From: Institute for Hemp Newsgroups: alt.hemp Subject: GREENLEAF NEWS V5#2 Complete Text of Issue Date: Wed, 20 Jul 94 19:50:40 -0500 Message-ID: <5A4QCLg.instforhemp@delphi.com> The Greenleaf News Vol V, #2 Publisher The Institute for Hemp Editor John Birrenbach Contributing Writers Aswegan, and the others who give great ideas Vol V #2 of the Greenleaf News is published by the Institute for Hemp. Subscription rates are 1 yr $20, 2 yrs $35, Canada add $5 per year additional. Payable in U. S. funds. The Views expressed herein are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the publisher. The publisher does not condone the breaking of ANY laws regardless of the ignorance of the law. The publisher feels that ONLY if you work within the law can we change the law. Without responsible laws we have anarchy. ADVERTISING RATES: This Newsletter is published using QuarkXPress*. Ads "Q READY" receive a 5% discount. All other layout ads must be camera ready. Discounts are available to other Cannabis reform Organizations. FULL PAGE 7"x10"--- $30. Quarter Page -------------$10. other sizes are acceptable. Classified $0.15 per word $5 min. WE NEED ARTICLES: We need articles for publication. If you would like to write something DO IT and send it in. If you can submit it on a disk or a data link that makes it easier for us to publish. WE NEED MATERIAL, got an idea call us 612-222-2628. @ZEND ******************* IN THIS ISSUE ******************* Editorial Paranoid Over Rope Smokers LA Times Article Cartoon U. S. Revives Hemp Growing Commodity Credit Corp to Dept of Agriculture Farmers asked for Hemp Seed WeedFest Report *********************** Editorial Well another two months have passed since our last issue. The Last issue was a complete success we passed out about 7,000 copies in the past two months. During the past two months I have mad a number of road trips. I actually covered 3,000 miles in the course of 30 days. Now that may not sound like much but it was travel conducted on weekends so it was really 3,000 miles in about 8 days. During the travels I attended the Weedfest in Chicago IL. I would like to say that as an attendee vendor at the Weedfest I had a great time and it was great. With all due respects it made Madison's past two fests pale by comparison. Of course it rained in Madison the past two years and the weather in Chicago was excellent. Thanks IMI you did a very excellent job. Well the Canadian situation is still under consideration. While several crops are being grown in Ontario and in British Columbia they are small test plots and not a revival of the industry. On another note it seems that Hemp is being grown experimentally on a number of sites in the United States as well. Everyone has know for a long time of the experiments being done at the University of Mississippi and at the University of Indiana, its seems that there are a number of other experiments being done elsewhere as well. We have a FOIA request pending with the DEA and I hope that in the next few months we will get definitive information on who else has permits as well. Hemp IS Victory John Birrenbach The Institute for Hemp The Greenleaf News Vol V, #2 Publisher The Institute for Hemp Editor John Birrenbach ************************** GOVERNMENT STILL PARANOID OVER CRAZED ROPE SMOKERS (Hemp legalized but Bill C-7 increases penalties for pot possession) May 19/94 issue of Eye Weekly, a Toronto by James Harris Recently the federal government announced legislation that would allow Canadian farmers to grow industrial-grade marijuana (or hemp, as it is euphemistically referred to), that would be used to make a variety of products, such as fabric, paper and fuel oil. Now, while some people may see this as a bold and intelligent initiative on the part of a liberal-minded (pardon the pun) government, in fact it is the result of nothing more than Ottawa trying to stay agriculturally competitive with Europe, where hemp has been for some time, seemingly without their streets being over-run by crazed rope smokers. Unfortunately, Ottawa seems less interested in keeping pace with the Europeans when it comes to the issue of possessing marijuana for recreational purposes. While governments in Germany, Spain, Italy Denmark and the Netherlands have come to the inescapable conclusion that arresting people who use marijuana does more harm than good (as well as being a waste of taxpayers' money and police manpower), our government is trying to turn up the heat on those Canadians who like to get high on Mother Nature. On April 20, Bill C-7, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, was given it's second reading in the House of Commons. Among other things (including some really scary stuff about confiscating properties where drugs are found), this bill would double the maximum fine for a first offense of marijuana possession to $2000, and increase the fine for subsequent offenses from $2000 to $5000. On the surface, it would almost seem as it the feds have forgotten that the White house is now occupied by an admitted pot smoker (whose war on crime focuses more on dead children than dead brain cells), and are still taking their cues from George Bush and his cronies at the D. E. A. As it turns out, the government's motives aren't all that sinister. In fact, it seems that what's really happening here, apart from a mild case of the greedies, is that the government is looking to pass a bill without having given it much thought. LET'S MAKE LOT'S OF MONEY In a conversation with Bruce Rowsell at the Ministry of Health, 'Eye' has learned that the only reason the fines were being raised was because the current fines were set way back in 1961, when $2000 was a lot of money. So, when the bureaucrats sat down to write the new drug law (perhaps after a three martini lunch), it was decided that, according to Rowsell, 'the fine needed to be increased in order to account for inflation' Instead, the bureaucrats should have said to themselves, 'Hey guys, what we have here is a great opportunity to some good for the Canadian public by decriminalizing marijuana. At the very least it'll save some money in law enforcement and it would probably do a lot to reduce the contempt for authority that seems so pervasive among the general public these days. ' And then perhaps another bureaucrat might have said, ' Wait, I've got an even better idea. What if we actually legalized the stuff? We could tax it. I mean think about it, the stuff is a weed and costs almost nothing to grow, so we could sell it for half $15 a gram it sells for now... uh... I mean, that's what I've heard. We'd still make a huge profit. I mean we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars here! 'Yeah, ' another tosdy could've said. 'I'm sure if we actually gave the public the facts about marijuana we could get enough public support to make this happen, and you know, now that I think about it, the LeDain Commission estimated that there were 6 million pot smokers in Canada. If we legalized it, just about every one of those 6 million would be so grateful that they'd vote Liberal in the next election, and our boss would be so grateful for that, IUm sure we'd all get promotions! ' Unfortunately, this did not happen. A FINE MESS WE'RE IN So what Canadians are facing is a more punitive marijuana prohibition - a prohibition that up 'til now hasn't been any more effective at stopping Canadians from altering their realities than alcohol prohibition was. And, as it's usually young people living at home who get busted while smoking outdoors (older folks can smoke at home, in private), more of them will get sucked into the criminal justice system. And because they often don't have the money to pay the fines (admittedly, not many people get jail time for possessing marijuana any more), They'll go to jail for non- payment of fines But fear not: there is still some hope, if not for legalization, then at least for decriminalization. A subcommittee of the Standing House Committee on Health is taking Bill C-7 out on the road to gauge public reaction. Presumably, if enough people express their extreme displeasure about the bill, something might be done about changing it. And of course, one can always write to one's MP in Ottawa- no postage required. @ZEND The Greenleaf News Vol V, #2 Publisher The Institute for Hemp Editor John Birrenbach ************************** Letter from Commodity Credit Corp to Dept of Agriculture FROM: J. B. Hutson, President Commodity Credit Corporation TO: The Secretary of Agriculture Date June 18,1942 Subject: 1942 Agricultural Supplies Purchase and loan program: Authority to Purchase Hempseed Harvesting Canvases and Hempseed Harvester In accordance with the recommendation of the War Production Board, the Commodity Credit Corporation has proceeded to handle the entire 1942 program for the increased production of hemp, including the seed, the fiber, the fiber mills and the harvesting machinery. Under your authorisation of March 5, 1942 we have entered into contracts with Kentucky producers under which approximately 36,000 acres have been planted to hempseed which will be delivered to the Commodity Credit Corporation after harvesting this fall. A minimum of 12,000 acres - all that available seed supplies will permit - have been planted to hemp fiber in Kentucky, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. J. B. Hutson, CCC ******************* Farmers asked for Hemp Seed - Crop 33 Times as big as in 1941 Information for the Press United States Department of Agriculture March 12, 1942 Farmers are being asked by the Secretary of Agriculture this year to increase hemp seed production by at least 33 times the 1941 production in an effort to obtain a substantial domestic production of hemp fiber in 1943 in order to overcome shortages created by a stoppage of imports from the Philippines and Netherlands East Indies. The Commodity Credit Corporation is contracting to purchase at the price of $8 per bushel of 44 pounds - cleaned basis - hemp seed for the 1942 crop. It is expected that about 350,000 bushels of seed will be produced for planting for fiber production in 1943. The offer of the Commodity Credit Corporation to purchase the seed produced in 1942 at the guaranteed price is available only to those growers who agree to sell their seed to the corporation. AAA farmer committeemen will contact prospective producers in order to explain the program to them and give them an opportunity to sign the CCC sales agreement. Fiber from the American Hemp plant is the most satisfactory substitute for Abaca, sisal, and hennequen, the three principal hard fibers used for rope and twine whose supply has been sharply curtailed by the loss of imports. Normally the United States obtains practically all (98%) of its abaca from the Philippines and about one-half of its sisal from the Netherlands East Indies. The remainder of its sisal requirements comes largely from the British East Africa. Imports from the Orient are virtually stopped and there is no assurance that imports from Africa will continue. The seed program will be centered in Kentucky, where conditions and past experience appear most favorable for gaining the production goals. In the past, the bulk of the seed has been grown in the Kentucky River Valley in the Blue Grass Region. The usual practice is to grow seed along river bottom land. Other areas of Kentucky and Tennessee are expected to produce the seed as abundantly. Little, if any, additional equipment or machinery is needed for handling the 1942 seed program. Farmers are expected to be able to handle the expansion program with the equipment and machinery already on hand. @Zend Article 8679 of alt.hemp: Path: news.claremont.edu!nntp-server.caltech.edu!news.cerf.net!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!newsfeed.pitt.edu!uunet!news.delphi.com!usenet From: Institute for Hemp Newsgroups: alt.hemp Subject: Re: GREENLEAF NEWS V5#2 Complete Text of Issue Date: Wed, 20 Jul 94 19:56:16 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 285 Message-ID: <5C4Raxg.instforhemp@delphi.com> References: <5A4QCLg.instforhemp@delphi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: bos1g.delphi.com X-To: Institute for Hemp The Greenleaf News Vol V, #2 Publisher The Institute for Hemp Editor John Birrenbach ************************** INSTITUTE FOR HEMP CATALOG ON INTERNET If you have access to FTP you can get a copy of our catalog in a GIF & Text format that you can view on your home computer. FTP site info: FTP LOCATION: ftp. hmc. edu DIRECTORY TRAIL: /pub/drugs/marijuana/hemp **NOTE** Login on with your internet

for a password GET the file using BINARY Be sure to turn on HASH mode so that you know that the file is being transferred. It is a large file (1MEG) and will take some time to transfer. ********************* U. S. REVIVES HEMP GROWING May 24,1942 Information for the Press United States Department of Agriculture Note to Editors: The May 24th release date on this story is to give you time to consider illustrating it or telling it entirely with pictures. Eighteen news type photos are available upon request. Shots run from soldiers guarding hemp seed (it contains a narcotic) in Kentucky warehouse through planting, drying, hackling and spinning hemp to finished balls of twine. Please donUt order unless you definitely plan to use. - Whitney Tharin, Chief of Press Service. The U. S. Department of Agriculture is stimulating the revival of the hemp industry in this country after a long slump. For the last 50 years most of American needs for cordage fiber, other than cotton, have been met by imports from the Far East. Hemp was grown in Kentucky as early as 1775. Its fiber went into homespun clothes for the settlers and also into rope, twine, and sacking, especially for cotton bales. The rigging and cables for PearyUs fleet on Lake Erie in 1812 were made from Kentucky hemp, as were the miles of rope New England ship builders used for tackle on the Yankee Clippers. Hangmen preferred hemp to any other fiber because of its strength. By the end of the last century, domestic hemp had been crowded from United States markets by foreign fibers - jute from India, manila from the Philippines, sisal from the Dutch East Indies, and henequen from Mexico. Kentucky continued to produce hemp on a relatively small scale to meet domestic needs for cordage and twine for specialized purposes, such as tarred marine lines and thread for sewing leather goods. Wisconsin too has grown some and has installed new processes for cleaning and separating fiber. Today, however, the United States, particularly the Navy, faces a serious shortage in cables, cordage, and other things formerly made from imported fibers, and there is not enough seed in the country to plant a very large acreage. To help remedy this situation, the Department of Agriculture early in the year bought, and later resold to Kentucky farmers, about 3,000 bushels of hemp seed. This will be used to obtain enough seed in 1942 to plant about 350,000 acres for fiber in Kentucky, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and perhaps other states, in 1943. The plants from this seed, which is being sown in rows to induce seed branching, will not be harvested until the seed is fully developed. The fiber from these plants will be practically worthless. For good fiber, hemp must be grown from seed sown broadcast, to prevent branching, and must have been harvested between blossoming and seed formation. Hemp plantings for seed production in 1942 will be limited to Kentucky. Farmers there have had experience with the crop and the climate is suited to it. Plantings for fiber production in 1942 will be limited to Kentucky, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois. Farmers in those states have grown hemp in the past, have at their disposal special harvesting machines, and are near fiber processing mills. Next yearUs plantings will be more widespread and will require the erection of a large number of processing plants and the training of additional plant operators. @ZEND The Greenleaf News Vol V, #2 Publisher The Institute for Hemp Editor John Birrenbach ************************** Windy City WeedFest report 1. From: Date: 23 May 94 The IMI's Windy City WeedFest '94, held at Chicago's Lincoln Park Cricket Hill site between Montrose and Wilson streets was well attended despite over- cast weather and forecasts of late afternoon rain and thunderstorms. Attendance was up over last year's five thousand with between ten and fifteen thousand people enjoying the event. WCWF'94 began promptly at noon, and ran until approx. 10 p. m. Musical guests included The Occupants, Whit's Improv, Monkey Chow, El Magnifico, Hairball Willie, The Frames and others. Speakers included Green Panthers! national coordinator Terri Mitchell, Weed- stock organizer Ben Masel, High Times Freedom Fighter of the Year Adam Brooke, High Times columnist Chef Ra, former Illinois Democratic gubernatorial candi- date James Gierach, Illinois Libertarian gubernatorial Lt. Governor candidate Bob Moldenhauer, the Illinois Libertarian candidate for Secretary of State, a representative from Cannabis Action Network, Institute for Hemp director John Birrenbach, and IMI members Doctor Mike, Brian Pearson and Wendy Allen Ayers. I took the stage only long enough to officially open the rally. Between twenty and thirty vendors attended the rally, selling t- shirts, literature, novelty smoking equipment, hemp goods, jewelry, toys, stickers etc. An independant artist donated an 15 foot pot leaf statue made to the proportions of our rally flier's design and planted it on top of the hill where it was visible from Lake Shore Drive. The City of Chicago treated us well, with zero uniformed police officers present, and as usual, ZERO ARRESTS. There were no acts of violence. After the rally, IMI organizers and rally attendees stayed until well after midnight picking up trash and left the park in good condition. IMI is one of the few users of the Chicago Park system which cleans up after itself. The rally was a financial success (we made more money than we spent) and we sold out of all our rally shirts and other merchandise. We signed up new members, although not nearly as many as I'd hoped for. Tribune broadcasting's CLTV set up a live remote and ran an interviews with myself and other organizers, and WLS-TV (ch.7, ABC) did at least a drive-by of the event. There may have been press reporters there, but I'm unaware of any, nor of any subsequent press accounts. That covers the basics. herbally. max coordinator, Illinois Marijuana Initiative. The Greenleaf News Vol V, #2 Publisher The Institute for Hemp Editor John Birrenbach ************************** A BUDDING INDUSTRY MAY TAKE ROOT IN CANADA: HEMP OFFICIALS CONSIDER LEGALIZING MARIJUANA CROP FOR PROCESSING INTO PAPER, ROPE, BUILDING MATERIALS. Los Angeles Times (LT) - MONDAY May 16, 1994 By: CRAIG TURNER; TIMES STAFF WRITER TILLSONBURG, Canada - Joe Strobel dreams marijuana dreams. Wait, it's not what you think. In Strobel's dream, the tobacco fields sloping up from the north shore of Lake Erie--his fields and those of his neighbors--are patched with dense stands of Cannabis sativa ruffling in the wind. And it's all legal. The Canadian government is poised to make Strobel's dream come true, perhaps as early as this summer. For Strobel's marijuana--or hemp, as he prefers to call it--would be so low in THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the active ingredient in pot, that no one could get high smoking it. Instead, Strobel and the 11 other Ontario farmers in his consortium plan to sell their hemp fiber for processing into paper, rope, building materials and maybe even shirts and caps. These would-be hemp growers, and others like them from the Great Lakes to the Canadian Rockies, are beneficiaries of a surging international movement on behalf of low-THC hemp, powered by an unlikely coalition of environmentalists, entrepreneurs, farmers and, yes, advocates of legalized pot. Canadian officials are listening. The ruling Liberal Party is sponsoring legislation that would license hemp growing throughout Canada. "Farmers in Canada are very interested in it. It's an excellent commercial and industrial type of crop. It's high in fiber, it's an excellent alternative to (growing) tobacco. . . . It has a great deal of potential, " Health Minister Diane Marleau said in an interview. She said the bill, which would closely regulate hemp growers, could get final approval in the House of Commons this year and then would go to the Canadian Senate. Canada would follow a number of European and Asian countries, most recently Britain, in legalizing cultivation of low-THC hemp. Advocates of the plant, often sporting "Hemp Can Save the Planet" buttons, get rapturous about its attributes. Not only is it the environmentally correct alternative to lumber and wood pulp, they say, but you can cook with hemp oil, fabricate it into particle board, combine it with old plastic milk containers and mold it into two-by-fours, burn it as fuel, feed the seeds to your pet and even make it into, ahem, cigarette paper. "This will grow anywhere, all the way from Canada down to most of the U. S., if not all of the U. S. This is the finest thing we could be growing to replace forest, " enthused George Tyson, general manager of Xymax 2001, a Montrose, Kan., company that has contracted with Strobel's farmers to convert hemp fiber into building material. "It's the environmental answer, and it's the agriculture answer. " Those on the business end of the budding hemp industry are more circumspect. While acknowledging the attractions of low-THC hemp, they say the economics of growing and processing it on a large scale in North America today remain unproven. The leading hemp processor in Britain still sells it mainly to stables as horse bedding. But there is no shortage of interest among Canada's recession-pummeled farmers. Fiona Briody, director of an Alberta crop development association that has a hemp license request pending, has been astonished by the number of growers in Western Canada seemingly ready to try it. Among the backers of legalizing hemp here are the Sierra Club of Eastern Canada, other environmental organizations, a handful of enthusiastic grass-roots organizations and a few adventuresome business people. But Strobel, a lively, 65-year-old retired physical education teacher, has become the hemp movement's top salesman. He brings to the crusade the kind of bouncy enthusiasm that once led him to develop a fitness program called the Health Hustle, which has been adopted by schools throughout Canada and in parts of the United States. "Let's face it, we farmers have an economic problem, and this might be an out, so people are pretty receptive, " he said, sitting in the dining room of the spacious Tillsonburg, Ontario, home that serves as Hemp Headquarters, Canada. "We know it can be grown here because it's been grown here before, (and) . . . the potential is about unlimited. Somewhere it will pay off. " Strobel retired from teaching seven years ago and began devoting all his time to the family tobacco farm, about 85 miles southwest of Toronto. Tobacco remains profitable, he said, but needs to be grown in rotation with other crops. Strobel and his wife, Judith, tried a variety of alternatives, but "nothing really paid off. It pays the taxes and nothing else, so we were looking for something. " Last year, that something turned out to be hemp. Since then, Strobel's quest has taken him around Canada and into the United States. He has rummaged through abandoned warehouses in Kentucky where hemp was grown legally in the 1940s as a wartime measure, compiled back issues of High Times magazine, collected hemp paper with marijuana leaf watermarks and picked through records and photos of early 20th-Century Canadian hemp cultivation. Now he speaks with confidence about potential crop yields, prices per acre and transit costs. Because the bill before Parliament will not pass in time for planting season this year, Strobel's consortium, using existing law, has asked for an experimental license to grow 18 acres of hemp in scattered locations near Tillsonburg. The Greenleaf News Vol V, #2 Publisher The Institute for Hemp Editor John Birrenbach ************************** LA TIMES ARTICLE part 2 They hope to harvest 80 tons and have reached agreement with processors in Canada and the United States for production of a variety of products. Other, similar proposals are pending from elsewhere in Canada, including Alberta. They await final approval by the Bureau of Dangerous Drugs of Health Canada, which grants a handful of licenses annually, mainly for academic and law enforcement research. While Strobel acknowledged the debt he owes to the pro-pot crowd, who turned him on to the potential of hemp in the first place, he stressed that the kind of cannabis that he wants to grow should not be confused with what he calls "the happy stuff. " Although it is of the same species, cannabis grown for hemp has been specially developed in Europe through selective breeding. The main difference is the low-THC factor of commercial stocks. The pending law in Canada would call for testing seeds and plants to ensure a THC content no higher than 0.3%. THC concentrations in marijuana generally range from about 3% to more than 5%, according to the U. S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. Nonetheless, Stuart Carpenter, director of Hemcore Ltd. in Essex, England, Britain's major processor, said hemp farmers there have occasional problems with night raiders snipping cuttings from low-THC plants and presumably peddling them as marijuana seedlings. Those who want to legalize the drug say they back the hemp movement out of environmental concerns and the assumption that acceptance of legalized, low-THC hemp eventually will erode the ban on the high-THC variety. The law that would authorize growth of low-THC hemp would also toughen penalties for marijuana use. Participation of the pro-pot crowd has caused some political obstacles and awkward moments. Ken Masse, 44, who farms 1,800 acres of peas, wheat, barley and oats in central Alberta, and is applying for a license to grow an experimental hemp plot, said, "What we really need is a name change, because as soon as you say hemp, people think of marijuana and half the population gets up in arms. " Hemp originated in Asia and is known to have grown in China as early as 2800 BC. For most of history it mainly has been used as a source for rope, twine and canvas; a 1943 U. S. government film, now gleefully exhibited by marijuana advocates, notes that the rope, sails and rigging of "our beloved Old Ironsides" were made from hemp. The crop was legally grown in the United States and Canada until the 1930s, when it was banned in both countries as an illicit drug. Hemp was briefly grown under license in the United States during World War II when the Japanese overran most hemp-growing countries, interrupting the U. S. supply. Canadian environmentalists were first attracted to hemp as an alternative to lumbering, a considerable lure in a country that still permits clear cutting of old-growth forest. But the Establishment patina of agriculture and business have lent invaluable credibility to a movement that still carries a lingering whiff of counterculture. Larry Duprey, president of a 23-year-old Montreal-based fashion accessory distribution firm, is importing hemp fabric and making caps, shirts and other clothing. Carpenter, the British hemp processor, began contracting with English growers mainly for horse bedding, but his company is moving into hemp paper and textiles. He noted that "it's an extremely difficult crop to process. We've had to develop our own specialty machinery. " Briody, the Alberta farm official, said that after studying the crop in the Netherlands, Romania and Russia, "the yields definitely aren't what some people say. " But Briody said farmers in the association are undeterred. As Gar Knutson, a Liberal member of Parliament from Ontario who supports legalization and licensing of low-THC hemp, put it: "Agriculture has been so bad anyway, what do we have to lose by trying out hemp for a while? " @ZEND