by Colin Donoghue
Daily Lobo
Changing our hemp and marijuana laws is a policy reform usually called for by Independents, Greens and Democrats, but now Republicans are calling for change too.
You may recall that former Republican governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, was an outspoken opponent of marijuana and hemp prohibition. Just this June, Republican Rep. Ron Paul from Texas introduced the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005 to Congress. The bill would once again allow the cultivation of industrial hemp in the United States, as was done by our founding fathers, including George Washington.
Several other representatives have joined Paul in co-sponsoring this hemp legislation, and more co-sponsors are expected as more citizens ask their representatives to sign on.
Industrial hemp is the tough, course fiber of the cannabis sativa plant, which contains less than 1 percent tetrahydrocannabinol - THC - the main active ingredient in marijuana. Marijuana is a strain of cannabis that contains much higher levels of THC. You can't get high from smoking hemp, and eating hemp foods will not make you test positive for marijuana use in a drug test.
Hemp can easily replace trees for paper and building materials with a higher-quality fiber, significantly reducing the deforestation that accelerates global warming and the extinction of wildlife and plant species. Hemp is also an alternative to cotton for clothing that does not require the use of toxic pesticides. Hemp seeds are a nutritious food source, and the high cellulose content of the hemp plant makes it ideal for conversion into ethanol fuel, which can be used by flexible fuel vehicles.
Industrial hemp is legal to grow in more than 30 countries, including Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, New Zealand, Romania, Russia and Spain. The U.S. federal government is certainly out of step with other countries concerning hemp policy. However, things are better at the state level: Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia have removed state-level barriers to industrial hemp production and research.
Many prohibitionists discredit the need for a hemp industry, saying hemp relegalization is being used as a vehicle to relegalize marijuana. The Drug Enforcement Administration said hemp legalization would interfere with its marijuana eradication program because of the similarities between the two types of cannabis plants.
Therefore, hemp will probably never be relegalized as long as marijuana remains prohibited. Marginalizing the legitimacy of the call to legalize marijuana by focusing solely on hemp relegalization would be fruitless as well as wrong. After all, marijuana prohibition is an unconstitutional and oppressive policy, violating citizens' right to control their own bodies without harming others or their property. Therefore, the call for legalization should be for industrial hemp, medical marijuana and the private and responsible recreational adult use of marijuana.
Drugs are placed into one of five schedules under the federal Controlled Substances Act. Marijuana is listed as a Schedule 1 drug, the most dangerous category, defined as having a high potential for abuse and having no currently accepted medical use in the United States.
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Claiming that natural marijuana has no medicinal value by placing it in the Schedule 1 drug category goes against the findings of doctors throughout the world, and is contradicted by the 10 states that have laws allowing seriously ill patients to use natural medical marijuana with their doctors' recommendation.
The argument that marijuana prohibition protects our children is also not based in reality. Illegal drug dealers do not care how young a buyer is, and without legalizing and regulating marijuana, many children find it easier to buy than alcohol or tobacco. In Holland, where the sale of marijuana to adults is not criminalized, the percentage of teenagers using marijuana is less than half that of American teenagers.
Cannabis should be removed from the Schedule 1 category and be legalized and regulated like alcohol and tobacco - a minimum age of 21 for purchase and use, illegal for use while driving, and so on.
Marijuana and hemp prohibition costs billions every year to enforce, creates a black market that generates violence and corruption, and makes criminals out of millions of productive and harmless adults. Americans should once again have the legal right to use the cannabis plant for its many beneficial uses including medicine, paper, fuel, clothing and food.
