Slippery Slope - To What?
Slippery Slope - To What?
The farmers in the US are sueing the government (or are thinking about sueing,I am not certain where that stands) for the right to grow Hemp. They are strongly urging The US to legalize hemp since it is such a great crop. The only reason why it is illegal is because the Police can not tell the difference between an industrial crop that grows around 18 feet tall that is grown very close together versus a plant that is made to grow short and squat and wide. At every open (and I am sure closed) meetings of concerned citizens with their elected officials, the police and the DEA have sat at the meetings and they dole out the same message over and over. They say legalizing Hemp is a Slippery Slope. "A Slippery Slope to what ?" I would ask. They say it would send the wrong message to our children. Again I ask "What message?". The message I would get if you legalized this wonderful plant is A) The farmers should be free to choose any crops they feel are good for their soil and B)We can grow enough of this plant to use the oil for fuel and never have to fight a war over oil again since everything we make out of fossil oil can be made from Hemp oil or maybe the wrong message they are talking about is the other plant they are refering to is marijuana. Maybe that is it. They do not want our children to know about Pot. They ( in their twisted mind) think that pot is some evil drug that will force the children to lives of crime and lead them to "Harder" drugs.
Ok, let's look this square in the face. Marijuana is the safest drug known to man. It has no level of overdose. It is physically imposible to smoke the amount needed to get that high a dose in your body to overdose on it. I do not have to compare it to other drugs to show that, but just for the record it is safer than coffee, aspirin (and other forms of over-the-counter medicines) and it is certainly safer and less addictive than cigarettes and alcohol. Studies from Europe have not shown any pharmacalogical reason for addiction or that it is a gateway drug. The only way it could be considered a gateway drug is because of prohibition you have to go to a criminal dealer to get it. Since the dealer wants bigger profits they will push the stronger stuff on you. So prohibition is the true gateway device. Studies done in areas where there is limited freedom to smoke, they have found that the use has actually gone down. If they truely want to get people to use less, they would end prohibition.
Lets get back to Hemp - there are very good reasons to want this crop kept illegal. It keeps the police busy fighting a "War on drugs" that they can never win and they have no intention of even trying to win. It would get their budgets slashed if it was. That is why the DEA and the local Cops are always at the table when farmers ask to legalize hemp. They say it would make their jobs impossible to perform as far as the "War on drugs" is concerned. Hemp oil is a direct threat to the big fossil oil business and the military-industrial complex. They would not be able to go anywhere they want to, to fight wars and make tons of money over areas of the world that still have oil. The Chemical, Agra, Pharma complex is also directly threatend by this plant. Big Agrabusiness can not control small farmers who can be self-supporting by growing this crop since it has very little need for the chemicals most other crops need to grow. Marijuana is a safe yet effective drug that works very well to control pain and it has properties that many claim cures cancer.
The Big Pharma complex sees this as a direct threat to it's monopoly on cancer drugs. If you can cure cancer with a plant you can grow in your back yard, why would you mortgage your house to take toxic drugs killing cancer and yourself at the same time? All the over-the-counter pain medicines would suffer huge losses of income to all the pharmacies that push those products.
Ok - now comes the direct benefits to legalizing hemp. Farmers would be able to grow a crop that can help them get by instead of the possibility of folding, mainly due to the fact that you do not have to use hardly any chemicals on this plants, so you do not have to pay for those direct inputs. The wonderful food qualities of hempseed would make people healthier if it was cheaper and everyone had access to it. That would put huge amounts of doctors and nurses out of work as well as the pharmacies getting much less profits. The government also loses control of a population that is healthy and happy. That is a plus in my books!
If/when hemp is made legal to grow in the US, the cops will basically throw up their hands when it comes to marijuana. It would only be a short time till pot would be defacto legal. My question still stands; what bad message is in this? The feeble excuse is it will harm children. I think kids are smarter than the cops give them credit for. Giving kids Ritalin is better for them? Who in their right minds really believes that crap? There have been studies done on young children that have been given small doses of THC from the natural form, eaten or in the form of a subligual spray that has had much better results and of course the fact that it is not toxic and natural is a bonus. Old grannies use pot to be able to get around. Some have said it has helped them stay alive. I have friends who use medical marijuana and they say it has changed their lives like night and day. The people who oppose legalization say it will harm children. The people who oppose prohibition have tons of proof it has harmed thousands of children in broken homes and we are not even counting the kids shot by driveby shootings from rival gangs arguing turf (who gets to sell their drugs where). If you want to score drugs, just ask a kid, they all know where it is and who has it. In the book "Hemp Foods & Oils for Health" it describes the debate around hemp in the US as "irrational" and it goes on to say the concern that hemp crops would aid the production and use of marijuana is unsubstantiated. The good reason is the 2 crops should stay away from each other at all costs. The tall plants will be intermixed with the short ones making it less useful and the short ones would lose their value as a medicine because it will be weaker.That is one of the most stupid excuses put forth. I do agree that hemp made legal would make policing marijuana more difficult,but for much different reasons. Like Marc Emery says Overgrow the Government.
The farmers in the US are sueing the government (or are thinking about sueing,I am not certain where that stands) for the right to grow Hemp. They are strongly urging The US to legalize hemp since it is such a great crop. The only reason why it is illegal is because the Police can not tell the difference between an industrial crop that grows around 18 feet tall that is grown very close together versus a plant that is made to grow short and squat and wide. At every open (and I am sure closed) meetings of concerned citizens with their elected officials, the police and the DEA have sat at the meetings and they dole out the same message over and over. They say legalizing Hemp is a Slippery Slope. "A Slippery Slope to what ?" I would ask. They say it would send the wrong message to our children. Again I ask "What message?". The message I would get if you legalized this wonderful plant is A) The farmers should be free to choose any crops they feel are good for their soil and B)We can grow enough of this plant to use the oil for fuel and never have to fight a war over oil again since everything we make out of fossil oil can be made from Hemp oil or maybe the wrong message they are talking about is the other plant they are refering to is marijuana. Maybe that is it. They do not want our children to know about Pot. They ( in their twisted mind) think that pot is some evil drug that will force the children to lives of crime and lead them to "Harder" drugs.
Ok, let's look this square in the face. Marijuana is the safest drug known to man. It has no level of overdose. It is physically imposible to smoke the amount needed to get that high a dose in your body to overdose on it. I do not have to compare it to other drugs to show that, but just for the record it is safer than coffee, aspirin (and other forms of over-the-counter medicines) and it is certainly safer and less addictive than cigarettes and alcohol. Studies from Europe have not shown any pharmacalogical reason for addiction or that it is a gateway drug. The only way it could be considered a gateway drug is because of prohibition you have to go to a criminal dealer to get it. Since the dealer wants bigger profits they will push the stronger stuff on you. So prohibition is the true gateway device. Studies done in areas where there is limited freedom to smoke, they have found that the use has actually gone down. If they truely want to get people to use less, they would end prohibition.
Lets get back to Hemp - there are very good reasons to want this crop kept illegal. It keeps the police busy fighting a "War on drugs" that they can never win and they have no intention of even trying to win. It would get their budgets slashed if it was. That is why the DEA and the local Cops are always at the table when farmers ask to legalize hemp. They say it would make their jobs impossible to perform as far as the "War on drugs" is concerned. Hemp oil is a direct threat to the big fossil oil business and the military-industrial complex. They would not be able to go anywhere they want to, to fight wars and make tons of money over areas of the world that still have oil. The Chemical, Agra, Pharma complex is also directly threatend by this plant. Big Agrabusiness can not control small farmers who can be self-supporting by growing this crop since it has very little need for the chemicals most other crops need to grow. Marijuana is a safe yet effective drug that works very well to control pain and it has properties that many claim cures cancer.
The Big Pharma complex sees this as a direct threat to it's monopoly on cancer drugs. If you can cure cancer with a plant you can grow in your back yard, why would you mortgage your house to take toxic drugs killing cancer and yourself at the same time? All the over-the-counter pain medicines would suffer huge losses of income to all the pharmacies that push those products.
Ok - now comes the direct benefits to legalizing hemp. Farmers would be able to grow a crop that can help them get by instead of the possibility of folding, mainly due to the fact that you do not have to use hardly any chemicals on this plants, so you do not have to pay for those direct inputs. The wonderful food qualities of hempseed would make people healthier if it was cheaper and everyone had access to it. That would put huge amounts of doctors and nurses out of work as well as the pharmacies getting much less profits. The government also loses control of a population that is healthy and happy. That is a plus in my books!
If/when hemp is made legal to grow in the US, the cops will basically throw up their hands when it comes to marijuana. It would only be a short time till pot would be defacto legal. My question still stands; what bad message is in this? The feeble excuse is it will harm children. I think kids are smarter than the cops give them credit for. Giving kids Ritalin is better for them? Who in their right minds really believes that crap? There have been studies done on young children that have been given small doses of THC from the natural form, eaten or in the form of a subligual spray that has had much better results and of course the fact that it is not toxic and natural is a bonus. Old grannies use pot to be able to get around. Some have said it has helped them stay alive. I have friends who use medical marijuana and they say it has changed their lives like night and day. The people who oppose legalization say it will harm children. The people who oppose prohibition have tons of proof it has harmed thousands of children in broken homes and we are not even counting the kids shot by driveby shootings from rival gangs arguing turf (who gets to sell their drugs where). If you want to score drugs, just ask a kid, they all know where it is and who has it. In the book "Hemp Foods & Oils for Health" it describes the debate around hemp in the US as "irrational" and it goes on to say the concern that hemp crops would aid the production and use of marijuana is unsubstantiated. The good reason is the 2 crops should stay away from each other at all costs. The tall plants will be intermixed with the short ones making it less useful and the short ones would lose their value as a medicine because it will be weaker.That is one of the most stupid excuses put forth. I do agree that hemp made legal would make policing marijuana more difficult,but for much different reasons. Like Marc Emery says Overgrow the Government.
posted by Michael Kaer at
7:06 PM
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