cannabisnews.com: DEA Set To Battle Pot Advocates Over Hemp Use 





DEA Set To Battle Pot Advocates Over Hemp Use 
Posted by CN Staff on September 07, 2003 at 22:30:12 PT
By Steve Miller, The Washington Times
Source: Washington Times 
Consuming a chunk of organic health food is a act of drug abuse in the eyes of the Drug Enforcement Administration — if it contains, as some snacks do, hemp as an ingredient.  An appeals court in Alaska says residents can possess up to a quarter-pound of pot for their own use.   In a Zogby poll conducted last month in New Hampshire, 84 percent of voters said they supported changing federal law to allow patients to use medicinal marijuana without fear of arrest. 
Marijuana continues its beeline for the mainstream after years of reefer madness. Federal officials are ready to do battle, with the next target being hemp as food.   While it sounds simple enough — one side of mostly pro-marijuana advocates looking to climb another rung on the ladder toward pot tolerance — the fact that the hemp food case even has legs portrays the continued move toward societal legitimacy of the illegal weed.   "There is a lot more tolerance for marijuana," said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, which favors pot legalization and most other liberalization of marijuana laws. "And it appears that there are more people rallying around this issue."   What people are not seeing, said Ed Childress, a DEA spokesman in Washington, "is the marijuana-legalization lobby at work behind the scenes, with better resources."   Two years ago, DEA head Asa Hutchinson said that foods using seeds from the hemp plant violated federal law. He ordered a crackdown on the foods, but his dictate was stayed by a court order.   Courtroom wrangling has drawn out the battle. For now, purveyors of the products are free to sell. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will begin hearing arguments in the case next week.   "It was really a matter of hemp not existing as something that can be consumed," said Richard Meyer, a DEA spokesman in San Francisco.   If the DEA gets its way, insisting that hemp-as-food violates federal law, Lynn Gordon says, she stands to lose $800,000.   Miss Gordon's Minneapolis-based French Meadow Bakery produces, among other things, bread with hemp seeds as a primary ingredient. She distances herself from the pro-pot lobby.   "I don't advocate marijuana use, I don't smoke marijuana," Miss Gordon said. But her multigrain Healthy Hemp bread uses hemp seeds that she purchases legally from Canada, where hemp plants are grown for industrial use and consumption. "This is not to get people high, it is something that tastes good."   Hemp-food advocates say sterilized hemp seed and oil are exempt from the Controlled Substances Act under the statutory definition of marijuana, just as poppy seeds are exempted under the statutory definition of the opium poppy.   The growing support for marijuana in all forms is at odds with a federal government that has gone to great lengths to fight it. Increasing leniency, such as that in Alaska, eventually could doom the federal efforts.   "I do not believe in drugs," said Erwin A. Sholts, chairman of the North American Industrial Hemp Council, which advocates the use of hemp for both food and industrial use. "But if the DEA doesn't wake up and smell the flowers, there may be something passed in Congress that they can't live with." Complete Title: DEA Set To Battle Pot Advocates Over Hemp Use in FoodSource: Washington Times (DC)Author: Steve Miller, The Washington TimesPublished: September 8, 2003Copyright: 2003 News World Communications, Inc. Website: http://www.washtimes.com/Contact: letters washingtontimes.comRelated Articles & Web Sites:NAIHChttp://www.naihc.org/Marijuana Policy Projecthttp://www.mpp.org/Court Declares a Haven for Hemphttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16982.shtmlAppellate Court Overturns Ban On Hemp In Foodhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16725.shtmlHemp Foods On The Ropeshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16083.shtml
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Comment #14 posted by afterburner on September 09, 2003 at 15:14:34 PT:
The DEA'th Is Obsessive-Compulsive
They need some good medical cannabis to treat their condition. All this obsession over microscopic amounts of THC incapable of getting anyone "high," whatever that means, is unhealthy neurotic behavior. ego transcendence follows ego destruction, living in a culture where pot is available and almost casual, I cannot understand the need to sift through vacuumed car dirt for traces of plant material, nor to ban nutritious hemp seeds and useful hemp fibers.
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Comment #13 posted by The GCW on September 08, 2003 at 16:57:59 PT
The DEA is not OK.
Genetically altered foods – OKPESTICIDES –OKPartially Hydrogenated oils – OK MSG – OKHormones –OKNitrates - OKCigarettes –OKAlcohol - OKETC...100% PURE Hemp seeds – not OK?100% PURE Hemp seed oil – not OK?The Fed. Gov. has the spirit of error, bad.
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Comment #12 posted by The GCW on September 08, 2003 at 11:04:13 PT
mayan,
It's interesting to note: The plants were not just given to Us.11:Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. 
12:  The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=GEN%2B1&showfn=on&showxref=on&language=english&version=NASB&x=14&y=9:31Then God said, "Behold, (37) I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 
:30  and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. From the very 1st page.Some things leave room for interpretation and then some things are as clear as clean air. Unless all You have left Yourself with is the spirit of error.
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Comment #11 posted by E_Johnson on September 08, 2003 at 08:18:17 PT
The DEA gets set to play Victim
I hear that Ed Childress feels so intimidated by the powerful wealthy marijuana movement, that he cries himself to sleep every night.That's why they need Karen Tandy to be their Mommy and hold their hands while they fight this scary nasty poo poo icky battle.
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Comment #10 posted by Richard Paul Zuckerm on September 08, 2003 at 08:02:47 PT:
AMERICAN FASCISTS CREATED THE POT LAWS!
It was Big Business interests and politicians whom brought on the prohibition of Hemp/Marijuana. Please read Shadow of the Swastika, www.sumeria.net/politics/shadv3.html?About a month ago, I saw Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr., speak at a Town Hall Meeting, in Edison Municipal Complex, Council Chambers, Edison, New Jersey. If there was ever a little Mussolini, he is the guy! He wants to "internationalize"; with universal health care; to waste millions of dollars on a commission to investigate the Sept. 11th tragedy, as every commission has concealed the truth and included members with a conflict of interest or were biased; and, yes, he stated he will not vote for medical marijuana!As it stands now, I'll vote for Green Party, www.GreenParty.org, and Libertarian Party, www.njlp.org.Richard Paul Zuckerman, Box 159, Metuchen, N.J., 08840-0159, (Cell telephone number)(908) 403-6990, www.normlnj.org; www.fromthewilderness.com.
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Comment #9 posted by E_Johnson on September 08, 2003 at 07:53:02 PT
Everyone sing along!
To the tune of the Oscar Meyer Balony Song:My baloney has a first nameIt's R-I-C-H-ardMy baloney has a last nameIt's M-E-Y-E-RThe public snubs you more each day!Your agency is doomed they say!Because every word from the D-E-AisB-O-L-O-G-N-A
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Comment #8 posted by lilgrasshoppah77 on September 08, 2003 at 07:22:33 PT:
liars, damn liars and dea agents
1) While it sounds simple enough — one side of mostly pro-marijuana advocates looking to climb another rung on the ladder toward pot tolerance — the fact that the hemp food case even has legs portrays the continued move toward societal legitimacy of the illegal weed.
2) What people are not seeing, said Ed Childress, a DEA spokesman in Washington, "is the marijuana-legalization lobby at work behind the scenes, with better resources." 
3) "It was really a matter of hemp not existing as something that can be consumed," said Richard Meyer, a DEA spokesman in San Francisco.1) While the issues surrounding "marijuana" and "hemp" are linked, by virtue of them coming from the same family of plant, they are not interchangable. There are many hemp advocates who are not marijuana advocates, and vice-versa. Hemp food is not part some shadowy left wing conspiracy to sell hash to school kids.
2. Ah yes, NORML, and a few other freedom loving individuals can match the capital of the Federal government, which spends how many billion a year in antimarijuana efforts. The poor, under-priviledged, under-fed, under-loved DEA, it's a wonder why they haven't run away from home. Here's hoping the do so.
3. Meyer has not soul. He lies like a sidewalk. Cannabis activists have caught him in a number of lies, so I am not surprised to see we have yet another opportunity. Hemp is food. Page after page, after study, after report, after paper, after article showing that cannabis hemp is not only good for food, it's darn good. The only way he could be ignorant of this torrent of cannabisfriendly information is if he decided to be ignorant.Also, when Harry Anslinger first made canabis legal (lying through his teeth to do it), he specifically exempted hemp to do it. Now we all know he was lying about that to, and hemp was probably his true target all along, but is the DEA supposed to know that? When their granddaddy makes the rules, are they allowed to break em like that?
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Comment #7 posted by Aragorn on September 08, 2003 at 06:48:45 PT:
Parallels
    Why doesn't anyone ever state the obvious...the DEA is the direct descendent of the Federal Bureau of Prohibition (they even show this on their website) and is completely without legitimacy in a "free" society. The 18th Amendment brought into existence a bureaucracy,installed in the Treasury Dept. and hence the Executive Branch, which had the power to overrule the Bill of Rights promise of protection for minorities from the tyranny of the majority. It threw the whole carefully constructed balance of powers between the three branches of government out of balance.
 
    Consential crime was born. The police went from being a reactive force in society to a pro-active one. The Supreme Court approved wiretapping in the 1920's. The puritans had their very own little federal bureaucracy to pursue their "moralist", racist agenda. The purpose of constitutions is to limit the power of governments but the Eighteenth Amendment turned this on it's head by giving power back to the government in bucketloads. The great cancer that has infected out government derives from the fact that the bureaucracy of Prohibition, hence the puritan's bureaucracy, was never dismantled when the amendment which brought it into existence was repealed. It was allowed to rename itself the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and is now the DEA. It's racist, puritanical mission continued without missing a beat. It has now given us the world's largest prison system and a foreign policy which is going to suck us dry.    If we were true to our values as a democratic society then the bureaucracy of prohibition should have had done to it what Caesar did to Carthage when the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th. It needed to be utterly razed, and the ground where is stood sowed with salt. The DEA has no legitimacy in our form of government and in their reptilian brainstems they know this. Their entire existence is founded on 70 years of lies and when the truth finally prevails the tsunami of anger at the horrendous mess they've created will sweep them away. The DEA must be abolished! It is fundamentally incompatible with the best traditions of this nation.
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Comment #6 posted by mayan on September 08, 2003 at 06:40:47 PT
"Every Green Herb"
As the GCW has pointed out...God gave us "every" green herb & "every" seed-bearing fruit to be used for food. The very first pages of The Bible tell us that. If God gave us hemp...then who would try to eradicate it?The anniversary is near...THE WAY OUT IS THE WAY IN!!!9/11 theorists to meet in Berlin:
http://www.expatica.com/germany.asp?pad=190,205,&item_id=34000Ex ministro britannico su 11 settembre(article in English)
http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/370001.php9/11 Truth Alliance: 
http://www.911truth.org/9/11 Special Report:
http://www.gaianxaos.com/SpecialReports.htm
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Comment #5 posted by mayan on September 08, 2003 at 06:10:14 PT
Millionth Time...
but maybe someone's first...SHADOW OF THE SWASTIKA - The Real Reason the Government Won't Debate Medical Cannabis and Industrial Hemp 
Re-legalization:
http://www.sumeria.net/politics/shadv3.html
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Comment #4 posted by OverwhelmSam on September 08, 2003 at 06:04:50 PT:
Stoner Power
Even the DEA admits that proponents for the legalization of marijuana are very politically powerful. Not bad for a bunch of stoners! Hey, wait a minute, marijuana makes people more powerful than government. Maybe this is what they fear. My message to the DEA, "Be very afraid."
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Comment #3 posted by BigDawg on September 08, 2003 at 05:47:43 PT
OverwhelmSam>>
Two words: Job Security
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Comment #2 posted by OverwhelmSam on September 08, 2003 at 04:49:02 PT:
DEAs Job Is To Enforce The Law.
Shouldn't the DEA enforce the law? Why are they campaigning to keep the law the same? Is the DEA a political branch of government? What I don't understand is why is the DEA set about to defeat voter preference. Makes the government look crooked if they don't support the will of the people. The will of the people is greater than the DEA or Federal Law.
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Comment #1 posted by gloovins on September 08, 2003 at 02:29:46 PT
all of this bickering
is mere fodder for Prohibitionists. Why is the US gov't continually dragggggggging its feet. Get with it feds! Canada, the EU -- they laugh as we debate the politics of "Marijuana" when it is, in reality, a simple plant Nature gave us to utilize. What pisses me off is that it's my tax dollars that fund the DEA. They are so out of sync with the nation today it sickens me. Please find better resources for my money I unwillingly give to you. I'm sick of a federal gov't that does not, will not, listen to THE PEOPLE. FUCK YOU and leave me be with the plant "god" gave me. Nixon created the DEA, Nature created cannabis....who do you trust?????????????????????????????????????????
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