POT DEBATE HEATING UP

The New York Times gave space on Saturyday (24 April) to the debate on legalising cannabis; funny, not a word about legalising industrial hemp, and it seems ironic that the drug could be legal yet American farmers could go to jail for growing hemp...

California is about to vote in November on an initiative for legalisation...which, for hemp, has been done, but the governor vetoed it, twice.

There is more lobbying for pot than for hemp, with companies like CannaBe hoping to be "the McDonald's of marijuana", according to the NYT piece. The company is made up of four owners and their lawyer, and it is run for profit. Don't want any communists getting their hands on our drugs, now, do we? The team of would-be cannabis merchants lobbied the San Jose City Council to pass ordinances regulating dispensaries, which they saw as a step towards legitimising marijuana.

Lobbying against their efforts is John Lovell, representing state police and narcotics officers. He points to existing dispeneries as centres of crime, what with the dosh and the dope. Not only does all this attract criminals, but it attracts ad execs and lawyers; there is now a magazine devoted to it, West Coast Cannabis, and the state bar has certified a group called Cannabis Law Institute.

California is not alone; Colorado has seen a great increase in dispensaries as well. Both states would profit greatly from either pot or hemp. Presently 14 states allow medicinal cannabis, but none allow the growing of hemp as George Washington not only allowed but practiced. And Obama, the president with the hopey changey thing as Palin describes him, has disappointed great numbers of his voters with his inaction on this front.

Nationwide, AP and CNBC polls are showing that a majority of Americans approve of legalisation.

Whatever the level of support, however, there is a plethora of cases such as Stewart Hauptman's, who sells medical pot ouf of his motor home in Norco, California. The locals want to put an end to his quasi-legal clinic, and he is in the same boat as so many other 'clinics'; truth is, they are not technically legal unless they are a collectives, and many are sole proprieterships. This not only puts them in jeopardy with the local sherriff, but it makes the whole issue seem a bit, well, of a capitalist venture. In New York once, having lunch at Galxy Global Eatery, Mina (of Minwear) introduced me to a hemp activist who had just started Hemp Times, and he told us that a dealer came to his meeting and cursed him out because they did not want pot to be legal. No surprise. And it is just that kind of dealer that is a strong argument for it to be legal, to take the greed out of it all and get it regulated (so those kind do not water down the pot with gas and chemicals and send people to the hospital, as they did recently in the UK).

But, whatever the outcome of this battle for pot, what about hemp? That seems to be forgotten in a cloud of smoke. Truth is, you can get it legally or otherwise, and you can not get much hemp these days. Any debate about one ought to be about the other.

CANNABIS AND COMEDY

I have been spending time in New York, hanging out with Mike Stranger and his gang. They often pop into Galaxy Global Eatery, Denis Cicero's place at 15th and Irving, next to Irving Plaza. This weekend there will be hemp on the menu not only at Galaxy, but a few doors up at 117 E 15th Street, Belmont Lounge, when Mike and his gang put on a comedy night with Arielle Adamy on Saturday, 12 September. Be there or be square! 7-9pm, $10 cover, no drink minimum. For info contact Mike at 917 940 5507.

REAL ECO BAGS ARRIVE IN NEW YORK

Image left is one of the Whole Foods locations in New York, at which shoppers lined up to buy an environmentally destructive bag which was booed in the UK earlier this year. The designer then did what so many do when they get bad press, they go elsewhere and hope no one will know. It seems New Yorkers are not too keen on being swindled, a trawl on websites this morning turned up some rather anti-Anya comments, and NYers are not known for their shyness.

To add to it all, the cat was out of the bag when thousands noticed a real environmentalist, Cindy Mackintosh, one of the authors of Hemp for Victory, walking around with her hemp bag. It says boldly on the side: "REAL ECO BAGS ARE MADE FROM HEMP". She is like the queen with the real tiara at a ball next to a woman wearing a plastic one, and Anya is the woman in the plastic tiara. In addition, Cindy is from the area, and used to run the Rhinoceros restaurant in New York. Her husband, Londoner Nick Mackintosh, is also a contributor to Hemp for Victory. The bag she took with her is the very one featured in The Ecologist (p. 86 July/August issue) and also on this site previously. The Hemp Shop in the UK stocks it, but negotiations are in place for more stockists worldwide. Including one in the Big Apple.

Speaking of New York and all things hemp, it would be amiss not to mention Denis Cicero and his restaurant, Galaxy Global Eatery, located at 15th an Irving (212 777 3631). Last time Cindy was in the city he gave her an autographed copy of his book, The Galaxy Global Eatery Hemp Cookbook. The two restaurateurs will have a lot to talk about this year, and this time is it Cindy who is giving Denis a book. But the bag she will keep to herself. Even he will have to wait till more of them come off the line.

FIELDS OF GREEN

In 1900, James Lane Allen of Kentucky wrote about the hemp as "fields of living emerald". He might be seeing red today if he knew about the status of hemp under the law; his book was titled Reign of Law, but today he would not have hemp to write about; just lots of lawlessness as the politicians rip off the taxpayers. It's called 'organised crime'.

The hemp issue and other environmental issues are now hot topics, even hotter than the weather (which has been rather cool here in the UK and many other parts as well, with monsoon rains here and villages under 9 feet of water - water, water everywhere). So of course the Big Green Gathering will have someone there talking about hemp, namely me. I am already laying out my green clothes, from Braintree trousers to a Minawear limited edition tie-dye shirt to a pair of green sunglasses (for a trip to the Wizard).

So look for the jolly green hempster at the Moon Marquee on Friday, 3 August, at 8:30 pm. This year the event will be at Fernhill Farm above the Cheddar Gorge in Somerset. Last year there were 20,000 attendees, and it looks like we will have quite a crowd again. For info click here. Tickets can also be ordered over the phone at (44) 01458 830 281.

BTW, it may be a cool idea to have a hemp bag to carry around the farm, and this month The Ecologist has a reader offer on one that says: "REAL ECO BAGS ARE MADE OF HEMP". It is 100% organic hemp, made in the UK. It is the real thing, no cotton involved in it, unlike the Anya bags and other ersatz bags being foisted on us by the cotton lovers. (see related posts for full story on cotton and the bag wars). The bag can be ordered from The Hemp Shop while supplies last, click here for info.

I got this bag in the post last week, delayed a bit by the strike, but soon after I was using it I got mugged; just like when you wear an Rolex in a rough neighbourhood, my bag got taken off me. The perpetrator was one of my co-authors, as a matter of fact, who wanted it to walk around Manhattan with. So if you are in the Big Apple, an you see a woman with a burlappy grey bag sporting the above-mentioned logo, quite possible hanging out at the Galaxy Global Eatery on 15th & Irving, that is one of the hemp team from London (though she is actually from New Jersey, but likes lots of rain, so she moved to London, where she lives with her husband Nick).

ESOPUS CREEK FARM

Just beamed in from the Galaxy was an update on their organic farm in upstate New York, where they are working with farmer and chef Jessica Swadosh to produce greens for their eatery. Rocket, spinach, Jericho lettuce, chard, courgettes (which they call zucchini), tomatillos, Thai basil, sage, rosemary...and maybe parsley and thyme? But not hemp, at least not yet.

All these fragrant herbs are host to six Italian bee hives, so their berries can get pollinated and tea can be sweetened. Hmmm.

Now in its 12th year, the Galaxy is going from strength to strength, still serving up hemp food at 15 Irving Place just north of Greenwich Village. Give them a ring at 212 777 3631 or click here to be beamed up.

WRITINGS ON HEMP

Much as hemp has been part of our world for millenia, it is only to be expected that there is a large body of literature on the subject. Early pharmacopeia, Pliny, Moschion, Dioscorides and Rabelais all mention hemp. After the printing press developed, and agricultural treatises were published, these too included mention of hemp, with many devoted to the issue, such as G.A. Berti's La Coltivazione della Canape, ca. 1657. Just over a century later M. Marcandier wrote his own treatise on hemp, Traite du Chanvre. Both are now rare books, with the Berti perhaps surviving only as single copies here and there. The Marcandier was more popular, and was in the eighteenth century translated into English and German. Recently, John Hanson of the UK reprinted this, from a copy in the British Library that was owned by Sir Joseph Banks.

Another popular hemp book was published n 1804; On the Cultivation and Preparation of Hemp, written by Robert Wissett, a clerk of the British East India Co. In it he compared the various authorities, including Marcandier, to give the farmer a good overview of the subject. This was reprinted in 1808 with a letter by Lord Somerville. At the time it cost £1, 11 shillings and 6pence; this was a fortune back then, but they managed to get good reviews and sell out nonetheless. Try to get a copy now, and you'll find that it has appreciated well despite the high initial price.

In 1900, a farmer in New York wrote HEMP, which was the seminal work for his generation. It was published by Orange Judd & Co., who reprinted it in 1912. A year later Lyster H. Dewey of the US Department of Agriculture wrote a lenghty article in the USDA Yearbook. For decades to follow, any information about hemp was usually found as an article rather than as a book all to itself.

Jack Frazier in 1974 rediscovered hemp in America and wrote his short book The Marijuana Farmers. This too was reprinted, over a decade later, though with a different title: The Great American Hemp Industry.

By that time Jack Herer had also rediscovered hemp, and his book, The Emperor Wears no Clothes, was to become a classic, which is today into its eleventh edition. Both Frazier and Herer had many references to marijuana, and while each had a cult following, they did not persuade the lawmakers to relegalise hemp in the US. Three of Herer's compatriots in California also wrote on hemp in the 1990s, Chris Conrad, John Roulac and Ed Rosenthal. Each of their works have advanced the hemp cause much and continue to be of value as reference books. Rowan Robinson's 1996 tome The Great Book of Hemp gave the public a lot of new information, with a rather pleasing layout to boot. Since then one genre that has included a number of well-produced works is the cookbook category, including Denis Cicero's The Galaxy Global Eatery Hemp Cookbook, published in 2002.

While Cannabis sativa does get a lot of press attention, it is usually about marijuana or the medical cannabis issue. Some press was generated when John Roulac and Denis Cicero fought to keep hemp foods legal. One thing that became apparent from reading newspaper and magazine articles was that reporters often knew next to nothing about hemp or could care less. Therefore, the articles were often short and useless, or tinged with doper jokes.

Perhaps the best article written so far on hemp is Lee Green's "The Demonized Seed", which appeared in the Los Angeles Times Magazine on 18 January, 2004.

The hemp movement has itself issued its own press, including Hemp Times in the 1990s and Hemphasis rather recently. Both have ceased publishing. Two peer reviewed periodicals that are cover hemp are the Journal of Natural Fibres and The Journal of Industrial Hemp. Both are published by the Haworth Press in New York State. The former is edited in France, the latter in Poland. Both will have up-to-date scientific information and are the backbone of hemp literature for the industry. Another industry publication is the newsletter of the Hemp Industries Association, based in California.

In this internet age, it is not surprising to find hundreds of sites on google which have some hemp related content. They vary from the more newsworthy and scientific to the poorly written diatribes on skunk.

There is a select bibliography at the end of Hemp for Victory, including a number of websites. An exhaustive annotated bibliography is in the works for future release, presently containing hundreds of books and hundreds of articles.

For anyone interested in gathering information for articles or building a hemp book library, feel free to contact Yves de Saussure at: cannabissatival@hotmail.com