207 BC) and Han dynasties (206 BC to 220 AD) there are detailed descriptions in Ji Sheng's Book of hemp's cultivation techniques and quality control,

"Deep plow and fertilize the soil before sowing the seed. When spring comes, about February to March, select the dusk of 4 rainy day to sow seeds. Remove the hemp's big leaves when it is growing.

Then thin out seedlings according to the distance of 9 per chi3. Fertilize the hemp with silkworm excrement when it has grown to one chi tall, and when it has grown to three chi tall, fertilize it with silkworm and pig excrement. Water the hemp frequently, and if there is much rain, the quantity of water should be decreased. The water from wells should be used where there is no river near the field and it should be warmed by the sun before using. By using all of these controls, the yield of dry stalks and leaves from each mu4 could be 50-100 shi5 and the lowest yield could be 30 shi. The quality of hemp fiber depends not only on the field controls, but also on the sowing time. If the sowing time is early, the fiber will be thick and strong and can be harvested early. Otherwise, the fiber will not be mature. So, it is better to sow hemp seed early instead of late."

We learn from these records that Han dynasty farmers not only knew to select the appropriate season to sow hemp, but also knew the principles of field controls, and selected the higher quality fibers from the male plants to spin textile yarn.

The Si Min Yue Ling is another ancient Chinese book which was written during the Eastern Han dynasty (25 to 220 AD). There are descriptions of hemp sowing and harvesting times in the book such as,

"Plow and fertilize in January. In February, sow the female hemp's seeds, and on a rainy day in May sow the male hemp's seeds. Then, harvest the hemp and spin it into cloth in October."

These records show that some of the hemp cultivation techniques used during the Han dynasty were quite different from the techniques used today. Perhaps the ancient Chinese sowed the seeds that were destined to be the seed plants early, so that they could reach a large size, before they were pollinated by the late sown male plants. This method could increase seed yield significantly.

The sowing methods written in the Essential Arts for the People are,

"First, soak the seed in water and sow them as soon as they germinate. Soak the seed in water for about the same time required to cook two shi of rice. Then spread the soaked seeds on the bamboo bed for about three to four cun6 in thickness. Stir the seed several times and after one night they will germinate. It is best for hemp to grow after a rain, when the rain has permeated into the soil. Second, in order to avoid plant diseases and insect pests, hemp should rotate with wheat, bean, and cereals. Third, different methods should be used with different soil moistures."

Field control methods are also described in the Essential Arts for the People.

"Disperse the sparrows for several days in order to protect the seeds that have just germinated from being eaten by them. When the seedlings have grown for some time, thin out weak ones so that there is some distance between two seedlings and good seedlings can grow well."

A simple method of distinguishing different sexes of hemp seeds was also presented in the Essential Arts for the People.

"Generally, male hemp seeds are white. There are two ways to examine the quality of the white seeds. The first is to bite a seed with the teeth, and if the inside of the seed is very dry, it should not be sown. Otherwise the seeds can be sown. The second method is to put the white seed in the mouth for some time. The seeds that do not turn black are good."

This passage indicates that ancient Chinese farmers already knew the methods for distinguishing the sex and quality of hemp seeds 1,800 years ago. Although the correctness of these methods is dubious, the innovative spirit of the ancient Chinese farmers is commendable.

The sowing time stated in this book is the same as that stated in the Si Min Yue Ling. A warning about late sowing is also included. The hemp sowing time is around the spring equinox.

"Sowing seeds ten days before the summer solstice is called late seeding. Late sown hemp will not grow vigorously and its fiber will be too thin and light to spin into yarn."

Hemp as a fiber crop in ancient China The ancient Chinese used the hemp plant for many different purposes. The bast fiber of the male plant was used to spin yarn and weave cloth. From the time of the earliest Chinese societies, until cotton was introduced into China during the Northern Song dynasty (960 to 1127 AD), hemp textile was the main cloth worn by the ancient Chinese. Many of the accounts of hemp use for cordage and textiles contained in the ancient Chinese texts have been corroborated by archeological discoveries.

During the Western Zhou dynasty (1100 to 771 BC) the hats of nobles were made of hemp.

The fine diameter of the yarn in the cloth was equivalent to modern 70-80 count yarn. High-quality raw material, along with advanced cultivation and processing techniques were needed to produce such fine cloth. The Book of Songs was written during the Western Zhou dynasty into the Spring and Autumn period (1100 BC to 600 BC). In a poem named 'The Pool in Front of the Main Gate' (written about 900 BC) in the chapter entitled 'Culture of the Chen State' (in southeast Henan province) there is a reference to hemp;

"The pool in front of the east gate could be used to Ou Ma. The pool in front of the east gate could be used to Ou Ning . . .". The phrase 'Ou Ma' means 'to ret hemp' and the phrase 'Ou Ning' means 'to ret high-quality white hemp'.

The Classics of History or Shu Ching, the earliest Chinese history, mentions the value of hemp for fiber, and reported that hemp was grown in present day Hunan and Anhui provinces (Li 1974).

The Er Ya, the earliest Chinese dictionary with cultural, agricultural, and social contents, was written about 2,200 years ago during the Qin (221 to 207 BC) or Western Han (206 BC to 24 AD) dynasties. In this book, there is a sentence;

"Male hemp is called xi ma, female hemp is called ju ma."This quote shows that the important discovery of hemp's dioecious sexuality was first recorded at a very early date in China. There are more mentions of hemp in this book, such as,

"Ju ma grows tall and straight. Its fiber is very thick and strong, and its seed can be eaten. The fiber of xi ma is thin and soft, and can be used to spin cloth.".

Several archeological discoveries have confirmed the accounts of the use of hemp textiles described in ancient Chinese books. Several pieces of pure hemp textiles were discovered in the ruins of the Shang dynasty period (1700 to 1100 BC) near Taixi village in Hebei province.

Imprints of hemp textiles and cordage adorn several fragments of pottery found amongst the ruins of Xi'an Banpo village in Shaanxi province. Through the C14 dating of these remains, they were confirmed as cultural relics of the Yangshao culture (4115 +/- 110 BC to 3535 +/105 BC) (Xi'an Banpo Museum 1963). Although the imprints of textiles and cordage could have been made from fibers other than hemp, hemp remains the most likely choice. Archeological strata at Xi'an Banpo contained large amounts of pollen identified as belonging to the genus Humulus. Humulus is the closest relative of Cannabis and their pollen grains are very similar in appearance. Pollen grains of Cannabis could easily have been confused with, and incorrectly identified as, Humulus pollen (Li 1974). Pottery fragments bearing rope imprints, have also been recovered from a Lung-shan culture site at Hsichou in Hunan province dated at between 230 +/- 95 BC and 1170 +/- BC (Li 1974).

Hemp cloth has a long association with burial rites. Corpses were often shrouded in hemp cloth before interment. Hemp corpse covers were recovered from Western Han Dynasty (206 BC to 24 AD) tombs in Gansu province. According to Li (1974), the hemp cloth outer shroud covered silk dresses and were tied with hemp ropes.

A piece of hemp cloth was unearthed at a ruin named Ma Wang Dui No. 1 near Changsha in Hunan province. Careful analysis showed that the fiber diameter was 21.83 microns, and the fiber cross sectional area was 153.01 square microns. Both values are very close to those common for present day hemp varieties. The weave of the cloth is relatively tight, indicating that weaving techniques had become quite advanced by this time.

A piece of hemp textile with a silver-white design was unearthed from a tomb in a cliff near Guixi in Jiangxi province and dated to the Spring and Autumn (770 to 476 BC) or Warring States period (476 to 221 BC).

During the Tang dynasty (618 to 907 AD), China had close trade relations with central and west Asian countries and there are many traces of hemp along the Silk Road. Two pairs of hemp shoes and a piece of hemp cloth were found in a tomb dated to 721 A.D. near Turfan in Xinjiang province of western China.

These archeological data show that the ancient Chinese had already known how to cultivate hemp and use its fiber to weave cloth at a very early date.

The use of hemp for paper making in ancient China Hemp fibers were also used long ago in ancient China to make paper. Pounded and disintegrated hemp fiber was used to make the world's oldest piece of paper, recovered from a tomb near Xi'an in Shaanxi province dating from 140-87 BC (Temple 1986). Ba Qiao paper which was made during the Western Han dynasty (206 BC to 24 AD) was unearthed near Xi'an in Shaanxi province and analysis showed that it was made from hemp fiber (Shaanxi Museum Xi'an). Scraps of hemp paper have also been recovered from Han dynasty tombs in Shanxi province. A piece of hemp paper bearing Chinese characters from the Analects of Confucius or Lun Yu was found near Turfan in Xinjiang province in a tomb dated to 1100 AD. White hemp paper shoes sewn with white hemp thread, and a piece of hemp fabric, were also recovered (Li 1974).

Hemp as a food crop in ancient China Cannabis seed was used for food by the ancient Chinese. The Book of Songs has the following mention of the use of hemp seed for food, "Farmers eat hemp seeds in September."

Hemp was commonly grown as a seed crop throughout the Spring and Autumn period (770 to 476 BC), Warring States period (476 to 221 BC), the Qin dynasty (221 to 207 BC), and the Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD).

The Li Qi places hemp among the "five grains" of ancient China which included barley, rice, wheat, and soybeans. Hemp seed remained a staple of the Chinese diet through the 10th century when other higher quality grain became more widespread (Li 1974).

There are hemp seeds and inscriptions of the characters ta ma on bones found amongst the relics unearthed from the Jin dynasty (265 to 420 AD) ruins in Henan province.

Among the sacrificial objects unearthed from the Han dynasty era Ma Wang Dui tomb near Changsha in Hunan province, hemp seeds were stored together with those of rice, millet, and wheat. Hemp seed remains were also found inside of earthenware grain storage jars recovered from a tomb at Shao-kou near the Han dynasty capital of Lo-yang in present day Hunan province (Yu 1977).

The use of hemp as medicine in ancient China Chinese accounts of medical or euphoriant use appear very early. In Shanxi Province, jade stone 'oath documents' contain the archaic character ma for hemp, along with the connotation of negative that denotes the stupefying nature of Cannabis hemp. This is the earliest reference to the psychoactive and psychological effects of Cannabis. The ancient Chinese medical texts make a clear distinction between ma fen or toxic, and ma ze or nontoxic, Cannabis seeds. The first mention of the medical or euphoriant uses of Cannabis appear in the Materia Medica Sutra or Pen Ts'ao originally attributed to Emperor Shen Nung who lived around 2,000 BC. However, the original book of the Materia Medica Sutra is lost and the oldest version in existence dates back to the first or second century AD. The Materia Medica Sutra says that:

"Ma fen (Cannabis seed) . . . if taken in excess will produce hallucinations (literally 'seeing devils'). If taken over a long term, it makes one communicate with spirits and lightens one's body."

During the second century AD the famous Chinese surgeon Hua T'o successfully used an anesthetic made from Cannabis seeds and wine during complicated abdominal surgery (Li 1974). TheMing'i Pieh'lu, written by the famous physician T'ao Hung Ching in the 5th century AD, says that:

"Ma fen is not much used in prescriptions (now-a-days). Necromancers use it in combination with ginseng to set forward time in order to reveal future events."

From the description of the spicy taste and the psychoactive effects of the ma fen Cannabis seed, it seems likely that the Materia Medica Sutra and the Ming'i Pieh'lu were actually referring to the resinous bract that surrounds each seed, rather than the seed itself. The quantity of Cannabis used must have been fairly large to cause an anesthetic effect (Mechoulam 1986). The wine may have served to extract the active compounds from the Cannabis and concentrate them. Thus, these are the earliest Chinese written records acknowledging the euphoriant, psychoactive properties of Cannabis.

Conclusion Hemp was one of the main crops in ancient China and it holds important status in China's long history of farming fiber crops for spinning yarn and weaving cloth, making paper, and formulating traditional medicines. All of the traditional uses of hemp were invented in China.

The earliest hemp cordage and textile remains, the earliest records of hemp seed use for food, the first paper, and the first medicinal use of hemp can all be traced back to ancient China. Although the medicinal value of Cannabis was recognized early on, the recreational value of Cannabis smoking and eating for its inebriating effects seems to have eluded the ancient Chinese. Since China has such an ancient cultural association with hemp, it makes sense that China is currently the world leader in hemp production.

References

Bray, Francesca 1984. Early Chinese references to soybeans and adzuki beans in green manures and crop rotations: In F. Bray 1984. Science and Civilization in China Vol. 6 Biology and Biological Technology Part 11: Agriculture, Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press: 431.

Ho, P. T. 1969. The Loess and the Origin of Chinese Agriculture. American Historical Review 75(1): 1-36.

Li, Hui-Lin 1974. An archeological and historical account of Cannabis in China. Economic Botany 28(4): 437-448.

Mechoulam, Raphael 1986. The pharmacohistory of Cannabis sativa: in Mechoulam, R. (Ed.) Cannabinoids as Therapeutic Agents. CRC Press: Boca Raton, Florida: 1- 19.

Temple, Robert K. G. 1986. China - Land of Discovery. Patrick Stephens, Wellingborough, UK: 81.

Yu, Ying-shih 1977. Han China: In K. C. Chang (ed.) Food in Chinese Culture. New Haven, CT and London, Yale Univ. Press: 53-83.

Yu, Youtai 1987. Agricultural history over seven thousand years in China: In Sylvan Wittwer et. al. (eds.) Feeding a Billion: Frontiers of Chinese Agriculture: 19-33

Xi'an Banpo Museum Publication 1963

ook het electoraat van de Volksraad klein bleef; nog in 1939 bestond dit uit slechts 2228 personen. Zie: M.C. Ricklefs, A history of Modem Indonesia (London /Basingstoke: MacMillan 1981) 153.

1 Chief Production Engineer, Dong Ping Hemp Mill, Shandong, P.R.C.

2 International Hemp Association, Postbus 75007, 1070 AA Amsterdam, The Netherlands

3 One 'chi' equals about 1/3 meter or 13 inches.

4 One 'mu' equals about 660 square meters.

5 One 'shi' equals about 30 kilograms or 66 pounds.

6 One 'cun' equals about 2.5 centimeters or one inch.

Kenaf, is it hemp?

My sister just left a comment about a Texan growing 'Cannabis hibisicus', most likely Hibiscus cannabinus, which is Kenaf, or Ambari hemp. Years ago hemp could legally be used to describe a number of fibres, but since the mid-twentieth century it has been limited to Cannabis sativa.
Or it could have been some other sort of hibiscus, which occasioned police action at the home of some law abiding citizens of the Lone Star State, see my reply (scroll down two posts).
Kenaf has been experimented with by the US government as a source of fibre hemp, and is a viable plant to explore for this, but does not also provide the many other products that C. sativa does.
The image below shows the superficial similarity between the two, the flower, of course, varying greatly.

Image above is Aimee Nathan, a student at North London Collegiate School who is an environmental activist. She, in contrast to the Tamsin Omond crowd, has got it right, and managed to get publicity without so much as breaking a single law. Her concern is the ubiquitous and iniquitous use of throw away coffee cups, so she simply brings her own to coffee shops. A simple act of genius that can change the way we live without anarchists and police getting involved. Speaking to People, she voices her lament as follows: "We take our environment for granted and waste too much, especially coffee cups. I hope we can show that doing a little thing can make a big difference." She has also organised flash mobs outside coffee shops, much better than grounding aeroports. A few flabbergasted shop assistants are the only casualties! She has also been on Channel 4's Battlefront, and has gained the support of Jodie Marsh. We will work on sending her a hemp bag in the future, and some hemp clothing.
Of course, if she wants to check out her own hemp supplies, here are some suggestions:
Braintree Clothing, overlooking the canal in Camden Market
Minawear Hemp Clothing
GeoMio
Sativa
The Hemp Shop

WHAT THE YANKS CAN'T DO,

THE CANADIANS CAN

Still illegal in the US is the crop that was once the most traded commodity in the world. Farmers are forced to grow more water intensive crops such as cotton and use lots of chemicals on it and other pesticide loving plants.

Cross the border and you will find lots of hemp, and plates like the one in the photo. Business is booming! For instance, Roger Snow of Rocky Mountain Grain Products is doing so much he sent me a whole box, with 7 bins of hemp hearts and 14 hemp chocolate bars. He has some 10,000 acres under cultivation. He and others, such as Nick Smirnow of Still Eagle, are also selling copies of Hemp for Victory, part of which is printed on hemp paper (with a nice hemp leaf watermark to boot, and a foreword by Woody Harrelson).

Cannabis sativa is legal all over the EU, and in Australia and New Zealand. In fact, just about all of the English speaking world! China has just about a monopoly on hemp textiles though, as it is where the infrastructure exists for retting and milling, but Canadians have been quietly researching a way to develop this for themselves in the future. If they do, they will join China, Romania, Italy, Korea and Nepal as hemp textile producers. Romanian and Nepalese hemp is usually rough in comparison to Chinese, but recently some Korean hemp was brought to the UK that was, as Bobby Pugh notes, as fine as silk. However, it is only exported in large quantities, and not made into clothing in Korea. Italian hemp may be the finest available, used by both Girgio Armani and Jilly Cholmondeley; the latter sells 100% hemp bedsheets, currently in stock at Eco in Chiswick. But even the Armani could be finer; hemp was once spun as fine lace.

The improvement in quality is a challenge to the hemp world, and it may well be the Canadians who crack it. Something for Bush to think about.