13 Oct 2012

It’s Time For A New Approach To Marijuana

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I-502 is not pro-pot

Back in the late 1980s, I agreed to be the anonymous “responsible businessman who supports drug law reform” guest on Jim French’s KIRO radio show.  My pseudonym: Jerry.  My stance: Our society would be better off by taking the crime out of the marijuana equation.  Back then, it felt risky to use my own name when talking drug policy.  The next day, I was walking through Edmonds, out for my morning cup of coffee.  Someone I didn’t know drove by, rolled down their window, and hollered, “Hey, Jerry…right on!”

About twenty-five years later, I was more comfortable publicly owning my role as an advocate for rethinking our society’s approach to marijuana laws.

By this time, I was a board member of NORML ( the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ) and had started giving talks around town on why we should learn from the Europeans and, rather than lock up pot smokers, embrace a “pragmatic harm reduction” approach that treats drug abuse as a health and educational challenge.

One evening, a police sergeant whom I consider a friend asked me, “Why are you so committed to this? You and your friends could smoke pot with discretion all you want, and no one’s going to bother you.”

Only then did I realize why I was so committed to drug policy reform.

Well-off white guys in the suburbs can smoke pot.  But the majority of the 800,000 people arrested in the USA on marijuana charges this year ( and the 9,000 people arrested in Washington State ) were poor and/or people of color.  Some have dubbed the war on drugs “the New Jim Crow.”

Marijuana use-and how we deal with it-is a serious, expensive, and persistent challenge in our society.  And it’s time for a new approach.  That’s why I am co-sponsoring Initiative 502, which will legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana, allowing adults to buy up to one ounce from state-licensed stores ( much like the liquor store model ).

I-502 keeps marijuana illegal for those under 21 ( as we are committed to keeping marijuana away from young people ).  It comes with strict DUI provisions ( as we believe anyone driving intoxicated-with anything-should have the book thrown at them ).

And it calls for taxes on the legal sale of marijuana, which will raise ( according to government estimates ) $500 million a year for our state ( about $200 million for our general fund and about $300 million for health care and drug abuse prevention work ).

I-502 is not “pro-pot.” ( Most of its sponsors and supporters don’t even smoke marijuana.  ) Rather, it is anti-prohibition.

We believe that, like the laws that criminalized alcohol back in the 1930s, our current laws against marijuana use are causing more harm to our society than the drug itself.

Marijuana is a drug.  It’s not good for you.  It can be addictive.  But its use is a reality, and no amount of wishing will bring us a utopian “drug-free society.”

Marijuana is a huge underground business in our state-some experts estimate that it’s our second biggest crop, after apples.  Untold billions of untaxed dollars are enriching gangs and empowering organized crime.  And tens of thousands have died in Mexico because of the illegal drug trade in the USA.

Facing this challenge, we believe the safest approach is to bring cannabis out of the black market and regulate it.

I-502 is a smart law.  It has been endorsed by the NAACP; the Children’s Alliance ( representing about a hundred social service organizations in Washington State, including Catholic Community Services and the Boys and Girls Clubs of King County ); the mayors of Seattle, Tacoma, Bellingham, and Kirkland; the entire Seattle City Council; Seattle City Attorney Peter Holmes; former federal prosecutor John McKay; current King County Sheriff Steve Strachan ( and his opponent in the upcoming election ); many of our state senators and representatives ( including Mary Helen Roberts, who represents my town, Edmonds, in Olympia ); the editorial boards of The Seattle Times, The Olympian, The Columbian, and The Spokesman-Review; and many other caring people and organizations who have studied this issue.

Most arguments against I-502 are based on the assumption that more people will smoke pot if the law passes.  Some opponents seem to believe that there’s a huge reservoir of people wishing they could ruin their lives smoking pot, if only it were legal.

I believe most people who want to smoke pot already do, and consumption won’t change substantially if I-502 becomes law.  Surveying societies that have decriminalized marijuana, there appears to be no evidence that marijuana use goes up with decriminalization.

For example, in the Netherlands-which is famous for its relaxed marijuana laws-per capita cannabis use is about on par with the US, and use among young people is actually lower than in the US.

Many say marijuana itself isn’t so bad, but it’s dangerous as a gateway drug-”one toke and you’re on your way to heroin addiction.” European societies have learned that the only thing “gateway” about marijuana is its illegality.

When it’s illegal, you have to buy it from criminals on the street who have a vested interest in getting you hooked on something more profitable and more addictive.

In 2001, faced with a troublesome spike in hard drug abuse in their society, Portugal decriminalized the consumption of all drugs.

Ten years later, according to Portuguese government statistics, marijuana use had not gone up ( in fact, cannabis use among Portuguese young adults is about half the European average ), while their hard drug-addicted population has been reduced by half.

Most importantly, drug-related crime is down, freeing up Portuguese law enforcement to focus on other priorities.  And remaining hard drug users see the government as an ally in beating their addiction rather than an enemy out to arrest them.

Many worry about safety on the roads if marijuana is legalized.  Of the 17 states with provisions for medical marijuana, there has been no evidence of an increase in DUI cases involving cannabis.

But just to be sure, I-502 comes with very strict and specific DUI provisions.

And some are concerned that if we legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana, the federal government will override the will of the people of Washington State.

No one knows for sure how the feds will react.  But our country was designed for states to be the incubators of change.  And, in the case of drug policy, there will be no change that doesn’t come from the states.

After all, it was individual states that defied the federal government and made possible the end of alcohol prohibition in the 1930s.  Since the 1990s, individual states ( currently 17 ) have allowed patients to use medicinal marijuana in direct opposition to federal law.  And, when strict parameters are set and followed, the feds have generally stayed out.

I-502 is just taking this to the next stage in a natural evolution of how our society views the challenges of marijuana-both keeping it away from young people, and regulating its responsible adult recreational use.  At the same time, it promises to replace a huge underground industry with a carefully regulated and taxed one.

There are so many reasons to end the prohibition on marijuana.  Whether you’re concerned about the well-being of children, fairness for our minority communities, redirecting money away from criminals and into our state’s coffers, stemming the horrific bloodshed in Mexico, or civil liberties, it is clearly time for a new approach.

When assessing the best way for our society to deal with the challenge of marijuana use, we need to be realistic.

There has never been a drug-free society in the history of humankind.  Marijuana is here to stay.  That’s the reality.  Rather than being hard on drugs or soft on drugs, with I-502 we can finally be smart on drugs.  Please vote yes on I-502.

Source: Edmonds Beacon (WA)
Copyright: 2012 Edmonds Beacon
Contact: 806 5th Street, Mukilteo, WA 98275
Website: http://edmondsbeacon.villagesoup.com/
Author: Rick Steves

9 Oct 2012

Marijuana Only for the Sick?

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One year after federal law enforcement officials began cracking down on California’s medical marijuana industry with a series of high-profile arrests around the state, they finally moved into Los Angeles last month, giving 71 dispensaries until Tuesday to shut down.

At the same time, because of a well-organized push by a new coalition of medical marijuana supporters, the City Council last week repealed a ban on the dispensaries that it had passed only a couple of months earlier.

Despite years of trying fruitlessly to regulate medical marijuana, California again finds itself in a marijuana-laced chaos over a booming and divisive industry.

Nobody even knows how many medical marijuana dispensaries are in Los Angeles. Estimates range from 500 to more than 1,000. The only certainty, supporters and opponents agree, is that they far outnumber Starbucks.

“That’s the ongoing, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ circus of L.A.,” said Michael Larsen, president of the Neighborhood Council in Eagle Rock, a middle-class community that has 15 dispensaries within a one-and-a-half-mile radius of the main commercial area, many of them near houses. “People here are desperate, and there’s nothing they can do.”

Though the neighborhood’s dispensaries were among those ordered to close by Tuesday, many are still operating. As he looked at a young man who bounded out of the Together for Change dispensary on Thursday morning, Mr. Larsen said, “I’m going to go out on a limb, but that’s not a cancer patient.”

In the biggest push against medical marijuana since California legalized it in 1996, the federal authorities have shut at least 600 dispensaries statewide since last October. California’s four United States attorneys said the dispensaries violated not only federal law, which considers all possession and distribution of marijuana to be illegal, but state law, which requires operators to be nonprofit primary caregivers to their patients and to distribute marijuana strictly for medical purposes.

While announcing the actions against the 71 dispensaries, André Birotte Jr., the United States attorney for the Central District of California, indicated that it was only the beginning of his campaign in Los Angeles. Prosecutors filed asset forfeiture lawsuits against three dispensaries and sent letters warning of criminal charges to the operators and landlords of 68 others, a strategy that has closed nearly 97 percent of the targeted dispensaries elsewhere in the district, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the United States attorney.

Vague state laws governing medical marijuana have allowed recreational users of the drug to take advantage of the dispensaries, say supporters of the Los Angeles ban and the federal crackdown. Here on the boardwalk of Venice Beach, pitchmen dressed all in marijuana green approach passers-by with offers of a $35, 10-minute evaluation for a medical marijuana recommendation for everything from cancer to appetite loss.

Nearly 180 cities across the state have banned dispensaries, and lawsuits challenging the bans have reached the State Supreme Court. In more liberal areas, some 50 municipalities have passed medical marijuana ordinances, but most have suspended the regulation of dispensaries because of the federal offensive, according to Americans for Safe Access, a group that promotes access to medical marijuana. San Francisco and Oakland, the fiercest defenders of medical marijuana, have continued to issue permits to new dispensaries.

In 2004, shortly after the state effectively allowed the opening of storefront dispensaries, there were only three or four in Los Angeles, experts said. The number soon swelled into the hundreds before the city imposed a moratorium. But dispensaries continued to proliferate by exploiting a loophole in the moratorium even as lawsuits restricted the city’s ability to pass an ordinance. Over the summer, the City Council voted to ban dispensaries.

Anticipating the ban, the medical marijuana industry “that historically had not worked together very well” began organizing a counterattack, said Dan Rush, an official with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which formed a coalition with Americans for Safe Access and the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance, a group of dispensary owners. The coalition raised $250,000, mostly from dispensaries, to gather the signatures necessary to place a referendum to overturn the ban on the ballot next March, said Don Duncan, California director for Americans for Safe Access.

Instead of allowing the referendum to proceed in March, when elections for mayor and City Council seats will also be held, the council on Tuesday voted to simply rescind the ban. José Huizar, one of only two council members to vote against the repeal, and the strongest backer of the ban, said the city was not in a position to fight an increasingly well-organized industry.

Mr. Huizar said California’s medical marijuana laws, considered the nation’s weakest, must be changed to better control the production and distribution of marijuana, as well as limit access to only real patients.

“Unless that happens, local cities are going to continue to play the cat-and-mouse game with the dispensaries,” he said, adding that the industry had fought attempts here to regulate it. “These are folks who are just out to protect their profits, and they do that by having as little regulation or oversight as possible by the City of Los Angeles.”

But coalition officials say they favor stricter regulations here.Rigo Valdez, director of organizing for the local union, which represents 500 dispensary workers in Los Angeles, said he would support an ordinance restricting the number of dispensaries to about 125 and keeping them away from schools and one another.

“We would be able to respect communities by staying away from sensitive-use areas while providing safe access for medical marijuana patients,” he said.

Such an ordinance would shut down many dispensaries catering to recreational users, said Yamileth Bolanos, president of the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance and owner of a dispensary, the PureLife Alternative Wellness Center. “I felt we needed a medical situation with respect, not with all kinds of music going, tattoos and piercings in the face,” she said. “We’re normal people. Normal patients can come and acquire medicine.”

But the hundreds of dispensaries that would be put out of business will fight the federal crackdown, as some are already doing.

In downtown Los Angeles, where most of the dispensaries were included in the order to close, workers were renovating the storefront of the Downtown Collective. Inside, house music was being played in a lobby decorated to conjure “Scarface,” a poster of which hung on a wall.

“We don’t worry about this,” the manager said of the federal offensive, declining to give his name. “It’s between the lawyers.”

David Welch, a lawyer who is representing 15 of the 71 dispensaries and who is involved in a lawsuit challenging a ban at the State Supreme Court, said the federal clampdown would fail.

“Medical marijuana dispensaries are very much like what they distribute: they’re weeds,” he said. “You cut them down, you leave, and then they sprout back up.”

A version of this article appeared in print on October 8, 2012, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Marijuana Only for the Sick? A Farce, Some in Los Angeles Say.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Norimitsu Onishi
Published: October 8, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The New York Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

4 Oct 2012

L.A. To Repeal Ban on Medical Marijuana Shops

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The Los Angeles City Council voted to rescind a newly enacted ban on storefront medical marijuana shops on Tuesday, allowing the city to avoid a referendum next year that some officials said would likely succeed in reversing the prohibition.

The council, in a blow to an industry that operates in violation of federal law, voted in July to ban pot dispensaries and replace them with a system that would allow up to three patients to collectively grow marijuana.

But medical marijuana advocates collected in August the necessary 27,425 valid signatures to put the decision to a March 2013 referendum. Under city rules, that number of signatures – 10 percent of the total number of votes cast in the city’s last mayoral election – put the ban on hold until the vote.

The backtracking comes a week after federal authorities moved to close about 70 such dispensaries in the city in a renewed effort to crack down on the operations through the use of asset-forfeiture lawsuits and warning letters.

“Legally it appears that almost nothing we do is a surefire approach,” City Councilman Paul Koretz said during the meeting on Tuesday.

“But I think the surefire least positive approach is to have a ban, but have it on hold … have it fail in March and basically be back where we started,” said Koretz, who voted in favor of repeal.

Pot remains illegal under federal law, but 17 states and the District of Columbia allow it as medicine. Los Angeles has between about 500 and 1,000 medical marijuana dispensaries, more than any other city in the nation.

Medical marijuana in California, which in 1996 became the first state to allow it, is used to treat everything from cancer to anxiety, and many police officials complain recreational users are taking advantage of the system.

The Los Angeles City Council’s decision to repeal the dispensary ban must return for a second vote next week because the 11-2 vote was not a unanimous one.

Separately, the council approved a resolution asking the state Legislature to give municipalities clear guidelines on how to regulate the distribution of medical marijuana.

Councilman Mitchell Englander complained that many badly run dispensaries in the city have “ruined it” for a minority of storefronts that are truly helping patients.

City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who has cancer and diabetes and has taken medical marijuana, made an impassioned plea during the meeting for allowing a limited number of dispensaries.

“Where does anybody go, even a councilman go, to get his medical marijuana?,” Rosendahl said in a hoarse voice, moments after revealing that doctors told him he might not have “much time to live.”

Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; editing by Todd Eastham and Cynthia Johnston

Source: Reuters (Wire)
Author: Alex Dobuzinskis, Reuters
Published: October 2, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Thomson Reuters

2 Oct 2012

Will Obama, Romney Clarify Their Positions on Medical Marijuana in Colorado Election Debate?

posted in: Latest Hemp News | 0

 

 

mmj3

 

Tags: marijuana legalization, obama on medical marijuana, presidential debates, romney on medical marijuana

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney will face off on live television in the first of several debates that could shape the upcoming election.

Medical marijuana professionals should tune in: The candidates will most certainly field questions about MMJ and cannabis legalization in general, given that the debate will be held in Denver.

Colorado has one of the largest medical marijuana industry’s in the country, home to more than 1,000 dispensaries, grow sites and infused-product manufacturers.  It also has a measure on the ballot this November asking voters to legalize the general use of marijuana.

Additionally, the debate is focused on domestic policy and will be held at a university, so you can bet that medical cannabis will be a particularly big topic.

The biggest question going into the debates, however, is will either candidate actually shed any new light on their vague positions regarding medical marijuana and cannabis legalization?

It’s possible but doubtful. Both Obama and Romney have been asked countless times about MMJ, and in most cases they sidestep the question or offer vague answers. In an interview Monday with the Denver Post, Romney said he opposes “marijuana being used for recreational purposes and I believe the federal law should prohibit the recreational use of marijuana.” But he didn’t directly address medical marijuana, though a campaign spokesman told the Washington Post today that Romney is against MMJ legalization.

Obama has been similarly vague about medical marijuana in recent interviews, and the current MMJ crackdown under his administration is uneven and unpredictable.

Both presidents, however, seem to be against the idea of general marijuana legalization. Romney has made it crystal clear that he would not allow that to happen under his watch. Obama, while less assertive on the issue, has indicated he doesn’t think it’s the proper path for the country to take. It unclear how the presidents would respond if an individual states such as Colorado legalizes cannabis use.

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CONTINUE READING….

2 Oct 2012

AFFIDAVIT OF FACT: HEMP

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Marijuana

 

RadicalJusticeMan

 

Monday, November 8, 2010

 

AFFIDAVIT OF FACT
AND NOTICE OF INTENT AND CLAIM OF RIGHT
TO CULTIVATE, POSSESS, USE, TRANSPORT AND DISTRIBUTE HEMP

Conrad Justice Kiczenski, herein known as Affiant, being first duly sworn upon oath does hereby declare and affirm the following facts:

 

1. You are hereby given lawful notice that the plant called Hemp (Cannabis genus) is a vital natural-resource for food, clothing, medicine, fuel, and paper; a religious sacrament, as well as being a “Strategic and Critical Material” for “military”, “essential civilian”, and “industrial” purposes as documented in Exhibits A, B, C, D, E, & F attached hereto, and as such is “accessible” and “protected” under International Law cited herein.

2. You are hereby given lawful notice of Affiants intent to cultivate, possess, use, distribute and transport the plant known as Hemp (Cannabis genus).

3. Affiant claims the right to carry out the foregoing intent under sanction of the following constitutionally ratified treaties (Pursuant to U.S. Const. Art. VI. Sec. 2):

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 11, Sections 1 & 2, Dec. 16, 1966,

International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, Article 12, Section 1, Dec. 16, 1966, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cescr.htm

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 18, Section 1, Dec. 16, 1966, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm


United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of Genocide, Article II (c), Dec. 9, 1948, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/genocide.htm

4. The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, in Article 11, Sections 1 & 2, states:

1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right…

2. The States Parties to the present Covenant, recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, shall take, individually and through international co-operation, the measures, including specific programs, which are needed:

(a) To improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge, by disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition and by developing or reforming agrarian systems in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and utilization of natural resources;

(b) Taking into account the problems of both food-importing and food-exporting countries, to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need.

4a. The interpretation for the right to adequate food, as given by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in General Comment Number 12 states:
The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child…has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.
The Committee considers that the core content of the right to adequate food implies:

The availability of food in a quantity and quality sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals…Dietary needs implies that the diet as a whole contains a mix of nutrients for physical and mental growth, development and maintenance…Availability refers to the possibilities…for feeding oneself directly from productive land or other natural resources…
Violations of the right to food can occur through…adoption of legislation or policies which are manifestly incompatible with pre-existing legal obligations relating to the right to food; SEE: http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/%28Symbol%29/3d02758c707031d58025677f003b73b9?Opendocument

4b. Affiant submit’s the following Exhibits as sufficient supporting evidence that Hemp qualifies as an “adequate food resource” and is therefore “accessible” under Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights:
Pursuant to Presidential Executive Order 12919, the “NATIONAL DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES PREPAREDNESS” order, Section 901 (e) & (l), attached hereto as Exhibit A, “Hemp” is defined as a “food resource” and qualifies as a ‘‘Strategic and Critical Material’’.
According to an excerpt from “Hempseed Nutrition” by Lynn Osburn, attached hereto as Exhibit B, a scientific analysis of hemp seed nutrition reveals that “Cannabis hemp seeds contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human life. No other single plant source provides complete protein in such an easily digestible form, nor has the oils essential to life in as perfect a ratio for human health and vitality. Hempseed is the highest of any plant in essential fatty acids.”.

4c. Affiant submit’s the following Exhibits as sufficient supporting evidence that Hemp qualifies as an adequate resource for “clothing”, “military”, “essential civilian” and “industrial” purposes, as well as other necessary resources for attaining an “adequate standard of living” including “paper” and biomass for “fuel” and is therefore further “accessible” under Article 11, Section 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights:
The transcript of a 1942 USDA film entitled “Hemp for Victory”, attached hereto as Exhibit C, states that “For thousands of years… this plant had been grown for cordage and cloth… For the sailor, no less than the hangman, hemp was indispensable…Indeed the very word canvas comes from the Arabic word for hemp…All such plants will presently be turning out products spun from American-grown hemp: twine of various kinds for tying and upholsters work; rope for marine rigging and towing; for hay forks, derricks, and heavy duty tackle; light duty fire hose; thread for shoes for millions of American soldiers; and parachute webbing for our paratroopers…hemp for mooring ships; hemp for tow lines; hemp for tackle and gear; hemp for countless naval uses both on ship and shore. ”.

According to a Popular Mechanics Magazine article, VOL. 69 February, 1938 NO. 2, pp. 238-240, entitled “NEW BILLION-DOLLAR CROP”, attached hereto as Exhibit D, states that “Hemp is the standard fiber of the world. It has great tensile strength and durability. It is used to produce more than 5,000 textile products, ranging from rope to fine laces, and the woody "hurds" remaining after the fiber has been removed contain more than seventy-seven per cent cellulose, and can be used to produce more than 25,000 products, ranging from dynamite to Cellophane…The natural materials in hemp make it an economical source of pulp for any grade of paper manufactured, and the high percentage of alpha cellulose promises an unlimited supply of raw material for the thousands of cellulose products our chemists have developed…All of these products, now imported, can be produced from home- grown hemp. Fish nets, bow strings, canvas, strong rope, overalls, damask tablecloths, fine linen garments, towels, bed linen and thousands of other everyday items can be grown on American farms. ”.

According to an Excerpt from "Energy Farming in America," by Lynn Osburn, attached hereto as Exhibit E, “BIOMASS CONVERSION to fuel has proven economically feasible, first in laboratory tests and by continuous operation of pilot plants in field tests since 1973. HEMP IS THE NUMBER ONE biomass producer on planet earth: 10 tons per acre in approximately four months.”

5. The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, in Article 12, Section 1, states:
The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

5a. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, in their General Comment Number 14, interprets the right to health to mean the following:
The right to health contains both freedoms and entitlements. The freedoms include the right to control one’s health and body… and the right to be free from interference… The entitlements include the right to a system of health protection which provides equality of opportunity for people to enjoy the highest attainable level of health… The Committee considers that indigenous peoples have the right to specific measures to improve their access to health services and care. These health services should be culturally appropriate, taking into account traditional preventive care, healing practices and medicines. States should provide resources for indigenous peoples to design, deliver and control such services so that they may enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. The vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals necessary to the full enjoyment of health of indigenous peoples should also be protected… In this respect, the Committee considers that development-related activities that lead to the displacement of indigenous peoples against their will from their traditional territories and environment, denying them their sources of nutrition and breaking their symbiotic relationship with their lands, has a deleterious effect on their health. By virtue of article 2.2 and article 3, the Covenant proscribes any discrimination in access to health care and underlying determinants of health, as well as to means and entitlements for their procurement. SEE: http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/%28symbol%29/E.C.12.2000.4.En

5b. Affiant submits the following Exhibit as sufficient supporting evidence that Hemp qualifies as a “traditional healing practice“, “medicine“ and “vital medicinal plant” that is “necessary to the full enjoyment of health” and therefore is “accessible” and “protected” under Article 12, Section 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights:
Lester Grinspoon, M.D. and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, in an article entitled “History of Cannabis as a Medicine” published on August 16, 2005, attached hereto as Exhibit F, documents the historical, technical and scientific knowledge of Cannabis’s extensive use as a medicine. Grinspoon quotes DEA Administrative law Judge Francis L. Young in a decision rendered on September 6, 1988, which states: “marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man…”

6. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in Article 18, Section 1, states:
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.

6a. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, in their General Comment Number 22, interprets the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion to mean the following:
The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion (which includes the freedom to hold beliefs) in article 18.1 is far-reaching and profound;
Article 18 is not limited in its application to traditional religions or to religions and beliefs with institutional characteristics or practices analogous to those of traditional religions. The Committee therefore views with concern any tendency to discriminate against any religion or belief for any reason, including the fact that they are newly established, or represent religious minorities that may be the subject of hostility on the part of a predominant religious community…

The freedom to manifest religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching encompasses a broad range of acts. The concept of worship extends to ritual and ceremonial acts giving direct expression to belief, as well as various practices integral to such acts, including the building of places of worship, the use of ritual formulae and objects, also such customs as the observance of dietary regulations, the wearing of distinctive clothing or headcoverings, and participation in rituals associated with certain stages of life. SEE: http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/9a30112c27d1167cc12563ed004d8f15

6b. Affiant believes that Hemp (Cannabis genus) is equivalent to the “plant of renown” mentioned in Ezekiel 34:29 and the “tree of life” mentioned in Revelation 22:1-2 of the bible, which state:
And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more. — Ezekiel 34:29
On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit…And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. — Revelation 22:1-2

6c. Affiant believes in accordance with Genesis 1:29-30 of the bible, which states:
Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food…everything that has the breath of life in it–I give every green plant for food." — Genesis 1:29-30

6d. Affiant believes that Hemp (Cannabis genus) is a sacred “plant of renown” and “tree of life” given by the Creator to be used for the feeding, clothing, and healing of the nations of the Earth.

6e. Affiant claims the right to manifest his foregoing belief in practice, through the act of cultivating, possessing, using, distributing and transporting Hemp (Cannabis genus).

7. The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of Genocide, in Article II (c), states:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

7a. The Report of the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court of July 6, 2000, in Article 6 (c), interprets what elements constitute “Genocide“ through “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction”, and states:
The term “conditions of life” may include, but is not necessarily restricted to, deliberate deprivation of resources indispensable for survival, such as food or medical services, or systematic expulsion from homes.
SEE: http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N00/724/27/PDF/N0072427.pdf?OpenElement

7b. You are hereby given lawful notice that the plant called Hemp (Cannabis genus) is a critical food staple in Affiants vegetarian diet, as well as being a vital resource for Affiants clothing, medicine, paper, fuel as well other central necessities to Affiants way of life, and is therefore indispensable for Affiants health, adequate standard of living, spiritual practice and long-term physical survival.

7c. Any action against Affiant and his family to confiscate Hemp harvests, blockade Hemp foodstuffs or other resources, any use of coercive measures to deter Hemp cultivation, possession, use, distribution, or transportation, including expulsion from homes or forced relocation into detention camps, will be considered a deliberate attack on Affiant and his families ability to sustain life and therefore an act of genocide pursuant to Article II (c) of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of Genocide.

8. You are hereby given lawful notice that Affiant grants you thirty (30) days to rebut the facts stated herein; If you fail to rebut the facts stated in this affidavit within the granted amount of time then Affiant will assume that you are in agreement with said facts, and that you acknowledge Affiants claim of right and intent to act as stated herein, as being valid and lawfully sanctioned.

9. Affiant affirms under the penalty of perjury under all constitutional Laws of the State of California and the 50 States of the American Union, that all that is written in this affidavit is true and correct to the best of Affiants knowledge and understanding.

 

Signed and Sealed:_____________________________ Dated:___________

Natural Person – In Propria Persona – Conrad Justice Kiczensk

i
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED – WITHOUT PREJUDICE

State of California

Lake County

Subscribed and affirmed before me on this ____________ day of ______________, 20________, by Conrad Justice Kiczenski, who proved to me on the basis of satisfactory evidence to be the Person who appeared before me. Witness my hand and official Seal.
Signature:__________________________________
Seal:

 

Posted by RadicalJusticeMan at 9:28 AM

LINK TO ORIGINAL POST HERE

1 Oct 2012

Research: Feeding hens with hemp

posted in: Latest Hemp News | 0

Researchers at Aarhus University, Denmark have been experimenting with feedings chickens hemp, to test whether giving the birds extra roughage with a high nutritional value can benefit the environment, their welfare, and their product quality.

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In organic egg production, hens are offered roughage in the form of pasture vegetation in the hen yard, silage or vegetables as a supplement to their organic ration. Scientists from Aarhus University are now developing a new feeding concept whereby the rough, green forages are not simply used as a snack but as an integral and nutritious part of the diet.
“Roughage has a nutritional value of its own, which can provide additional nutrients to that supplied in the ready-mixed feed, senior scientist at Aarhus University Sanna Steenfeldt explained.
“Since the ration is formulated to cover all the requirements of the hens, the roughage only provides extra nourishment. In the new concept roughage is considered as an ingredient that contributes its own nutrients.”
Benefits for the environment, animal welfare and product quality
The new concept, where the composition of the total ration is optimised in combination with roughage, combines three key issues in organic egg production: consideration for the environment, animal welfare and product quality.
Product quality of organic eggs as result of feeding the various types of roughage on offer will be characterised by analysing, among other things, the taste and appearance of the egg yolk, egg albumen, eggshell quality, the composition of carotenoids, which give colour to the yolk, and the composition of fatty acids in the egg yolk.
The effects of the different types of roughage on the immune status and bowel health of the hens will be investigated, such as whether they are resistant to infection with the roundworm Ascaridia galli in order to increase the robustness and welfare of hens.
Optimising the composition of the diet could help reduce the excretion of nitrogen and phosphorus with benefits for the environment.
The hens used for the experiment is the robust and productive Hisex White breed, which at present is very common in organic egg production
Hemp or carrots?
The menu has a wide selection, where hemp is but one of the quirkier choices.
“Hemp is difficult to harvest but the hens love it because of its aroma. They do not get a high from the hemp, though, as there is so little cannabidiol in it that it cannot be detected,” Steenfeldt assured.
Each experimental group will have only one choice among the range of forages on offer, which includes maize silage, alfalfa silage, grass and herb silage, hemp silage, maize cob silage and a seasonal vegetable – either carrots, kale or beet roots. The control group will receive no roughage and only have access to bare ground in the hen yard. This means that the control group is not reared organically. They are included in the study to compare the general welfare of hens receiving roughage with those that do not.
The ready mixes that have been specifically formulated according to the type of roughage the hens receive are produced with the help from the agribusiness company DLG.
The experiments are a continuation of previous experiments that looked at the effect of different breeds and types of feed on egg quality.
The project is a joint effort between DLG, Danæg, and Knowledge Centre for Agriculture and has been funded by the Danish Innovation Act under the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries and by the Danish Poultry Council (Fjerkræafgiftsfonden).

1 Oct 2012

The Cultural Amnesia of Hemp

posted in: Latest Hemp News | 0

 

 

mmj1Civilizations in Europe and Asia began harvesting hemp in 8,000 BCE to make textiles, paper, food, and medicine. In 3727 BCE, cannabis was called a superior herb in the world’s first medical text, the Shen Nung’s Pen Ts’ao, in China. In 1500 BCE, Cannabis helped to invent the scythe. In 300 BCE, social situations arose where Carthage and Rome struggled much over the political and commercial power over hemp & spice trade routes in the Mediterranean. In 100 BCE, paper was made from hemp and mulberry in China.

Even though there is this rich history of hemp common knowledge amongst the public is dismal. What factors contributed to the cultural amnesia of hemp?

Background: U.S.

Cultivation of hemp began in Virginia in 1611. King Henry VIII required farmers to set aside land for the cultivation of hemp, one quarter acre of hemp for every sixty acres of land, and this law had to be followed by the colonists. England wanted to continue their trends of manufacturing hemp textiles such as paper, clothing, and medicine & the New World was a perfect place where hemp could be grown and harvested to then be processed overseas.

Many colonies passed laws, independent of Europe influence, that encouraged farmers to produce hemp. Lobbyists were hired and books were published to educate the public about the importance of hemp and thereby establish hemp as America’s trademark product. Even the Puritans at Jamestown grew hemp. Mandatory cultivation of hemp continued throughout the New World so much so that several colonies passed legal tender laws to enact taxes on hemp to benefit the colonies because it was such a widely produced crop.

Hemp was without a doubt one of the most important crops to the common wealth in the 19th century. Founding fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were both huge promoters of hemp.Washington even spoke of hemp in his farm diary citing the quality of the seeds and how he always took care to sow seeds in best areas on his farm.

As these educational efforts dwelled on, England continued to demand the raw materials of hemp to ensure the growth of their work force and economy overseas. Colonists began to get curious about becoming self sufficient with the idea of not only growing hemp but keeping it all to themselves which led to colonists declaring their independence from Britain. The Independence War from Europe was ignited via hemp production rights alongside the creation of the American paper industry. Hemp, linen, and cotton rags provided writing materials throughout the war that were essential for communication amongst the colonists to ensure victory.

Drifting Changes

As trends of industrialization increased the invention of a machine, the Decorticator, was introduced tot he American market. It was hailed as the gadget that was going to revolutionize the hemp industry in New World. It’s design began in 1861 in Germany and it’s popularity was made infamous in an article from a Popular Mechanics magazine dated February 1938. In the piece, the author spoke of how this machine implied that hemp industry had the potential of being worth over a billion dollars. In lieu of the technological revelation, hemp farmers were becoming very content with their cash crop of hemp.

However, businesses and corporations with a differing agenda began to grow weary of hemp’s continued popularization. They wished to take control of the paper industry themselves by changing the materials used for production from hemp to trees. This feat was a bit impossible due to the fact that hemp was an easy and accessible plant that all farmers could grow and produce for a multitude of reasons. Hence, the incredulous businesses began a campaign to control how the public viewed the substance to ultimately change the trends of agricultural acceptance.

Even though the THC levels of hemp are extremely low companies, businesses, and governments used this fact to their advantage and began to spread information that the recreational habit of ingesting or smoking the plant for it’s hallucinogenic properties was something to fear. This type of cultural practice stems all the way back to China in 5,000 BCE when pioneering herbalists would ingest the plant to expand their medicinal research.

The corporations responsible for the information behind the campagin were Hearst and DuPont. Hearst was a corporation that owned large timber holdings in the U.S. that joined efforts with DuPont who dominated the petrochemical market at the time: they manufactured plastics, paints, and other products consisting of varied fossil fuels. They began to be associated very close with marijuana, a plant with higher levels of THC, in a way that was misleading, confusing, and detrimental to the agricultural production of hemp. Hysteria ensued. In 1937, business efforts proved successful and the Marihuana Tax Act HR 6385 was passed with the help of the Senate. Even to this day it is difficult for public to accurately report the differences amongst hemp and marijuana thereby showing that the efforts of the old campaign were very powerful.

Environmental Benefits

Hemp is still grown in the U.S. but to a lesser extent than it was a century ago. What would happen if the U.S. decided to produce hemp yet again on a massive scale to manufacture products that we currently depend on other countries to make and import onto our soil? Let’s begin answering this question by going over the facts.

Hemp grows extremely fast in any kind of climate which means it could be easily integrated into a vast variety of agricultural systems. On top of that reality, hemp can be grown sans herbicides, fungicides, or pesticides. Plus, hemp is a natural weed suppressor because it grows so fast and so dense that it blocks out available sunlight that would otherwise be utilized by other weeds trying to grow.

Hemp has deep roots that naturally replenish soil with nitrogen. Furthermore, the stability of the plant contributes to controlling the erosion of topsoil.

Hemp can clean up toxins underground by removing or neutralizing detrimental toxins present in the soil, a process otherwise known as phytoremediation. What substance was used to clean up the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site to remove radioactive elements from the ground? You guessed it – hemp.

Switching to hemp paper would reduce deforestation significantly. For every 4 acres of trees that are required annually to make paper, only one acre of hemp is required to make the same amount of product.

These facts about hemp used to be a well known strand of cultural knowledge that farmers proudly touted. In modern times, many are oblivious to the great benefits of hemp and most incorrectly assume that it’s a drug due to the misinformation that was spread with the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act in 1937.

CONTINUE READING…

30 Sep 2012

Veteran Pot Growers See Their Way of Life Ending

posted in: Cannabis News | 3

In the mountains of Mendocino County, a middle-aged couple stroll into the cool morning air to plant the year’s crop. Andrew grabs a shovel and begins to dig up rich black garden beds while Anna waters the seedlings, beginning a hallowed annual ritual here in marijuana’s Emerald Triangle.

In the past, planting day was a time of great expectations, maybe for a vacation in Hawaii or Mexico during the rainy months or a new motor home to make deliveries around the country.

But this year, Andrew and Anna are hoping only that their 50 or so marijuana plants will cover the bills. Since the mid-1990s, the price of outdoor-grown marijuana has plummeted from more than $5,000 a pound to less than $2,000, and even as low as $800.

Battered by competition from indoor cultivators around the state and industrial-size operations that have invaded the North Coast counties, many of the small-time pot farmers who created the Emerald Triangle fear that their way of life of the last 40 years is coming to an end.

Their once-quiet communities, with their back-to-nature ethos, are being overrun by outsiders carving massive farms out of the forest. Robberies are commonplace now, and the mountains reverberate with the sounds of chain saws and heavy equipment.

“Every night we hear helicopters now,” Anna said. “It’s people moving big greenhouses and generators into the mountains.”

Andrew, 56, and Anna, 52, who agreed to be interviewed only if they would be identified by their middle names, live in a rambling house down a trail through tanoaks and Douglas firs. Their electricity comes from a windmill and solar panels, their water from a spring. They cook on a wood stove and use an outhouse with a composting toilet to conserve water for their crop.

Though they are not complete back-to-the-landers — they have a nice car, satellite TV and Internet access — they keep their gardens relatively small, tucked in the trees throughout their property.

Among their plants, they post their own medical marijuana cards so that if they’re raided, it looks as though they’re growing under the aegis of state law. But because dispensaries generally prefer the more potent weed grown indoors, they still sell mostly to the black market, where mom-and-pop growers now struggle to compete.

“These big commercial growers have really ruined our business,” Anna said.

Until recently, life in the hills of Mendocino and Humboldt counties had changed little in the decades since hippies from the Bay Area began homesteading here. The pioneers initially grew marijuana for themselves and to make a little money.

Then in the 1980s, cultivation of high-grade seedless marijuana opened the possibility for big money as it brought a higher premium. Many of the farmers cashed in. But many remained small and discreet to avoid attracting the attention of state and federal agents.

They raised their families where they cultivated. They drove beat-up Subarus and small Toyota pickups, pumped their water from wells and chopped their own firewood.

The mountain hamlets operated like breakaway states. Marijuana farmers paid for community centers, fire departments, road maintenance and elementary schools.

Even today, small cannabis-funded volunteer fire stations and primary schools are scattered throughout the ranges. And the local radio station, KMUD, announces the sheriff’s deputies’ movements as part of its public service mandate.

But the liberalization of marijuana laws in the last decade upended the status quo.

From Oakland to the Inland Empire, people began cultivating indoors on an unprecedented scale at the same time that growers from around the world flooded the North Coast because of its remoteness and deep-rooted counterculture.

Now, with the market glutted, people are simply planting ever-larger crops to make up for the drop in price.

Longtime residents complain that the newcomers cut down trees, grade hillsides, divert creeks to irrigate multi-thousand-plant crops, use heavy pesticides and rat poisons, and run giant, smog-belching diesel generators to illuminate indoor grows. They blaze around in Dodge monster trucks and Cadillac Escalades and don’t contribute to upkeep of the roads or schools.

“They just don’t care,” said Kym Kemp, a teacher and blogger in the mountains of Sohum, as locals call southern Humboldt County. “They’re not thinking, ‘I want my kids to grow up here.’

“Now there are greenhouses the size of a football field that weren’t even there last year,” she added.

Kemp said she feels her region is being colonized and worries about the colorful, off-the-grid people that small cannabis patches long supported.

“So many people who live here are just different,” she said. “They don’t fit in regular society. They couldn’t work 9-to-5 jobs. But they’ve gotten used to raising their kids on middle-class incomes. What are they going to do?”

Tom Evans, 61, a small-time grower in northern Mendocino, said the sense of peace and self-reliance he moved here for 30 years ago is disappearing so fast that he may leave for Mexico.

“It used to be a contest to see who could drive the oldest pickup truck,” said Evans, a former Army helicopter mechanic who sports a woolly gray beard and tie-dyed shirt. “There’s just been this huge influx of folks who have money on their mind, instead of love of the land. A lot more gun-toters. A lot more attack dogs.”

Evans lives in a small rented home that generously could be called a fixer-upper. He said he doesn’t have a bank account or credit card, and his Honda Passport has more than 300,000 miles. “It’s ‘make a living, not a killing,’” he said.

His friend, a bear of man who goes by the name Mr. Fuzzy, noted that it’s not only outsiders causing problems.

“You know the weird part, these are our kids too,” he said.

It’s a recurring lament among longtime growers. Some of their own children are going for the large-scale grows, big money and fancy cars.

The larger irony is that the marijuana pioneers are being pushed to the margins by the legalization they long espoused.

“Ultimately we worry about Winston or Marlboro getting some land and doing their thing,” said Lawrence Ringo, a 55-year-old grower and seed breeder deep in the wilds of Sohum. “We see it time after time in America — big corporations come in and take over.”

Ringo saw the 2010 marijuana initiative, Proposition 19, as a ploy by Bay Area activists to dominate the market with giant warehouse grows in Oakland.

He suspects plenty of people will still want high-quality, organically grown cannabis but fears the big business interests will dictate how marijuana gets regulated. Ringo points out that Colorado, the one state that fully regulates marijuana, helped push most growing indoors and place cultivation under the control of large dispensaries.

“We’re afraid of losing what we’ve been doing for 40 years,” he said.

As competition drives prices down, even chamber of commerce types acknowledge that the North Coast economy is at risk. Pot kept things afloat as the logging and fishing industries declined. Restaurants, car dealerships, banks, hotels and dental clinics all depend on marijuana money.

“There’s probably not one business that doesn’t benefit,” said Julie Fulkerson, who founded a home furnishings store and comes from a prominent third-generation Humboldt family.

Walk into the upscale Cecil’s New Orleans Bistro in small-town Garberville and you’ll find growers in dirty T-shirts unpeeling rolls of $20 bills to pay for martinis and $38 steaks. More soil supply and hydroponics shops line stretches of Highway 101 than gas stations, and trucks laden with bags of soil and fertilizer kick up dust as they make deliveries on the most isolated roads.

During harvest, hardware stores put out huge bins of Fiskars pruning scissors, the preferred tool for marijuana trimmers. Safeway stocks so many turkey bags that an outsider might wonder how such small locales could consume so many birds. The sealable, smell-proof bags are used for storing and transporting weed.

“I wouldn’t survive … if it wasn’t for growing,” said Tom Ochner, 54, who runs a country store and rental cabins outside of Covelo — a business called the Black Butte River Ranch. “Owners realize this is what makes their business go.”

Concerned about the economics of legalization, Humboldt banker Jennifer Budwig studied the amount of pot money entering the local economy.

Using an extremely high estimate that law enforcement seized 25% of the total amount of pot grown in Humboldt, she found that the crop generated at least $1 billion a year — of which $415 million was spent in the county. She said the actual figure could be several times higher.

Legalization “has the potential to be devastating,” she said.

Some small growers, like Anna and Andrew, still hold out hope that they can beat back the deluge of industrial marijuana.

There’s a market, they say, for sun-grown weed among discerning users who appreciate the nuances of regional variety.

A grower just down the road said he hoped to start promoting “Mendocino terroir.”

“How can sun-grown not be better medicine?” Anna asked. “If you’re sick, you want something that has chemicals in it? You can’t grow indoor organically. Not to mention the fossil fuels it burns up.”

But even if boutique weed has some potential, the couple still sense that their life in the mountains is changing for good. The next-door neighbor recently had a home-invasion robbery, and a young man down the road was shot in the face during a deal.

Andrew goes back to planting the new crop. He used to have the radio on all day — something to engage his mind during the tedious work.

He doesn’t anymore.

He keeps it quiet, listening for intruders.

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times
Published: September 30, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Los Angeles Times
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.latimes.com/

29 Sep 2012

This was a working “HEMP” Farm that was a mile away from my home in Louisville KY

posted in: Latest Hemp News | 0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AGRICULTURE AT FARMINGTON IN THE 1810-1840 PERIOD

The Farmington Hemp Farm in Louisville, Kentucky

  • Farmington was a 550-acre hemp plantation. Hemp was the principal cash crop, but not the only one. No Kentucky plantations were single crop operations. Diversified farming was the norm. One reason for this was the drastically fluctuating price for hemp sales.
  • Tobacco was grown at Farmington in some years. By 1840, vinegar, and possibly cider, produced from what must have been a fairly large orchard, were also sold.
  • Butter was produced in large enough quantities for it to be sold at the downtown Louisville market. Butter making was Lucy Speed’s responsibility. In 1840 Farmington had a herd of 17 ‘milch cows.’
  • Other seed crops at Farmington in 1840 included corn and timothy and clover hay. Wheat had also been grown at one point.
  • Crops grown for consumption at Farmington in 1840 included corn, Irish potatoes, apples, cabbages, peas and beans, and sugar beets. Raspberries and peaches were also mentioned in letters. Probably a wide variety of fruits and vegetables were grown in smaller quantities for seasonal consumption by the Speed family.
  • Livestock and fowl for consumption included pigs, cattle, turkey, chickens, and ducks.
  • Large quantities of potatoes, cabbages, sugar beets, and salted pork listed in the inventory suggest that these constituted the main portion of the diet for enslaved African Americans at Farmington. (This correlates with T.W. Bullitt’s account of the slave diet at Oxmoor.)
  • Agricultural outbuildings thought to have existed at Farmington include a hemp house (no doubt a brick or stone building), corn cribs, and probably several barns.

HEMP FARMING IN KENTUCKY AND AT FARMINGTON

  • Hemp was introduced into Kentucky with the earliest settlers. By the early 19th century it had become a significant cash crop with production centered in the Bluegrass and with large amounts also grown in Shelby, Mason and Jefferson counties. These areas had the richest soil, which was needed for high yields.
  • Hemp farming was extremely labor intensive, requiring extensive amounts of backbreaking work. Hemp, as it was produced in Kentucky, was dependent on a slave economy.
  • Kentucky’s 19th-century hemp crop was used to produce cordage and rough bagging for the baling of the cotton crop in the deep south. Kentucky’s dew-rotted hemp was of inferior quality, could never compete with imported water-rotted hemp, and was unsuccessful for marine uses.
  • The price of hemp fluctuated wildly making it difficult to rely on. ($330/ton in 1810; $60/ton in 1822; $180/ton in 1936; $80/ton in 1837)
  • Hemp production in Kentucky began to decline dramatically during and after the Civil War. Union forces prevented its river transport and demand was reduced because of reduced cotton production. After the war, new methods of baling cotton using iron bands became prevalent. Also, the end of slavery made finding an adequate labor force difficult.
  • From the 1870s through World War II hemp was grown in small quantities in Kentucky with several surges in production prompted by various short-lived demands. During this time Kentucky production was overtaken by hemp grown in Wisconsin where mechanized harvesting had been introduced. In Kentucky, methods of growing and harvesting hemp never changed from those developed in the early 19th century when John Speed was growing hemp.
  • Increasing concerns over the use of hemp for marijuana production led to a government prohibition on its production.

GROWING AND HARVESTING HEMP 

  • Hemp was planted in mid-April through May in well prepared soil that had been plowed, harrowed and rolled. The growing season was 100 to 120 days.
  • Hemp grown for seed was treated differently from hemp grown for the fibers or "lint."
  • Seed hemp was planted first in the very richest soil. Seeds were planted in hills and seedlings were thinned as they grew to about 8"high. They were thinned again as the male plants were identified, with most male plants being removed, leaving only a few for pollination. Often the tops of the female plants were lopped off to create branching and the production of more seed.
  • Plants were usually ready for harvesting in early September when they were carefully cut down near the ground with hemp hooks and dried. The seed was collected by flailing the stalks on a clean sheet. The chaff was then either blown away or separated from the seed by sifting. The seed was stored for the next year’s plants.
  • Fiber hemp was planted later and seeded more thickly. Stalks grew very tall and close together, thereby preventing the growth of many weeds, causing lower leaves to die off, and creating longer lengths of the desirable fibers. These plants grew 6′ to 10′ high. These plants, also, were cut down with hemp hooks.
  • Fiber hemp was left lying in the fields for "dew rotting" so that the gums that caused the fibers in the stalks to adhere to the outer casing would dissolve. After enough rotting had occurred, the stalks were gathered into stacks to dry them out and to await the breaking process that usually began shortly after Christmas.
  • So-called "hemp breaks" were dragged out in the fields to the stacks, where handfuls of the stalks were repeatedly bashed between the two parts of the break to shatter the outer casing and reveal the desired fibers. Initial cleaning was accomplished by whipping the fibers against the break to knock out remaining bits of the stalk (herds). The fibers were bundled in the field and weighed back at the hemp house. Later they were run through a "hackle," similar to a large and rougher looking carder, to further clean and align the fibers.
  • The fibers or "lint" were spun into a rough yarn and then either twisted into rope or woven on a simple hand loom into very rough cloth referred to as "bagging."
  • All these tasks were performed by enslaved African Americans who worked on their owner’s plantation or were leased for hemp production. The work was grueling, back-breaking labor, made more unpleasant by the dust and pollen stirred up as the hemp was processed. Many of the hemp workers were reported to have developed awful coughs that took months to go away.
  • Traditionally in Kentucky, hemp harvesting was assigned as task work to the enslaved African Americans. There were daily quotas for the amount of harvesting to be done and the amount of lint to be processed at the break. These varied depending on the age of the workers. Above and beyond the required amount, slaves were paid a small amount for extra production.
  • The Hemp Crop at Farmington in 1840

The 1840 inventory provides a number of clues about hemp production at Farmington at the time John Speed died.

  • Approximately 90 acres were used for the hemp crop that year, 87 for producing the fiber hemp and about another 3 for growing seed hemp (calculated by Otteson based on the quantity of seed listed).
  • The two sheets for cleaning hemp seed document the use of the typical method of obtaining the seed.
  • The 20 hemp hooks and 21 hemp breaks suggest that about 20 hands were employed in the production of hemp at Farmington.
  • References in the settlement of John Speed’s estate document the presence of a rope walk and weaving house at Farmington where the hemp was processed for sale. The "jack screw" in the inventory is probably the piece of equipment used at the end of the rope walk to twist the strands of hemp into rope. Why no looms are listed in the inventory is somewhat confusing.
  • In 1840, $9,154 was made at Farmington from the sale of hemp products.

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