2 Mar 2014

Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970

posted in: Industrial Hemp | 0

Shortly after the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act went into effect on October 1, 1937, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Denver City police arrested Moses Baca for possession and Samuel Caldwell for dealing.

 

Scaldwell.jpg

^ “The First Pot POW”. Retrieved 2011-03-18. “On the day the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act was enacted — Oct. 2, 1937 — the FBI and Denver, Colo., police raided the Lexington Hotel and arrested Samuel R. Caldwell, 58, an unemployed labourer and Moses Baca, 26. On Oct. 5, Caldwell went into the history trivia books as the first marijuana seller convicted under U.S. federal law. His customer, Baca, was found guilty of possession.”

 

 

Baca and Caldwell’s arrest made them the first marijuana convictions under U.S. federal law for not paying the marijuana tax.[19] Judge Foster Symes sentenced Baca to 18 months and Caldwell to four years in Leavenworth Penitentiary for violating the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act.

After the Philippines fell to Japanese forces in 1942, the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Army urged farmers to grow fiber hemp. Tax stamps for cultivation of fiber hemp began to be issued to farmers. Without any change in the marijuana Tax Act, 400,000 acres (1,600 km2) were cultivated with hemp between 1942 and 1945. The last commercial hemp fields were planted in Wisconsin in 1957.

In 1967, President Johnson’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of justice opined, “The Act raises an insignificant amount of revenue and exposes an insignificant number of marijuana transactions to public view, since only a handful of people are registered under the Act. It has become, in effect, solely- a criminal law, imposing sanctions upon persons who sell, acquire, or possess marijuana.”

In 1969 in Leary v. United States, part of the Act was ruled to be unconstitutional as a violation of the Fifth Amendment, since a person seeking the tax stamp would have to incriminate him/herself. In response the Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act as Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970.[23] The 1937 Act was repealed by the 1970 Act.

Storm is Coming

30 Jan 2014

Marijuana Contests To Join County Fair in Colorado

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Pot at the county fair? Why not? Colorado’s Denver County is adding cannabis-themed contests to its 2014 summer fair. It’s the first time pot plants will stand alongside tomato plants and homemade jam in competition for a blue ribbon.

There won’t actually be any marijuana at the fairgrounds. The judging will be done off-site, with photos showing the winning entries. And a live joint-rolling contest will be done with oregano, not pot.

But county fair organizers say the marijuana categories will add a fun twist on Denver’s already-quirky county fair, which includes a drag queen pageant and a contest for dioramas made with Peeps candies.

“We thought it was time for us to take that leap and represent one of the things Denver has going on,” said Tracy Weil, the fair’s marketing and creative director.

The nine marijuana categories include live plants and clones, plus contests for marijuana-infused brownies and savory foods. Homemade bongs, homemade roach clips and clothing and fabric made with hemp round out the categories.

Judges will look only at plant quality, not the potency or quality of the drugs they produce. Other contests – patterned after Amsterdam’s famed Cannabis Cup – already gauge drug quality and flavor.

Top prize is $20, plus of course a blue ribbon. The fair already has a green ribbon – awarded for using environmentally conscious methods.

The entries will be shown in a “Pot Pavilion” open only to people over 21. Alongside the pot entrants will be 24 categories of homemade beer, four categories for homemade wine and one category for “spirits and liqueurs.”

Prizes will also be given for speedy joint-rolling, though fair organizers insist there won’t be any marijuana consumption on-site. Competitors in the live Doritos-eating contest will have to acquire their munchies elsewhere.

Even the photographs of the winning plants will be viewable only by adults 21. Organizers don’t want 4-H competitors in the popular rabbit and goat contests wandering by a pot display.

“We have a lot of families and kids at the fair, of course, and we wanted to be respectful of that,” Weil said.

Denver’s fair is far from traditional, though. Denver County didn’t have a county fair until 2011. Organizers wanted an urban, hip element alongside traditional fair favorites like a Ferris wheel and cotton candy.

There’s a speed text-messaging contest, and the highlight staple of a Western fair, a rodeo, has been replaced with a bicycle rodeo and a troupe of performing pigs. About 20,000 people attended last year.

The marijuana contests aren’t likely to spread to other fairs in Colorado. Officials in Routt County, in western Colorado, voted last year to expressly ban marijuana from its county fair.

And Colorado State Fair organizers have expressed no interest in marijuana competition.

California holds an Emerald Cup at the fairgrounds in Sonoma County, Calif., where guests with medical clearance are able to sample the drug. That contest is held at the fairgrounds but isn’t a part of the county fair.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Published: January 28, 2014
Copyright: 2014 The Associated Press

14 Jan 2014

Marijuana Case Filings Plummet in Colorado

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Charges for all manner of marijuana crimes plummeted in the months after Colorado voters legalized limited possession of cannabis for people over 21.

According to a Denver Post analysis of data provided by the Colorado Judicial Branch, the number of cases filed in state court alleging at least one marijuana offense plunged 77 percent between 2012 and 2013. The decline is most notable for charges of petty marijuana possession, which dropped from an average of 714 per month during the first nine months of 2012 to 133 per month during the same period in 2013 — a decline of 81 percent.

That may have been expected — after all, people over 21 can now legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana. But The Post’s analysis shows state prosecutors also pursued far fewer cases for marijuana crimes that remain illegal in Colorado.

For instance, charges for possessing more than 12 ounces of marijuana dropped by 73 percent, and cases alleging possession with intent to distribute fewer than 5 pounds of marijuana dipped by 70 percent. Even charges for public consumption of marijuana fell statewide, by 17 percent, although Denver police have increased their number of citations issued for public consumption.

While marijuana prosecutions against people over 21 declined, so did prosecutions against people under 21, for whom all marijuana possession remains illegal except for medical marijuana patients.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said he thinks the drop in cases may be due to police not wanting to parse the complexities of the state’s marijuana law.

“I think they’ve kind of thrown their arms up in the air,” he said.

Snipped

Complete Article: http://drugsense.org/url/PJao1kLb

Source: Denver Post (CO)
Author: John Ingold, The Denver Post
Published: January 12, 2014
Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/

9 Jan 2014

Marijuana Sales Exceed $5 Million In First Week

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Colorado marijuana dispensaries made huge sales in the first week of legal recreational marijuana. Owners of the 37 new dispensaries around the state reported first week retail sales to The Huffington Post that, when added together, were roughly $5 million. That’s a lot of green for Colorado’s legal weed.

Colorado, the first state to allow retail recreational marijuana sales to adults age 21 and older, has projected nearly $600 million in combined wholesale and retail marijuana sales annually. The state, which expects to collect nearly $70 million in tax revenue from pot sales this year, won’t have its first official glimpse at sales figures until Feb. 20, when businesses are required to file January tax reports, according to Julie Postlethwait of the state Marijuana Enforcement Division.

Denver’s 9News was first to report statewide retail sales on New Year’s Day, the first day legal pot shops were allowed to operate, exceeded $1 million. Interest dropped in the days that followed, according to shop owners, but many reported customers still waiting in lines out the door.

“Every day that we’ve been in business since Jan. 1 has been better than my best day of business ever,” Andy Williams, owner of Denver’s Medicine Man dispensary, told The Huffington Post.

Owners of larger shops told HuffPost they sold from 50 pounds to 60 pounds of marijuana in the first week. Smaller shops sold 20 pounds to 30 pounds, proprietors said.

Under state law, Colorado residents may legally buy up to one ounce of marijuana in a transaction. Tourists can purchase up to one-fourth ounce.

But the initial rush to buy legal weed was so great that many shops imposed caps on the amount each customer could buy, or raised prices to curb demand and stave off a possible shortage. So far, none of the retailers reported supply problems.

Prices also were boosted by the state’s 25 percent tax on retail purchases, including a 15 percent excise tax and a 10 percent sales tax. Voters approved the levy in November. Local taxes can add more to what customers pay.

Shop owners said their sales were biggest the first day. Each day since, sales have been roughly half the New Year’s Day volume, the business owners said.

One-eighth of an ounce of marijuana was selling for an average of $65 around the first of the year, according to Marijuana.com.

Despite the surging sales, Joaquin Ortega, co-owner of Denver Kush Club dispensary, was quick to note to HuffPost that federal laws against marijuana sales and possession present obstacles to Colorado’s legal retailers. The Justice Department has said it won’t challenge legalization laws in Washington state and Colorado as long as the states prevent out-of-state distribution, sales to minors and drugged driving, among other conditions.

Still, the federal prohibition means banks won’t accept marijuana businesses for traditional bank accounts, and retailers said they can’t take advantage of traditional business tax writeoffs. 

“People think we all became millionaires,” Ortega said. “But as a business owner, I can’t write anything off for the last three years.”

Banks have said they fear they could be implicated as money launderers if they offer traditional banking services to the pot businesses.

Marijuana businesses often cannot accept credit cards, leaving them to conduct transactions in cash. They say that’s a burden for taxes and payroll, and a safety risk.

Monday night, Denver City Council urged banking regulators to grant Colorado marijuana businesses access to the federal banking system, so they can use the same banking services as other businesses.

Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) is seeking reformed access to banking for marijuana businesses with his Marijuana Business Access to Banking Act (H.R. 2652), which would create protections for banks that offer services to state-sanctioned marijuana-related businesses.

“The banking legislation sponsored by Congressman Ed Perlmutter is a common sense approach to bring financial legitimacy to the legal marijuana industry,” Denver City Councilman Albus Brooks told HuffPost. “It’s ludicrous and unsustainable to force large neighborhood businesses to operate entirely with cash. Congress needs to act, and act now.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the Department of Justice is also drafting legal guidance on how banks can work with marijuana businesses in states like Colorado and Washington, which both legalized recreational marijuana for adults 21 and over.

Dispensaries in Washington state are expected to open later in 2014.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Matt Ferner
Published: January 8, 2014
Copyright: 2014 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

25 Dec 2013

Feds Call Out CO in Releasing Study on Teen MJ Use

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Federal drug abuse officials called out Colorado by name Wednesday in releasing a new national survey of illicit drug use among teenagers, saying marijuana legalization efforts are clearly changing youth attitudes in a dangerous way.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy noted many teens report getting their marijuana from others with medical marijuana access. Past-month pot use by high schoolers jumped over five years, and perceived risk by teens is plummeting, said the annual report of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Colorado, Washington and other states heading toward legalization are conducting a “large social experiment (that) portends a very difficult time” for drug-abuse control, said Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Legalization advocates, meanwhile, cited other statistics in the report showing the recent national trend in high school use of pot is flat.

The most recent three years of the survey show little change in self-reported use in the annual tally.

In 12th-graders, for example, use in the past month was 22.7 percent of respondents, little changed from 22.9 percent in 2012 or 22.6 percent in 2011. A similar flat trend held among 10th- and eighth-graders in those years.

The federal officials cited changes from 2008 to 2013 to make their point: Past-month use by 12th-graders nationally rose from 19.4 percent to 22.7 percent; among 10th-graders, use went from 13.8 percent to 18 percent.

Snipped

Complete Article: http://drugsense.org/url/S6C3cpEd

Source: Denver Post (CO)
Author: Michael Booth, The Denver Post
Published: December 18, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Contact: [email protected]

10 Nov 2013

Colorado’s Crazy Marijuana Tax

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Taxing what you can’t measure is nonsense. But Colorado voters were poised Tuesday to do just that, by taxing wholesale marijuana sales at 15 percent — when no wholesaler exists. That’s right: Most Colorado adult-use marijuana sales must go directly from producer to consumer with no wholesaling allowed, and no wholesale price as a measure for the wholesale tax! That’s because Colorado law, at least at first, requires vertical integration of marijuana businesses.

Vertical integration? Here’s an example: A wine company owns land, vines and a winery, and sells to consumers only at its own outlet store. Substitute “marijuana grow area” for land and vines, “marijuana production facility” for winery and “marijuana retailer” for outlet store, and you understand the Colorado model. Colorado law will require that at least 70 percent of marijuana sales follow that model, with the supply chain integrated vertically (from top to bottom) — and with no wholesaler.

So how do you apply a wholesale level tax when no wholesaler exists? With great difficulty. Colorado regulatory authorities are struggling for answers.

Basing a tax on a fictitious price means no one will ever know the correct tax. Taxpayers will spend time and money trying to beat the system, and government will spend time and money in self-defense. Government and business are likely to grow irritated with one another as they argue about unanswerable questions.

Our dysfunctional international income tax system should have taught us that taxing what we can’t measure is crazy. Multinational corporations like Google, Amazon and Starbucks pay little tax anywhere as they transfer assets among subsidiaries. What do they charge themselves for those assets? (How much does the right hand charge the left hand?) Current transfer pricing rules allow multinational corporations to construct artificial prices for sales between related parties, sales that almost never occur in the marketplace. “Fabled tax wizards” working for multinationals come up with a “tax return position” — the company’s view of how much tax it should pay. (Not much, and often zero.) Why make the same mistake — opening the door to artificial pricing — in taxing marijuana?

Back to Colorado’s tax mess, and its warnings: Vertical integration (the no-wholesalers rule), imposed by the Legislature in 2013, could coexist easily with a tax based on weight or potency. That is, to tax marijuana at so many cents per gram, you never need to know the price. But a price-based, wholesale level tax was locked into place by Colorado’s 2012 initiative (which did not require, forbid or address vertical integration at all). Colorado’s wholesale, price-based tax would be administrable without vertical integration, because without it, real, separate wholesalers want to receive high prices, and their real, separate customers want to pay low prices. With that tension, there’s a real, bargained-for market price to base taxes on.

Meanwhile, Washington State’s law taxes newly-legal marijuana at wholesale, too, but Washington avoids Colorado’s problem by forbidding vertical integration — so related-party sales can’t happen. That is, wholesalers are separate from retailers, so the wholesaler will get an arm’s length, fair market value price from the retailer. That means the Washington State price-based wholesale tax will be related to reality. No fuss, no muss.

We are just at the beginning of figuring out how to regulate and tax marijuana. Other states thinking about legalization need to study the primitive example of Colorado’s tax, and avoid the pitfall. The obvious answer is to forget price and adopt a surer tax base like weight or potency, following Federal precedents for alcohol and tobacco. Or, if states want a price-based tax for some reason, they can delay measuring it until there’s an actual arm’s length sale to an unrelated party. But here’s the clear lesson for future legalizing states: If you require or allow vertical integration, a wholesale tax on prices — when there is no actual sale — is crazy. It’s the kind of tax whose only fans will be tax professionals, billing by the hour.

Pat Oglesby: Lawyer; Former Congressional Tax Staffer.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Pat Oglesby
Published: November 7, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

19 Oct 2013

Panel OKs Rules for Wash. State’s MJ Industry

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Washington became the second U.S. state to adopt rules for the recreational sale of marijuana Wednesday, setting what advocates expect to become a template for the legalization of the drug around the world.

“We feel very proud of what we’re doing,” said Sharon Foster, chairwoman of the Washington Liquor Control Board, as she and her two colleagues approved the rules. “We are making history.”

Washington and Colorado last year legalized the possession of up to an ounce of pot by adults over 21, with voters deciding to set up systems of state-licensed growers, processors and sellers. The measures put state officials in the difficult position of crafting rules for a fledgling industry barred by federal law for more than seven decades.

The liquor board devised the rules after nearly a year of research, debate and planning, including public hearings that drew hundreds of people around the state. The rules cover everything from the security at and size of licensed marijuana gardens, to how many pot stores can open in cities across the state.

Sales are expected to begin by the middle of next year, with supporters in Washington hoping taxed pot might bring the state tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, with much of the revenue directed to public health and drug-abuse prevention.

“What the Liquor Control Board has done is build a template for the responsible regulation of marijuana,” said Alison Holcomb, the Seattle lawyer who drafted Washington’s marijuana initiative. “This is a template that is going to be reviewed by other states, and already is being reviewed by other countries,” including Mexico, Uruguay and Poland.

The board’s members said they had tried to strike a balance between making marijuana accessible enough that legal pot would undermine the black market, but not so accessible that it would threaten public health or safety. The board hopes the sale of legal pot will capture about one-quarter of the total pot market in the state, for starters.

Under the rules, the board will issue licenses for up to 334 marijuana stores across the state, with 21 of them in Seattle – a figure some have questioned as too low, considering the city estimates about 200 medical marijuana dispensaries are operating there. The City Council has passed zoning regulations for pot businesses that would require medical marijuana dispensaries to obtain a state license or stop doing business by 2015.

The rules limit the number of licenses that anyone can hold to three – an attempt by the board to stamp out any dreams of marijuana monopolies before they start. They also prohibit out-of-state investment in pot businesses and require quality-control testing of marijuana by third-party labs. Marijuana must be tracked from seed to sale, and packages must carry warnings about the potential dangers of pot use.

Hilary Bricken, a Seattle lawyer who is advising businesses that hope to obtain marijuana licenses, said her clients largely are content with the regulations, though some are disappointed by the three-license max and the ban on out-of-state money.

“It’s a huge undertaking, and the board has been extremely fair,” she said.

Washington’s rules take effect in one month, and the state plans to begin accepting license applications Nov. 18.

Colorado approved its marijuana industry rules last month. They require businesses to use a state-run online inventory tracking program to document the plant’s journey from seed to sale. Marijuana also must be placed in opaque, child-resistant containers before being taken out of a store, and recreational pot stores won’t be allowed to advertise to people under 21.

The federal government announced earlier this year that it would not sue Washington, Colorado or other states over plans to tax and regulate marijuana sales for adults over 21, provided they address eight federal law enforcement priorities, including keeping marijuana off the black market and keeping it away from kids

Washington’s legal marijuana law includes zoning requirements keeping the businesses away from schools, parks and playgrounds.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Gene Johnson, Associated Press
Published: October 16, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

12 Sep 2013

Answers Sought for When Marijuana Laws Collide

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A deputy attorney general told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that the Justice Department had begun working with Treasury officials and financial regulators to clarify how it legally deals with banks and other businesses that serve marijuana dispensaries and growers in states that have legalized the drug for medical or recreational use.

The deputy attorney general, James M. Cole, said the Obama administration was dedicated to enforcing federal drug laws and was choosing the best among a number of imperfect solutions by relying on states to regulate marijuana “from seed to sale.”

The hearing was the first aimed at sorting out differences between state and federal laws since Colorado and Washington State passed measures approving the recreational use of marijuana in November.

Those laws “underscored persistent uncertainty” about how the Justice Department resolves conflicts between state and federal marijuana laws, said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the committee’s chairman.

Financial institutions, security providers and landlords that serve marijuana businesses can be prosecuted for racketeering, money laundering and trafficking under current federal laws, which Mr. Leahy said also hinder states in regulating the banking and taxation of growers and dispensaries.

But Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the panel’s ranking Republican, said the Justice Department move was a step toward broad legalization of marijuana that would result in disastrous consequences for public safety and might violate international treaties. More broadly, he and other critics said, the Justice Department’s new policy was another example of the Obama administration’s picking which laws to enforce and which to disregard.

Marijuana’s status as an illegal drug “isn’t based on a whim,” Mr. Grassley said. “It’s based on what science tells us about this dangerous and addictive drug.”

Mr. Cole responded: “We are not giving immunity. We are not giving a free pass. We are not abdicating our responsibility.”

He said the agency would go after marijuana providers who market the drug to children or who try to sell it across state lines.

Advocates for marijuana legalization say a more coordinated effort between states and the federal government would be an improvement over current policies that have failed to rein in drug cartels and reduce violence.

The Justice Department said last month that it would not seek to pre-empt the state laws as long as states set up “robust” regulations to keep marijuana operations from running afoul of the agency’s top enforcement priorities, like preventing children and drug cartels from obtaining the drug and prohibiting its use on federal land.

But John Urquhart, who was a police officer for 37 years in Seattle before he became the sheriff of King County, Wash., said states were still handcuffed by not knowing how banks and other financial institutions could conduct marijuana-related business.

“I am simply asking the federal government to allow banks to work with legitimate marijuana businesses who are licensed under state law,” he said.

Kevin A. Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Obama administration who opposes legalization, said the administration’s decision to rely on states for regulation ignores the Justice Department’s own statements that some marijuana operations had already violated its enforcement priorities.

“I just don’t see any of that being regulated, and that’s what I worry about,” he said.

Colorado and Washington are among the 20 states and the District of Columbia that allow the use of marijuana for medical reasons or for recreation.

A version of this article appears in print on September 11, 2013, on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Answers Sought for When Marijuana Laws Collide.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Ashley Southall
Published: September 11, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

1 Sep 2013

Obama Administration Won’t Fight State MJ Laws

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In a historic pivot in the War on Drugs, the Obama Justice Department announced this week that the federal government will allow Washington and Colorado to implement their state laws for the taxation and regulation of legal marijuana.

The carefully worded Justice Department memo does nothing to alter federal law. Instead, it makes explicit the federal objectives of continued enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act preventing activities including the distribution of marijuana to minors, the diversion of marijuana profits to criminals and cartels, the growing of pot on federal land and the export of marijuana from states where it is legal to states that uphold prohibition.

To the extent that states themselves support those federal priorities by implementing “strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems to control the cultivation, distribution, sale, and possession of marijuana,” the memo suggests, they should be left alone for now. In a radical twist, the memo even suggests that “robust” state regulation of legal pot “may affirmatively address [federal] priorities by . . . replacing an illicit marketplace that funds criminal enterprises with a tightly regulated market in which revenues are tracked and accounted for.”

The administration’s move exceeded even the rosiest expectations of drug reform advocates. “Today’s announcement demonstrates the sort of political vision and foresight from the White House we’ve been seeking for a long time,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, in a statement. “I must admit, I was expecting a yellow light from the White House. But this light looks a lot more green-ish than I had hoped. The White House is basically saying to Washington and Colorado: Proceed with caution.”

In fact, the memo applies not only to states that have legalized recreational pot (or will), but gives new certainty to the nearly 20 states that have legalized medical marijuana. Most striking, the memo reverses the big-is-bad and profit-is-evil principles that have driven the recent crackdown on medical marijuana operations in California and beyond. “In exercising prosecutorial discretion,” the memo says, “prosecutors should not consider the size or commercial nature of a marijuana operation alone as a proxy for assessing whether marijuana trafficking implicates the Department’s enforcement priorities.”

“This is the most heartening news to come out of Washington in a long, long time,” said Neill Franklin, the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “The federal government is not simply standing aside and allowing the will of the people to prevail in these two states. The attorney general and the Obama administration are exhibiting inspired leadership. The message to the people of the other 48 states, to all who value personal freedom and responsible regulation is clear: seize the day.”

Source: Rolling Stone (US)
Author: Tim Dickinson
Published: August 30, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Straight Arrow Publishers Company, L.P.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.rollingstone.com/

6 Jul 2013

Flying High on The Fourth

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The flag flying over the Capitol on the Fourth of July might look like your typical Old Glory. But you probably won’t notice the fibers that make it special. It’s believed to be the first hemp flag to flutter over the dome since the government began outlawing marijuana’s less-recreational cousin back in the 1930s.

Colorado hemp advocate Michael Bowman is the man responsible for getting the flag, made from Colorado-raised hemp and screen-printed with the Stars and Stripes, up there.

He cooked up the idea while lobbying Congress this year to include pro-hemp measures in the massive farm bill. That legislation failed last month, of course, but the seed of the hemp flag had been planted.

Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) gave Bowman an assist with the details, which included working with the Capitol’s flag office. (The flag program allows people to buy flags flown over the Capitol, so they rotate in new Old Glories nearly every day.)

“It’s a powerful symbol,” Bowman says, adding that the red, white and blue flying over the Capitol is a reminder of the role that hemp played in the founding and early days of the country. Betsy Ross’s flag was made of hemp, he notes, and Colonial settlers even paid their taxes in the crop, which was used for all kinds of goods, from rope to fabric to paper. Those Conestoga wagons heading west were covered in canvas fashioned from hemp fibers.

So, he thought having it fly on America’s birthday seemed pretty appropriate.

After its Capitol flight, the flag will make its way back to Colorado, where it will fly over the state capitol building in Denver. After that, Bowman is sending it on a tour of statehouses in states where legislation is pending that would legalize hemp. One of the first up: Vermont.

And while advocates are quick to point out that hemp lacks the THC content beloved by stoners, this will still be one high-flying flag.

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Al Kamen
Published: July 3, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Washington Post Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

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