“Roger Adams’ political views aren’t discussed much,” opened Bryan W. Brickner, publisher of The Cannabis Papers: A citizen’s guide to cannabinoids (2011). “That’s not because he wasn’t political; it’s because of the politics in his science.”
Roger Adams (1889-1971) was head of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) from 1926-54. He’s credited with the Adams’ catalyst (platinum dioxide), developing local anesthetics, the synthesis of naturally occurring anthraquinones (dyes, papermaking and medicine), and the structure of gossypol (a natural phenol with pro-apoptotic properties). Adams is also credited with the 1940 discovery of the herbal cannabinoid Cannabidiol (CBD).
In a new post on The Compassion Chronicles, “What if he’d had the Good Stuff? Adams, Prohibition and Political Cannabinoid Science,” Brickner discusses Adams’ 1942 Harvey Lecture, Marihuana.
“Adams was not only a famed chemist,” explained Brickner, “he lived the political nature of scientific research by publicly speaking about marihuana in 1942 – five years after it had been federally banned.”
Brickner continued: “Adams discovered CBD from Minnesota wild hemp, which means there wasn’t much (if any) THC in his research material supplied by the government. While writing The Cannabis Papers, we wondered: what if the famed chemist had been given cannabis with THC in it? Would he have found it 24 years earlier than it was?”
“It’s an open question,” Brickner noted, “though illustrative. It shows the cost of keeping ‘the good stuff’ from a chemist like Adams.”
Brickner graduated from the University of Illinois in 1988 and has a 1997 political science doctorate from Purdue University. The Compassion Chronicles is an online destination for news, opinion, resources and networking.
Locally established hemp distributor, Planet Hemp Products, exported Australian grown and processed human-grade hemp food to China this week.
Planet Hemp Products is the first company in Australia to export hemp food to China. For many years, China has been one of the largest producers and exporters of hemp seed and hemp fibre products in the world.
“It is a credit to the Beattie Government practices, persistence and AusTrade that we are in a position to begin competing in such a sustainable agricultural industry”, said Thomas, general manager of Planet Hemp Products.
The first commercial industrial hemp crops were sown in Queensland in 2002. In that same year, the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) recommended that the Australian Health Council approve hemp seed foods for human consumption. For the first time in Australian history, the Health Council of Australia has ignored a FSANZ recommendation leaving Australia as the last western democracy in which hemp seed foods for humans remain controlled by State Criminal legislation.
The only hemp foods currently available in Australia are for our pets. Ironically, the Australian made pet food contains the same Australian hemp seeds contained in human grade food that Planet Hemp Products now exports.
Planet Hemp Products began working with Austrade offices in London, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver and Tokyo late last year to introduce Australian made hemp foods to the world.
Hemp seed does not contain any THC, the drug; it is a superior source of easily digestible and complete proteins, dietary fibre and the good fats – omega 3 and omega 6. Hemp as an agricultural crop is environmentally and commercially sustainable to grow in many parts of Australia.
Due to the legal restrictions in Australia, Planet Hemp Products was inadvertently lead into the pet food industry. It was a decision that would change the face of the Australian hemp food and pet food industries forever as Planet Hemp Products began exporting its range of Dr Skoobie’s Snax and Superior Health Choice dog kibble earlier this month to the USA.
Planet Hemp Products are a family owned company that began in 2004 when they executed the largest hemp seed contract in Australia. In 2007, Hemp seed production will have increased by over 1,000% with licensed crops in Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria.
“We are now in discussions with the largest and best hemp seed processor in north America to gain the use of their processing experience. We have also discussed supplying Canada and the USA with Australian grown hemp seed by-products in their cold season,” said Thomas.
The Federal Government is reluctant to change the status quo regarding hemp seed foods in Australia for people. One of the stated reasons is that it will confuse the Australian public.
This new situation is creating more confusion as many informed Australians are wondering why it seems everyone else can benefit from hemp seed foods, except them. Even our cousins across the Tasman are permitted to consume hemp seed oil.
Good Intentions patients accounted for 11 conditions that will be considered including: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anorexia Nervosa, Anxiety Chronic Post-Operative Pain, Essential Thrombocythemia with JAK 2 mutation, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Migraine, Neuro-Behcet’s Auto Immune Disease, Neuropathy, Osteoarthritis and Superior Canal Dehiscence Syndrome. The Medical Cannabis Advisory Board only accepted 22 total petitions for review; Good Intentions was responsible for submitting 12 of those petitions.
Good Intentions CEO Tammy Jacobi credited her “remarkable staff and dedicated patients” as the reason why the company was able to submit thorough yet succinct petitions. “Good Intentions has helped thousands of patients and we’re experts in all aspects of the medical marijuana field. The State of Illinois accepted every petition we submitted because we’re knowledgable and hard-working”.
Good Intentions patients named in their petitions will each be submitting a written letter of intent to the Illinois Division of Medical Cannabis, informing the board of their desire to share their personal stories. Representatives from Good Intentions will accompany their patients as they appeal to the advisory board to add their conditions at the public hearing, which is scheduled for May 4 at the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago.
For more information on how to become an Illinois medical marijuana patient, contact Good Intentions at (312) 651-4306 or go their website GoodIntentionsChicago.com. Good Intentions services are currently free of charge.
A door was opened some time ago that ushered forth a new era in government intervention into people’s life style choices and social well being. This trend was started as much by small special interest groups as it was politicians, but once the system found a formula that worked, they prepared themselves to drive a freight train in through the crack in the door.
What I am referring to is the continuing stream of new and evolving laws that are being built around legally forcing people to make life style choices that are being put forward as essential for the well being of individuals and society. By legislating these “essentials,” people are rapidly being driven toward having government dictating who, what, where, when, why, and how we are allowed live, at the penalty of law if circumstances do not allow us to see life the government way. All this subterfuge is being passed off as appealing to activities that are better ruled by common sense than legislation, but as the swelling invasion of rules and regulations grow, common sense will give way to controlling choices people are allowed to make on their own.
This article is intended to identify some of these areas that already exist, and outline where these trends could well be going for the future. Though every one of these laws has a positive side to its presentation, the fact that legal penalties are associated with non-compliance and restriction of the freedom to choose is the unacceptable consequence of bringing these ideas to the legal front. My label for these laws falls under the “for your own good” umbrella.
Examples of this type of legislation include wearing seat belts while driving automobiles, liquor laws, smoking restrictions, legal requirements to carry vehicle insurance, abortion laws, environmental legislation, taxes, and other forms of legislation that are designed not only to protect people from their own lack of common sense, but also add costs to every day living with or without being penalized for not complying with these regulations. Instead of penalizing people with the consequences of making wrong choices, our society is shaping itself around benefiting the special interests of some industries and penalizing individuals and other industries with non-elective costs that are being mandated by the government to meet legal requirements.
One of the more disturbing illustrations of how these types of laws can get out of hand relate to smoking. Since it is legal for adults to buy “harmful” tobacco products, and the tobacco industry has its own powerful lobbyist groups, the government has turned its power toward penalizing the individuals who use these products rather than the companies that manufacture them. Though it is legal to buy tobacco products, legislators are narrowing the number of places and circumstances where tobacco can be used, and adding heavy tax penalties to consumers on top of the purchase price.
Non-smokers may well be applauding these efforts, but they are not so happy when the government is allowed to dictate how much insurance they are required to have on their purchase of automobiles and personal property, and the taxes they are required to pay for using too much gasoline at the fuel pump. People are also not so happy about the government dictating where and how their children are allowed to receive an education.
For every legal mandate of how and where we are allowed to live out our lives, there are monetary costs associated with doing as we are told, and for not doing as we are told by the government. Every aspect of life that falls under legal jurisdiction carries more weight in what it costs to live in our country. By legalizing our lives rather than relying on individual choices and common sense agreements, it is the legislators and not the people who choose how we are allowed to live, and how much that control will cost. Regardless of your views on the current legal trends, this regulation of individual choices is likely to continue to escalate going forward.
When the government has succeeded in gaining absolute control over issues like alcohol, tobacco, education, fuel consumption, energy, and housing, the next loss of our freedom to choose our own life styles will come in areas of income, obesity, exercise, communication, diet, health care and recreation to a degree that is more intense than the current levels of government intervention. Abortion laws already regulate who is allowed to live and die from the ranks of the unborn, and it is only a small step to extend those controls to the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the handicapped, the disadvantaged or the poor.
Government is most beneficial in providing a means for resolving disputes between people in a society, and not in mandating the every day activities of people’s lifestyles. Providing social services should not extend to forcing people to conform to a government play book for how people should live to qualify for these programs. In judging what laws should be enacted for the good of society in general, one must count the cost these laws extract from the individual freedoms and income these laws will require from us. The question you must ask yourself is whether or not the government is truly acting to benefit you for your own good, or controlling aspects of your life that are better left to your own choices. Speak for yourself while it is still allowed for you to do so.
John Dir LittleTek Center Check out our information channel and free softtware at http://home.earthlink.net/~jdir/
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Hemp facts are Courtesy of The Kentucky Hemp Museum & Library, Versailles, KY
1. One acre of hemp produces twice as much oil as one acre of peanuts.
Agriculture, Papermakers have high hopes for Industrial Hemp.
Agri-View. ” Wisconsin’s largest farm newspaper” April 27, 1995.
2. America’s first hemp law was enacted in 1619 at Jamestown Colony, Virginia ordering all farmers to grow Indian hemp seed.
Clark. V.S., History of Manufacture in the United States, Mcgraw Hill. NY 1929. pg 34.
3. Cannabis hemp was legal tender in most of the Americas from 1631 until the early 1800’s. you could even pay your taxes with cannabis hemp.
Clark. V.S., History of Manufacture in the United States. Mcgraw Hill. NY 1929. pg. 34.
4. “The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp which began to be worked in the eighth millennium (8,000-7,000) BC).
“The Columbia History of the World. 1981. pg. 54.
5. The original. Heavy-duty, famous Levi jeans were made for the California ’49ers out of hemp sailcloth and rivets so that the pockets would not rip when filled with gold.
Hemp and the Marijuana Conspiracy: The Emperor Wears No Clothes, Jack Herer, Revised and expanded 1995 edition: copyright March, 1995, HEMP Publishing. 5632 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys. CA 91401. pg. 6.
6. One acre of hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as 4.1 acres of trees.
Dewey & Merrill. Bulletin #404. U.S. Dept. of Age. 1916.
7. Hemp paper is stronger and has greater folding endurance than wood pulp paper.
Dewey & Merrill. Bulletin #404, US Dept. of Ag., 1916.
8. Cannabis hemp seeds contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids, which are vital to the immune system necessary to maintain a healthy life.
Hempseed Nutrition. Osburn, Lynn, Access unlimited, P.O. Box 1900. Frazier Park. CA 93225.
9. Hemp seeds contain up to 24% protein. A handful of seed provides the minimum daily requirement of protein for adults.
Rosenthal. Ed. Hemp Today, pg. 101.
14. August 13, 1941, Henry Ford first displayed his plastic car at Dearborn Days in Michigan. The car ran on fuels derived from hemp and other agricultural based sources, and the fenders were made of hemp, wheat, straw, and synthetic plastics. Ford said his vision was “to grow automobiles from the soil.”
The Kentucky Hemp Museum and Library. 1998 Historical Hemp Calendar, February. Roulac, John. Industrial Hemp Practical Products – Paper to fabric to Cosmetics, pg. 11. Hemptech Video Rating: 4 / 5
Congressional Democrats have proposed a legislation which hopefully makes it easier to sue manufacturers of medical devices. Well, it is just a proposal! The question now is whether the proposed legislation has enough votes to pass. No doubt it will be a difficult measure to muster enough votes for either in the House or Senate.
The Medical Device Safety Act of 2009 would overturn the Court’s 2008 ruling in Riegel v. Medtronic, which dismissed a lawsuit over a ruptured catheter. That ruling brought whoops of joy from medical device firms, who had long lobbied for a position that federal law blocked, or preempted, such suits. But the Supreme Court changed the landscape yesterday in Wyeth v. Levine when it upheld a $ 6.7 million state jury verdict won by a musician from Vermont whose arm was amputated after being injected with an anti-nausea drug.
The question now is whether the proposed legislation has enough votes to pass, especially in the Senate where Minnesota Senator-elect Al Franken has yet to be seated.
No doubt it will be a difficult measure to muster enough votes for either in the House or Senate. Mark Hermann, a Jones Day lawyer who represents pharmaceutical and medical device companies, as well as a drug and device law blogger, noted that the federal law for medical devices contains a provision which specifically addresses the pre-empting of state laws and requirements, while the federal law pertaining to pharmaceuticals does not.
“If enacted, this legislation would effectively allow state courts to review medical devices and ultimately lead to a patchwork of inconsistent and confusing guidance on the use of medical treatments for patients and physicians, or limit their availability altogether,” wrote AdvaMed, in a news release.
Until a resolution ensues, plaintiff’s lawyers expect companies will continue seeking to dismiss liability lawsuits filed in state courts citing the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision. In January 2009, a federal judge in Minneapolis threw out lawsuits filed on behalf of thousands of patients who received heart defibrillators with wires capable of fracturing and producing lethal shocks.
Alexandra Reed writes for Connecticut personal injury law firm, Stratton Faxon. Contact Stratton Faxon to speak with a Connecticut accident lawyer about your personal injury, wrongful death, or Connecticut malpractice case. To learn more, visit Strattonfaxon.com.
