CASE 420 - The legalization of cannabis and hemp

Over £40 Billion spent each year worldwide to fight a drug war that's going on since the 1930s and no end is in sight, its time to stop wasting law enforcement time on users who are not violent and present no trouble to anyone. let each individuals pave the way to their own lively-wood and way of life instead of government telling us what we can or can't do with our body. If the government wants to regulate what we put in our body then they should start with fast food companies such as Burger King & McDonalds.



Hemp is not the same as cannabis, Although the plants are closely related, the term hemp refers to the strains that do not contain significant levels of THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Hemp is a versatile crop with many practical uses. Hemp products offer environmentally friendly alternatives for a variety of everyday applications. Hemp fibers can be used to make rope, clothing, and paper. Hemp foods, such as HempNut, contain beneficial nutrients, including essential fatty acids. Hemp oils have many applications, as biofuels, industrial lubricants, and soaps. There is no logical reason to ban hemp other than it would put thousands of companies, corporations and businesses out of business instantly as hemp is the strongest, fastest growing, safest, cheapest, highest yeild of ANY plant on the planet. Still, the federal government of the US and European, Asian and S. American governments continues to waste money and resources in its attempt to protect us from this valuable crop. Drug war hysteria has clouded our leaders' ability to make good policy that would distinguish between cannabis, which has psychoactive properties, and hemp, which does not.

The drug agencies' current opposition to hemp legalization is based on a groundless concern that legalizing hemp will make it harder to enforce legal proscriptions against using or growing industrial hemp's cousin, marijuana.

Whatever the merits of marijuana criminalization, legalizing industrial hemp should not in any way interfere with enforcement efforts against marijuana growers and users. Industrial hemp is bred to contain such a low level of THC, the psychoactive substance in marijuana, that it cannot reasonably be considered a drug. It is easily distinguished in fields from marijuana: marijuana plants are short and bushy, with many leaves and is harvested for its flowers and leaves; industrial hemp, tall and straight, with leaves at the top of the stalk, is harvested for its stalks before flowering occurs. There is virtually no possibility of marijuana being illicitly grown in the middle of a field of industrial hemp, because the cross-breeding between the two plants quickly eliminates the THC content in marijuana seeds. Despite these facts, and noting the genuine concern among many law enforcement agents about the effect of industrial hemp legalization on marijuana use and growing, the petitioners for industrial hemp legalization suggest a heavily regulated licensing scheme for industrial hemp seeds and growing permits that should satisfy residual law enforcement fears.

Legalizing industrial hemp has the potential to yield substantial environmental benefits, especially as a substitute for wood in paper making. Industrial hemp yields two-to-four times more pulp per acre under cultivation than do trees. Paper made from industrial hemp is also stronger, able to be recycled more times and longer lasting than paper from trees. Compared to wood, fewer chemicals are required to convert hemp into paper pulp.

Industrial hemp also could serve as an environmentally sound substitute for other products:

Hemp has valuable qualities as clothing material. It takes color and absorbs moisture better than cotton, is "breathable" and extremely durable, softens when washed and needs little ironing. It can be blended with cotton to obtain the benefits of both fibers. About 30 percent of pesticides used in the United States are sprayed on cotton; hemp, by contrast, can be grown with little or no use of pesticides, herbicides or fungicides, thanks to its natural resistances.

Hemp can be used in building materials such as fiber-board.

Hemp contains cellulose, a basic building block of many plastics. Hemp could be the basis for a range of plastic products now made from petroleum products.

Hemp seed oil could be used for motor oil or as all-purpose lubricant. It may also work as a substitute for petroleum diesel.

Other nations, including the United Kingdom and Germany, already recognize the benefits of industrial hemp, and permit hemp cultivation within their borders. It is time the United States joined the ranks of advanced nations and permitted the domestic production of industrial hemp.

CASE 031 - The truth about Cannabis