Support The Industrial Hemp Farming Act

Lawmakers in both the House of Representatives and the Senate are seeking to allow for the commercial farming of industrial hemp by introducing the Industrial Hemp Farming Act.

House Bill 1831, which was introduced last year by Texas Republican Ron Paul and a coalition of 25 co-sponsors, and SB 3501, introduced this August in the Senate by Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden and three co-sponsors, would exclude low potency varieties of marijuana from federal prohibition. If approved, this measure will grant state legislatures the authority to license and regulate the commercial production of hemp as an industrial and agricultural commodity. Several states — including North Dakota, Montana, and Vermont — have enacted regulations to allow for the cultivation of hemp under state law. However, none of these laws can be implemented without federal approval. Passage of HR 1831 would remove existing federal barriers and allow states that wish to regulate commercial hemp production the authority to do so.

Vote Hemp President, Eric Steenstra stated, “It is due time for the Senate as well as President Obama and the Attorney General to prioritize the crop’s benefits to farmers and to take action like Rep. Paul and the cosponsors of H.R. 1831 have done. With the U.S. hemp industry valued at over $400 million in annual retail sales and growing, a change in federal policy to allow hemp farming would mean instant job creation, among many other economic and environmental benefits.”

According to a 2010 Congressional Resource Service report, “approximately 30 countries in Europe, Asia, and North and South America currently permit farmers to grow hemp.” But the United States does not. As a result, U.S. companies that specialize in hempen goods have no choice but to import hemp material. These added production costs are then passed on to the consumer who must pay artificially high retail prices for hemp products.

Previous versions of The Industrial Hemp Farming Act have been introduced in the House, but failed to receive a public hearing or a committee vote. This is the first year the issue has ever been introduced in the Senate. Please write your members of Congress today and tell them to end the federal prohibition of industrial hemp production. For your convenience, a prewritten letter will be e-mailed to your member of Congress when you enter your contact information below. For more information about industrial hemp, please visit: http://www.votehemp.org.

Thank you for assisting NORML’s federal law reform efforts.

KELLY: Hemp vs. oil: How corporate & gov’t collusion perverted the free market

Travis Kelly

 

Since the days of Cain and Abel, hemp has been one of the world’s largest and most versatile crops, used to make textiles, paint, soap, rope, building materials, fuel oil, protein supplements, and medicines. An acre of hemp produces far more paper than an acre of trees — and you would have to smoke an acre of it to get high, as industrial hemp, though similar in appearance to its close cousin, marijuana (cannabis), contains almost no THC.
Today, in only one industrialized nation in the world, is the cultivation of hemp illegal. You guessed it: Ours truly. And it makes as much sense as outlawing ALL mushrooms because some of them are psychoactive or poisonous. How this travesty came about in 1937 is a lesson in the collusion of big corporations with big government and big media to pervert the free market and stymie competition.
In the early 1930s, Henry Ford’s experimental biomass plant in Michigan extracted methanol, charcoal, tar pitch, and other distillates from hemp, demonstrating that it was an alternative to fossil fuels as an energy source, as well as a competitor to other petrochemical products then being introduced by the DuPont corporation, DuPont had a powerful ally in Washington — Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon, a banker who also had a controlling interest in the Gulf Oil Corporation.
Mellon appointed his loyal nephew, Harry Anslinger, as chief of the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1932. Anslinger promptly began lobbying Congress to outlaw “marihuana,” using a series of hysterical propaganda stories run by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst — that era’s Rupert Murdoch. Hearst owned vast timber lands in the Northwest that supplied the wood pulp for most of the American newspaper industry; DuPont chemicals were used to process that pulp. The “reefer madness” scare featured lurid, racist stories of “Mexicans and Negroes” going on murderous rampages while stoned; innocent white women seduced into ruin; teenagers going instantly insane after a puff; and other fearmongering fictions.
Anslinger told Congress that hemp — ALL hemp, whether smokable or not — was “entirely the Monster Hyde, the harmful effects of which cannot be measured.” The Marijuana Tax Act was rammed through Congress in secret committees controlled by DuPont allies. That same year, 1937, DuPont filed its patent on Nylon, which took over the textile and cordage markets that had been dominated by hemp. DuPont also supplied GM, which produced more than half of all American cars, with its petrochemical paints, varnishes, plastics and rubber, all of which could have been produced equally well from hemp. But no more. The competition had been criminalized.
The prohibition was suspended during WWII, with a Hemp for Victory campaign, then reinstated in 1955. Since then, our closest cousins, England, Australia and Canada (1998), have all legalized industrial hemp. China is the world’s number-one producer, exporting most of it to us — the world’s leading hemp importer — exacerbating our trade imbalance.
As global oil supplies continue to decline versus growing demand, and become harder to extract and import due to geological and political factors, domestic hemp could easily replace many petrochemical products with significant advantages.
Hemp is a renewable resource, one of the fastest growing and most productive plants on earth, yielding four crops and 25 tons of dry matter per hectare per year. It requires few pesticides and no herbicides. It is now being used as a building material, Hempcrete, and, combined with fiberglass and flax, to make body panels for automobiles. It has also proved excellent as a “mop crop” for cleaning up contaminated soil. In all these cases, hemp is carbon neutral or even carbon negative, scrubbing and sequestering CO2 from our warming atmosphere.
Several states have licensed the growing of industrial hemp — California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont, and West Virginia — but have not yet grown a single plant due to continued resistance by the DEA, who is still stuck in 1930s “reefer madness” paranoia, despite now overwhelming evidence that hemp’s cousin, marijuana, is far less harmful than alcohol for both health and public safety. To grow industrial hemp, the DEA must issue a permit under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act — and it never does.
Colorado can join that roster on Nov. 6 by voting for Amendment 64. Eventually, we will budge the DEA from its archaic stupidity, end the virtual dictatorship of the petrochemical industry, and safeguard our national security by again realizing Thomas Jefferson’s maxim: “Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country.”
Travis Kelly is a web/graphic designer, writer and cartoonist in Grand Junction. See his work or contact him at www.traviskelly.com.

CONTINUE READING…

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

 

 

 

 

 

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.

PLEASE CONTINUE TO THE “EDISON HOUSE” SITE THRU THIS LINK…

Hemp advocates say support is growing for crop in Kentucky

Bruce Schreiner/The Associated Press Posted:   04/11/2012 01:59:34 AM PDT

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Hemp isn’t legal in Kentucky yet, but the eclectic mix of people at a recent seminar in Lexington was evidence that support for the versatile plant may be taking root.

One by one, elected officials stepped forward to promote the virtues of hemp production, staking out a position that once might have sown political trouble back home. They were cheered by liberals and libertarian-leaning conservatives alike.

”We’ve come a long way,” said state Sen. Joey Pendleton, who has sponsored a string of unsuccessful bills seeking to reintroduce hemp in the Bluegrass state. “The first year I had this, it was lonely.”

Kentucky once was a leading producer of industrial hemp, a tall, leafy plant with a multitude of uses that has been outlawed for decades because of its association with marijuana. Those seeking to legalize the plant argue that the change would create a new crop for farmers, replacing a hemp supply now imported from Canada and other countries.

The plant can be used to make paper, biofuels, clothing, lotions and other products.

Despite bipartisan support, the latest hemp measures failed again this year in the Kentucky General Assembly. But this time, hemp advocates think they have momentum on their side and vow to press on with their campaign to legalize the crop.

Pendleton, D-Hopkinsville, urged his fellow hemp supporters to lobby hard in preparation for another push in 2013.

”I think next

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year is the year,” said Pendleton, whose grandfather raised hemp in western Kentucky.

Hemp bills have been introduced in 11 state legislatures this year, but so far none have passed, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The bills include allowing privately funded industrial hemp research, allowing hemp production under strict licensing programs and urging the federal government to allow hemp production for industrial uses.

Hemp’s reputation has undergone drastic pendulum swings in the U.S.

During World War II, the U.S. government encouraged farmers to grow hemp for the war effort because other industrial fibers, often imported from overseas, were in short supply. But the crop hasn’t been grown in the U.S. since the 1950s as the federal government moved to classify hemp as a controlled substance because it’s related to marijuana.

Hemp proponents argue the plant contains little of the mind-altering chemical THC.

Someone would have to “smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole,” to get high from hemp, Roger Johnson, a hemp supporter and president of the National Farmers Union, said in a telephone interview.

Johnson has seen strong support for hemp in North Dakota, where he formerly served as state agriculture commissioner.

Two North Dakota farmers received the state’s first licenses to grow industrial hemp in 2007, but they never received approval from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The farmers sued, but a federal appeals court affirmed a lower court decision dismissing the suit.

”There’s no amount of talking, and believe me I’ve tried, that might convince them otherwise,” Johnson said of the DEA. “So short of the Congress passing a law defining industrial hemp differently from marijuana, I think it’s going to be a long, uphill battle to get anywhere.”

The federal Controlled Substances Act does not differentiate between marijuana and hemp, said Barbara Carreno, a DEA spokeswoman. As a result, “we would not approve applications to grow hemp because it is marijuana,” she said.

Because of that, Johnson called for a grassroots push for congressional action to legalize hemp production.

Imports include finished hemp products and hemp material turned into goods. U.S. retail sales of hemp products exceeded $400 million last year, according to industry estimates.

Pete Ashman, of Philadelphia, was among those at the Lexington hemp seminar, where he displayed a myriad of hemp products, from food, to toilet paper to shampoo. He claimed, “There’s nothing greener on God’s earth.”

Republican state Sen. Paul Hornback didn’t go that far, but the tobacco farmer from Shelbyville said in a phone interview that he sees industrial hemp as an alternative crop that could give Kentucky agriculture a boost if it ever gains a legal foothold.

Agriculture Commissioner James Comer also supports legalization, arguing that industrial hemp could yield more per acre than corn and soybeans. He sees hemp as a viable alternative to tobacco, a once-stalwart crop that has been on the decline in Kentucky.

Comer, among the speakers at the Lexington seminar, said most Kentucky farmers have the equipment needed to produce hemp. He added that the crop needs no herbicides or pesticides, a plus for the environment and a cost savings for producers.

Hemp production would spin off new manufacturing, Comer said, creating jobs in parts of rural Kentucky where a once-thriving garment sector disappeared after the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in the 1990s.

Once factories started churning out hemp products, farmers would flock to the crop, Comer predicted.

Comer, a Republican, said he’s been contacted by three “very legitimate industrial prospects” that would consider opening hemp production plants in Kentucky if the crop becomes legal to grow. One company wants to use hemp to make vehicle dashes, he said. Another wants to make ethanol and cosmetics out of hemp, he said.

John Riley, a former magistrate in Spencer County, sees hemp as a potentially lucrative crop that could become a renewable fuel source. It would be a big transformation for a crop once known as a major source for rope.

”We’re not talking about rope, and we’re not talking about dope,” he said. “What we’re talking about is a serious agricultural product.”

Still, the crop needs to overcome what Riley refers to as the “snicker factor.”

Pendleton said he’ll keep pushing the economic benefits of hemp.

”I look forward to continuing to fight the fight,” Pendleton said. “We can make this happen in Kentucky.”

Legislators Discuss Industrial Hemp

 

 

Rosalind Turner

Mar 07 |13:38 PM

FRANKFORT, KY (3/7/12) – Senator Joey Pendleton, D-Hopkinsville, joined members of the House of Representatives Terry Mills, D-Lebanon, W. Keith Hall, D-Pikeville, and Richard Henderson, D-Jeffersonville, today to discuss legalizing industrial hemp at the House Agriculture and Small Business Committee meeting.
Senator Pendleton has sponsored for the fourth year, legislation (Senate Bill 41) that would legalize industrial hemp as a cash crop in Kentucky. The three House members are sponsoring similar legislation – House Bill 272 (Mills) and House Bill 286 (Henderson and Hall).
The four discussed the economic development benefits to Kentucky, products made from hemp, and the importance of Kentucky being in the forefront of legalizing industrial hemp in the U.S.
SurfKY News
Information provided by Rosalind Turner

CONTINUE READING…

Hemp Freedom Act

 

THIS LINK WILL TAKE YOU TO THE “KENTUCKY HEMP FREEDOM ACT” WHICH IS POSTED ON PETITION TO CONGRESS.ORG

Hemp Freedom Act

 The following is model legislation approved by the Tenth Amendment Center. Activists, we encourage you to send this to your state senators and representatives – and ask them to introduce this legislation in your state.

AN ACT

To authorize the production of industrial hemp; to amend (SUBSECTION AND CODE) of the KENTUCKY Code, relating to the definition of noxious weed seeds; and to nullify certain acts of the Federal Government of the United States purporting to be laws and regulations resulting in the prohibition of industrial hemp farming in the state of KENTUCKY

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF KENTUCKY DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1. Name

This Act shall be known and may be cited as the “Hemp Freedom Act.”

SECTION 2. Findings

A new section of law to be codified in the [STATE] Statutes as Section [NUMBER] of Title [NUMBER], unless there is created a duplication in numbering, reads as follows:

(CHAPTER)

Section (#) (A) The General Assembly finds that :

(1) The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States codifies in law that the only powers which the Federal Government may exercise are those that have been delegated to it in the Constitution of the United States;

(2) The Ninth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees to the people rights not enumerated in the Constitution and reserves to the people of (STATE) those rights;

(3) The power to regulate interstate commerce was delegated to the federal government in Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution. As understood at the time of the founding, the regulation of commerce was meant to empower Congress to regulate the buying and selling of products made by others (and sometimes land), associated finance and financial instruments, and navigation and other carriage, across state jurisdictional lines. This interstate regulation of “commerce” did not include agriculture, manufacturing, mining, malum in se crime, or land use. Nor did it include activities that merely “substantially affected” commerce;

(4) The advocates of the Constitution, at the time of its ratification, assured the People of the Several States that the regulation of agriculture would be reserved to the States. This included Alexander Hamilton, who wrote in Federalist #17: “the supervision of agriculture and of other concerns of a similar nature, all those things, in short, which are proper to be provided for by local legislation can never be desirable cases of a general jurisdiction.” This was reinforced by many others, including Justice Sargeant of Massachusetts, who let it be known that only the states would have the power to regulate “common fields” and “fisheries”;

(5) The Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered a proposal to create, in the Constitution, a Secretary of Domestic Affairs, who was to have authority to regulate agriculture. That proposal was rejected;

(6) The assumption of power that the Federal Government through its Drug Enforcement Administration has made by prohibiting industrial hemp farming exceeds its Constitutional authority and interferes with the right of the People of the State of KENTUCKY to regulate agriculture as they see fit, and makes a mockery of James Madison’s assurance in Federalist #45 that the “powers delegated” to the Federal Government are “few and defined”, while those of the States are “numerous and indefinite.”

(7) Federal agents have flouted the United States Constitution and foresworn their oath to support this Constitution by prohibiting industrial farming of hemp by the People of the State of (STATE), and these actions violate the limits of authority placed upon the federal agents by the United States Constitution and are dangerous to the liberties of the people;

SECTION 3. Authorization to Plant, Grow, Harvest, Possess, Process, Sell, and Buy

A. Industrial hemp (cannabis sativa l.), having no more than three-tenths of one percent tetrahydrocannabinol, is recognized as an oilseed. Upon meeting this requirement, any person in this state may plant, grow, harvest, possess, process, sell, and buy industrial hemp (cannabis sativa l.) having no more than three-tenths of one percent tetrahydrocannabinol.

SECTION 4. Nullification of Federal Prohibitions

A. The Legislature of the State of KENTUCKY declares that the federal prohibitions on industrial hemp farming are not authorized by the Constitution of the United States and violates its true meaning and intent as given by the Founders and Ratifiers, and are hereby declared to be invalid in this state, shall not be recognized by this state, are specifically rejected by this state, and shall be considered null and void and of no effect in this state.

B. It shall be the duty of the legislature of this State to adopt and enact any and all measures as may be necessary to prevent the enforcement of federal prohibitions on industrial hemp farming within the limits of this State.

C. Any official, agent, or employee of the United States government or any employee of a corporation providing services to the United States government that enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States in violation of this act shall be guilty of a felony and upon conviction must be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars ($2,000.00), or a term of imprisonment not exceeding two (2) years, or both.

D. Any public officer or employee of the State of KENTUCKY that enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States in violation of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six (6) months or by a fine not exceeding Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00) or both such fine and imprisonment.

SECTION 5.

This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor.

***

Kentucky

District
Name
Party
Room
Phone
Committee Assignment

1
Whitfield, Ed
R
2368 RHOB
202-225-3115
Energy and Commerce

2
Guthrie, S. Brett
R
308 CHOB
202-225-3501
Energy and Commerce

3
Yarmuth, John A.
D
435 CHOB
202-225-5401
Budget
Ethics
Oversight and Government Reform

4
Davis, Geoff
R
1119 LHOB
202-225-3465
Ways and Means

5
Rogers, Harold
R
2406 RHOB
202-225-4601
Appropriations, Chairman

6
Chandler, Ben
D
1504 LHOB
202-225-4706
Foreign Affairs
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

****

WHO IS MY LEGISLATOR?