Ever since the early years of our great nation, hemp has been an important cash crop for American farmers and business. The New England shipping industry at one time completely depended on hemp for the ropes and canvas sails integral to the sailing ships of yore. In fact, the word "canvas" is derived from the Latin word "cannabis." Today, hemp's potential is even greater because of technologies that can make hemp into products ranging anywhere from paper to lotion to clothing.
Unfortunately, we have turned our backs on our proud history. Feb. 2, two North Dakota farmers applied for a license with the Drug Enforcement Agency to grow hemp for commercial use. Yet, the DEA delayed its final decision past when the crop would need to be planted for the spring growing season and thus prevented American farmers from doing business in this lucrative industry.
Under current law, hemp is considered equal to marijuana and thus, the DEA has control over its use. Some believe the DuPont corporation, along with early 20th century newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst - to economically benefit themselves - propagandized to outlaw hemp by including it in the drug paranoia frenzy of the time. During the 1930s, new techniques developed that would allow hemp farming to be vastly superior to competing forms of farming and product production. However, DuPont recently had patented a new chemical process for making tree-pulp paper. It has been suggested that Hearst, who owned a large amount of forestland, used his media empire to spread paranoia about hemp and consequently reap the rewards of DuPont's tree-pulp paper technology.
Is the regulation of hemp really warranted? The answer is that no, it isn't. Hemp contains negligible amounts of the psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannot be used as a recreational drug. Fear of its use as a drug is unwarranted and irrational. The DEA should have no control over American farmers who want to grow a profitable crop already allowed in other industrialized nations.
What possible reason could lead us so far from our roots and business sense? The answer lays in hemp's close cousin: marijuana. One way to remove DEA control of hemp is to remove its control over any variant of the Cannabis species. However, many people continue to fear the supposed negative effects marijuana may impose on society.
According to popular myth: Marijuana is a gateway drug, its use destroys people's lives, and users of it cannot be successful. These beliefs are pure propaganda. After all, Willie Nelson did all right for himself. As I mentioned in my last column on this subject, easy access in Amsterdam has not led to increased use of marijuana or increased use of harder drugs.
A recent study released by The Lancet - one of Britain's oldest peer-reviewed medical journals - assigned scores to various drugs based on the physical harm caused to users, the addictiveness of the drug and the damage the drug had on family and relations. In the study, heroin was ranked the most harmful, followed by cocaine. Alcohol was fifth on the list, and tobacco was ninth. Marijuana ranked 11th - dead last in the study.
Another study, by Donald Tashkin of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, further refutes a common marijuana myth. The study examined the link between marijuana smoking and lung cancer. According to the findings, people who had smoked the equivalent of 22,000 marijuana cigarettes over their lifetime had no increased risk of lung cancer over non-users. Though more studies will be needed to show what gives marijuana this property, Tashkin believes it may have to do with an anti-carcinogenic property of marijuana's psychoactive element, THC. Just in case readers get any bad ideas, the study also found smoking marijuana while also smoking tobacco did not protect people from the cancer risks of tobacco.
Science is slowly refuting the outdated, propagandized belief systems in this country. It is time to throw away unsupported assertions like the exaggerated negative impacts of marijuana. At the very least it must be admitted having alcohol legal and marijuana illegal is a double standard.
It is time to re-evaluate our policy on marijuana as well as all social policies. We must base our policies on rational analysis based on scientific and social studies. The first step in doing this is to realize our current policy is based on the oppressive and wrongfully imposed value systems of self-righteous moralists who are frequently manipulated and encouraged by special economic interests.
It is time to cast down irrational values and beliefs. It is time to cast away unsupported ideas. It is time to base our beliefs on reason. It is time to embrace a new age of enlightenment.
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