Senator Kennedy's support of the addition to the 2007 FDA REVITALIZATION ACT, an amendment to 'expand and strengthen the coalition supporting medical cannabis' while working with the hemp organization Americans For Safe Access, opened the door wider for the modern hemp movement. We have a right to do all we can to get/be/stay healthy, including with medical hemp.
From a press release posted at the senator's office:
The bill contains two amendments adopted in committee: one on medical marijuana and the other on drug labeling. It also makes a technical correction to two bills enacted last year: the BARDA legislation and the NIH reauthorization.”
S. 1082 – The FDA Revitalization Act - "This provision would require those who produce, market or sell marijuana for medical uses to comply with the same rules that pharmaceutical manufacturers are legally bound to follow."
Some of the fruits are found in the surge of thousands of medical marijuana clubs throughout America, more than 800 hemp dispensaries just in Los Angeles according to the Christian Science Monitor. New clubs are springing up around the nation as reports of economic recovery are in the wind. Even the city of Oakland, CA is using a hemp tax to begin to pull themselves into financial abundance. Hemp makes a great set of laces in the bootstrapping process called life.
Mr. President, despite what you think, legalizing hemp would improve the economy, and a lot of other things too. We know you're busy so a digital signature ending the war on drugs would be wise if it is science driving policy. Anything else is an oppression.
Since the president is planning to continue federal oppression of the American people by keeping it illegal to interact with nature, the only salvation hope available is on a state level.
Originally published in WEST COAST LEAF www.westcoastleaf.com Vol 2 No. 1 Spring 2009
Changing to a hemp-based economy could help solve financial, manufacturing and water crises
By Richard M. Davis, USAHempMuseum
It is within the Constitutional power of Californians to kick the hemp revolution into high gear and free the plant to do its economic magic on the State.
The regional capacity is enormous.Hemp can be grown as a second crop on 700 square miles of rice fields in California equaling 448,000 acres, producing 5,000 pounds or two and one half tons per acre.That’s 1,120,000 tons of hemp that can be burned for electricity in existing or new regional biomass plants, or made into paper, textile, plastics, building materials, auto alcohol fuels or any of 50,000 viable products that keep the money in our State – the eighth largest economy in the world.
An that is just the rice crop; hemp could entirely replace the state’s cotton crop – 451,000 acres in 2007 for another 1,120,000 tons of hemp.(In 2008, 9.5 million acres of cotton were planted in the US.)Half the state alfalfa crop planted as hemp equals at least another 1,120,000 tons of hemp.Hemp can help in a big way with water savings, as well, especially if agronomist work to breed drought-resistant cultivars rather than low-THC strains.
California voters broke the 60-year hemp prohibition with Prop 215 and freed medical cannabis. The people must next free the whole hemp plant.
The voters could again do it directly by the initiative process, like Prop 215.The legislature or governor could pass a bill or put a referendum on the ballot.The grand juries or courts could also initiate a due process hearing in the public interest.
The state and global economic crisis will not be fully solved until hemp is restored to its natural place in society.
However, the ‘big banks’ are part of the problem.North Dakota already has a state bank that loans money to farmers at one percent interest.Proponents of cannabis plant should consider the need for a California State Bank, where we put our taxes and fees, and print our own debt-free state Greenbucks* to finance our own recovery.
*Ellen Hogson Brown, The Web Of Debt: The shocking truth about our money system and how we can break free.2008. www.webofdebt.com
http://www.westcoastleaf.com/2-1/2-1news.htm
For more on hemp please visit the USA Hemp Museum, www.hempmuseum.org , a private museum with a virtual wing.
For as long as I can remember, the debate over cannabis has centered on whether it is harmful. I would like to focus instead on marijuana's uses and possible benefits. Some ten million Americans smoke marijuana regularly. Millions more use it occasionally. But why, exactly? I know that some people use marijuana as a medicine, while others use it simply to "party." But between these two poles are many other uses and effects that might best be described by words like enhancing, therapeutic, exploratory, expansive, and so on. The Uses of Marijuana will explore these various possibilities. I hope you will join me by writing about your experience.
Here are a few suggestions:
You could write a personal essay or contribute to our blog -- serious, whimsical, or some of each -- about the place of marijuana in your life, or why you use it, or what you especially enjoy about it.
Or you could cover the same ground in other ways: by exchanging a series of letters (or e-mails) with a friend and sending them on to us; by writing up a dialogue about marijuana with your spouse or partner; by sending sections from a journal; or perhaps even by keeping a journal for a few weeks and sending us some excerpts from it.
Or you might write up an interview with yourself on the subject of marijuana, or ask a friend to interview you; or send us something you have already written on this subject -- or any other writing about marijuana that you'd like us to be aware of.
THE FINE PRINT
Whether or not we can use your name, please identify who you are and how to contact you. And kindly provide at least four basic details: your age, your gender, your occupation, and what part of the country you live in. If you'd like to identify yourself further, please do.
Submissions to The Uses of Marijuana should be typed and easy to read. Longer contributions are fine, but whatever you send, please keep a copy. I hope to respond to all contributions within 2-3 weeks. If you have questions or comments about this project, I'll do my best to respond.
Please forward your submissions as soon as possible!
Please send all submissions and correspondence, preferably in electronic form, to:
WE THE PEOPLE DEMAND REAL CHANGE. END HEMP PROHIBITION NOW.
Still stuck in the Industrial Age, www.change.gov has failed to have any entries on hemp, even though it was voted legal in 9 out of the ten states where it was on the ballot in 2008. Surely the days of the will of the government superceding the Will of the People are over, unless the new president fails to end hemp prohibition.
Change is rarely easy, but change is here. Like the Boston Tea Party, we may have to throw an American Hemp Party. President Obama already knows about hemp and his Secretary of Commerce, Gov. Bill Richardson, is very pro hemp.
"There is about 15-20 thousand really pissed people from these websites, because they just shrugged off our voice on Obama's transition team's website change.gov when a marijuana reform question took first by about 2000 votes (there was 300 marijuana reform Q's submitted and voted on) THEY TRIED DIIVIDING OUR VOTE AND WE STILL PREVAILED very strong!
Marijuana reform is leading 8 categories on the change.org site we need national attention and got a million man marijuana march to dc to protest if we get shafted again http://www.trm3-801.org/could u muster any attention to this ?
and blessings of health and higher vibration thru burnt offerings of kind sacrament the holy healing motherplant", rev. baker of green faith ministry "
I urge you to go to www.change.org , www.youtube.com , send emails to elected and appointed officials, have hemp house parties ( like on 1 1 9 - New Year's Day) and post your thoughts on hemp. Help others do the same.
