Calif. Assembly Passes Hemp-Farming Bill

[phantom power]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The state Assembly on Thursday approved a bill that would add California to the growing number of states seeking to legalize the cultivation of industrial hemp -- a biological relative of marijuana.

Lawmakers voted 41-30 to pass the bill, sending it to the Senate. If senators also approve it, the proposal would go to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not taken a position on it.

(...)

"You pass industrial hemp today and then something else and then something else," Republican Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy said. "And then at some point you will get legalized marijuana."

(...)

Processed hemp imported from other countries is sold throughout the United States for manufacturing products. A hemp trade group estimated the annual retail market in the U.S. at $270 million.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-hemp-farming,0,4351182.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

The Dennis Mountjoy quote cracked me up. If we legalize Hemp, we'll all wake up one day, and our children will be dope fiends, Osama bin Laden will be head of the U.N. and it will be legal to marry a box turtle. It would be funnier, except they really are in charge.

[patrice]

1. Hemp food is good.

You can get it from Canada over the Internet.

[benburch]

2. You know...

The only difference between hemp and cannabis is that one has been human-selected for potency for a couple thousand years. They are really just varieties of the same species, and fully interbreed.

I just wish the "industrial hemp" people could bring themselves to be honest about that fact.

[phantom power]

3. Is that important?

[benburch]

4. Only in that it is denied so strongly.

It would be more honest, and would also advance the cause of medical and recreational legalization, were the actual truth be told instead of this spin.

I just object to spin like that no matter the cause.

[skids]

5. Actually, the "spin" has helped.

I've been watching the movement for well over a decade. As dishonest as it is, the spin has definitely helped push these things forward. The majority of people are not as discerning as you.

Of course, one has to factor in that in the past, when bills like this made it onto statehouse floors around the country, the DEA would (illegally, to whit) pay for some person to come in and spew lies about how it would be impossible to prevent marijuana cultivation because industrial hemp fields can hide low-growing drug-variety plants from special DEA IR cameras. This was a total lie, of course, in that no sane dope grower would put an outdoor female drug plant in the middle of a field full of hemp pollen -- it would go right to seed and be completely ruined. And it was also a lie in the respect that, all things equivalent, corn stands offer much better cover from the black helicopters than industrial hemp fields, and are often used as such.

So you and I may not agree with the tactic of fighting PR lies with PR lies, but it has been effective.

[htuttle]

6. Hemp could also be an extremely important rotation crop...

...in a world without cheap industrial fertilizers.

Hemp puts down up to an 18" tap root, effectively aerating the soil and breaking up hardpan. It also can, if harvested for industrial purposes, return a lot of nitrogen to the soil. What you want to do is remove the leaves right in the field (taking the stalks and seeds for industrial uses), and leave that foliage as ground cover to rot over the winter. The deep tap root also helps prevent loss of ground soil from flooding and run-off.

American farmers, from Colonial days up to the early part of the 1900's, used hemp in rotation with wheat and tobacco. Studies in Europe have shown that growing hemp in rotation with wheat increased wheat yields up to 20%. In a post-petroleum world, this sort of 'crop synergy' will be very important if we want to feed everyone.

Hemp. It's not just for smoking anymore. :)