MAY IN REVIEW

Hemp is in the air, and in the field, but flowers will have to wait a month or so. As the hemp grows in the field, each day a little bit, so does the movement. Lots of little things to do last month, such as finishing up Bulletin # 1 of the British Isles Hemp & Natural Fibres Industries Association: Hemp as a Replacement Crop for Heroin in Afghanistan. Copies of this 24 page report are available from The Hemp Shop in the UK.

Some dark forces in this world might not like this, as they have, after invading Afghanistan, made poppies to prosper. And guess what, in Iraq, the rice fields are being plowed up and replaced with poppy fields. Is this the progress Bush was talking about? No wonder he wants to stay there forever. US troops are free guards, courtesy of the US taxpayer. One such taxpayer lost her son in Iraq, and when Bush handed her the medal, he joked about it and told her not to sell it on Ebay. Where is the dignity?

And where is the hemp? He finally got talking about ethanol, and it seemed too good to be true. Turns out it was, the idiots used up corn and drove the corn prices sky high so the Mexicans were protesting at his visit. Henry Ford used hemp and farm wastes, but I guess the modern environmentalist does not take the time to read such details, they just jump out there with George Bush and George Monbiot, and when it all fails, they tell us biofuels don't work. Try doing what has been proven effective and you just might be surprised.

Another proven use of hemp to which it has not been put by the wanna-be environmentalists is in the production of shopping bags. Anya Hindmarch came out with her bags in April and was bagged by the national press, and in May we worked on the hemp bag which is featured on this site. Our protests were mentioned in the May issue of The Ecologist, which is doing a reader offer in the July/August issue. We plan some fun with this, as it would really take the mick to carry this bag around all the posh spots of London, and maybe a bit outside the US Embassy.

From the US Dave Olson called to say he was coming over, which means we will be able to give him a hemp bag to take back. Doug Yurchey wrote a sequel to his famous piece on the real reason hemp is illegal, taking a swipe at Judge Judy and the idiot brigade which is keeping hemp out of reach for Americans. So either you buy your petrol from the Middle East or you use up all your corn and the price of corn flakes goes up.

On a sad note, it does not look like Dave Monson of North Dakota got his permits in time to sow hemp, as George Washington commanded. The good ol' DEA dragged its feet and efforts on the part of the US taxpayer were wasted. Let's hope to reverse this sad state of affairs and have hemp in the ground in the US this time next year.

HEMP, WAR, AND THE BARD

In today's Independent Robert Fisk quotes Shakespeare, alluding to the present state of war by digging up relevant observations from the past. Fisk chooses a scene in which a soldier has committed a crime, for which Henry IV deems he must pay with his life. A friend tries to intervene with the line: " Let gallows gape for a dog, let man go free/And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate."

Last year a certain Mr. Hussein's wind-pipe was indeed suffocated by hemp, when he was taken out to ride the 'hemp-horse'. But his death did not bring the peace we need. Blood was spilled, as indeed he spilled it when he was Saddam I, but it was only a trickle added to the rivers of it that now run in Iraq.

And now there may be red tides in Iran, with Russian intelligence stating that George III, or as the French might pronounce it, George 'the turd', has planned to invade Iran on 6 April. An impossible move, and anyone discussing this with me in the last 5 years has pointed out that it cannot happen, it would be too stupid. Oh, but thou knowest not the depth of stupidity of George the turd. Then again, no one thought Adolf I would invade Poland, get Hungary, break China and swallow Turkey. He had a large appetite, and it wasn't hemp seeds he was eating; nor is George.

Fisk looks into more of Bill Shakespeare's works and finds a common thread, that of the common man left dead on the battlefield whilst rulers dress in silk. Can we but not learn from history?

As a high school student, I remember praying for the 144 hostages in the US, captured by Iranian rebels, who were later freed by diplomacy. That was a national obsession, and lots of yellow ribbons were left hagning on old oak trees. Now, 15 British sailors have captured the attention of the US and the UK by being captured by and, if we believe Iran, in Iran.

But where they were exactly is trifling. We hope they are set free soon, and then we need to turn our attention to firing the employees who have set us on the dangerous, yet profitable (for themselves) course of war in the Middle East. Even for the 144 hostages of the '70s no one was about to go to war, but then George III was a mere lad, evading duty on the air force base, or bravely defending the skies of Texas, whichever version you want to believe. Now he is in the cockpit and the plane looks like it is heading into WWIII. The world may burn, and there is nowhere to jump if it does.

He, and his lap dog Tony, are our servants; we need to fire them, and sooner rather than later. Then we can get our 15 sailors back, sort out the mess that Bush made of Iraq, and turn our attention to pressing matters, like using biofuels and stopping pesticide use. We can grow hemp for both of these purposes, and the little bit left over might well make for a tie around the necks of certain dangerous criminals.

HEMP REPORT IN VENTURA

Here I sit in London, thinking of Highway 101, Santa Barbara, Oxnard, Ventura, Santa Monica...when lo' and behold there is a story on hemp in the Ventura County Star. At first a ray of sunlight pierces my foggy mood, but then I am let down by yet another reporter who does not bother with facts...and I just spent an hour yesterday dealing with Johann Hari and George Monbiot...I'm beginning to think there ought to be government licencing on journalism, as there is on the medical profession.

Stephen Schrader starts off with one blunder by saying that ethanol is expensive. Oh? Does he realise that this is what we drink in beer, wine, etc., and that it is a natural product that results when we leave plant wastes lying around? How high a wage do we pay someone to stuff a vat with wheat stalks and hemp hurds? And how much would a refinery pay for such material, considered garabage to begin with? Let's look at the reality of cheap raw materials and a simple processing operation.

Schrader then goes on to extol hemp based bio-diesel. Fine, I would welcome bio-diesel, only I would not recommend hemp for it; not that hemp is not an excellent plant for this, but as hemp oil is high in Omega 3,6 & 9 essential oils, and commands a price of several pounds or dollars a half litre, it would be folly to burn it in a fuel tank. Added to which is the fact that diesel has a high viscosity and gels in low temperatures. But then again he is writing in southern California, where the word snow does not exist, and perhaps the thought of a tank full of high protein biofuel full of Omega oils appeals...

Another point to query in this article is the assertion that hemp oil is a byproduct of processing hemp into paper and cloth. Absolutely not. The oil comes from the seeds, and these are not involved in the fibre processing. The fibres come from the stems, and these are harvested usually before the seed is ripe, as allowing the stems to go on too long causes them to harden.

Some strong points exist in the article, however, and when he talks about hemp replacing tree pulp and cotton, he is right on. In California deforestation and cotton cultivation pose great problems, with the latter requiring about 50% of all pesticides used. It also depletes the water supply.

But then Schrader ends on a completely wrong note when he asserts: "The down side of legalizing [sic] industrial hemp is that it brings along its "kissin' cousin", marijuana. The two plants are virtually indistinguishable to the casual observer."

Oh boy, this guy needs to go back to school. It is journalism like this that ought to be outlawed under sheer stupidity laws. Since when does a 8-16 foot high thin stalk look like a multi-branched 3 foot high shrub? He makes George Bush look smart! This is scary. Stupid journlists and stupid politicians are taking us over the edge...