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Comment: Health begins with proper nutrition and a clean environment. Cannabis hemp prohibition obviates access to the world's most healthful food and causes incalculable harm to our ecosystem. Hemp seed is the only common seed with three essential fatty acids, and is the best available source of organic vegetable protein on Earth. There is no excuse good enough for prolonging essential resource scarcity. The freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom. End hemp prohibition NOW. For the love of God, Mr. President.
http://www.HealthReform.gov/communityreports/comments.html
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
"...the whole truth, frankly and boldly."
Dear Neil and friends,
I agree with the idea of increasing American input into the European drug policy discussion for several reasons. Internationalizing the shift in value that has reignited European hemp agriculture and industry, expands consideration of the true costs of prohibition. Weighed against the costly, counter-productive effort, the many practical applications of Cannabis have become common knowledge.
The need for a coordinated global agricultural response to climate change becomes more urgent with every passing spring. The value of Cannabis in regard to climate change is hardly considered -- even by the drug policy reform community -- yet ought to be of universal concern.
The end prohibition of hemp in the U.S. is the obvious next step, leading toward the end of the "drug war" all together. The phrase "essential civilian demand" was used in regard to "hemp" in Executive Order 12919, signed by Bill Clinton in 1994. If the world embraces the idea of a formal, objective, global revaluation of hemp agriculture, ecology, manufacture and trade as "essential" in the context of present crises, then we may yet have time enough to have an effect.
Control of critical resources determines the degree of freedom we're alocated, or in the case of the hemp-deprived U.S. -- lack thereof.
May I suggest a new, international campaign to add dimension and amplify the post-Vienna "Freedom to Farm" campaign. Progressing beyond Vienna 2009 may benefit from transcendent steps in our own thinking.
I offer the broadest possible use of "nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself" as a unifying thought that sums up a vast subject. Some may recognize the similarity of this to another wartime tag line, originating with Franklin D. Roosevelt.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt
Rossevelt pointed out in the same address that
"This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly."
And I propose that now is a time for similar comprehensive honesty. The fact is that Cannabis is the lynch-pin to the drug issue, for several reasons. One reason is that the economic disparity maintaining the status quo would be rebalanced through Cannabis agriculture more broadly and more certainly than any other change that could be made within the time constraints we face.
Perhaps we can fund the drug reform movement in the U.S. by charging the police for instruction in how to distinguish industrial hemp from marijuana -- Rope from Dope 101. Apparently, that's the only barrier blocking the multi-billion dollar hemp industry in the US.
I agree with the idea of increasing American input into the European drug policy discussion for several reasons. Internationalizing the shift in value that has reignited European hemp agriculture and industry, expands consideration of the true costs of prohibition. Weighed against the costly, counter-productive effort, the many practical applications of Cannabis have become common knowledge.
The need for a coordinated global agricultural response to climate change becomes more urgent with every passing spring. The value of Cannabis in regard to climate change is hardly considered -- even by the drug policy reform community -- yet ought to be of universal concern.
The end prohibition of hemp in the U.S. is the obvious next step, leading toward the end of the "drug war" all together. The phrase "essential civilian demand" was used in regard to "hemp" in Executive Order 12919, signed by Bill Clinton in 1994. If the world embraces the idea of a formal, objective, global revaluation of hemp agriculture, ecology, manufacture and trade as "essential" in the context of present crises, then we may yet have time enough to have an effect.
Control of critical resources determines the degree of freedom we're alocated, or in the case of the hemp-deprived U.S. -- lack thereof.
May I suggest a new, international campaign to add dimension and amplify the post-Vienna "Freedom to Farm" campaign. Progressing beyond Vienna 2009 may benefit from transcendent steps in our own thinking.
I offer the broadest possible use of "nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself" as a unifying thought that sums up a vast subject. Some may recognize the similarity of this to another wartime tag line, originating with Franklin D. Roosevelt.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt
Rossevelt pointed out in the same address that
"This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly."
And I propose that now is a time for similar comprehensive honesty. The fact is that Cannabis is the lynch-pin to the drug issue, for several reasons. One reason is that the economic disparity maintaining the status quo would be rebalanced through Cannabis agriculture more broadly and more certainly than any other change that could be made within the time constraints we face.
Perhaps we can fund the drug reform movement in the U.S. by charging the police for instruction in how to distinguish industrial hemp from marijuana -- Rope from Dope 101. Apparently, that's the only barrier blocking the multi-billion dollar hemp industry in the US.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Nothing to fear but the atmopshere itself
Nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself
( In response to a Chelsea Green article on the Great Collapse)
“Synergistic collapse” is a more appropriate term for what’s happening. We’re in the beginning stages of a process that could become irreversible overnight. What’s different about our present crisis from that of the Great Depression is that in 1920, the environment and our social structures hadn’t been weakened to the point that they are now.
The question isn’t what to call the looming tragedy. The question is “How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered?”
When people in the US get worried enough to consider all solutions, it will already be too late in much of the rest of the world to recover the environmental, economic and social balance that’s being lost.
So what to do first? Revaluate Cannabis agriculture, manufacture and trade for what they are truly worth in the context of critical environmental, economic and social crises. Recognize that time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. Understand that Cannabis is a critical “strategic resource” without which our species will never achieve sustainability on this planet.
End the “drug war” against Cannabis agriculture, both “industrial hemp” and ‘marijuana.’ Prohibition has crippled organic agricultural energy and food production in the United States for seventy years. Prohibition has eroded the credibility of law and threatens national security by imposing essential resource scarcity. Prohibition enriches a vicious black market that appears wealthy & cool to young people as times get more hypocritical and tougher.
Cannabis is nutritionally unique and essential, beyond the rightful jurisdiction of any court. How can a “strategic food resource” also be a “Schedule I drug”? How can we be talking about taxing marijuana without first ending the prohibition of industrial hemp? Are taxes more valuable than food?
Personally, I’m sick of the hypocrisy of a President who smoked pot “frequently” yet refuses to end the war on Cannabis. I’m sick of the hypocrisy of a society hyped on sugar & chemical drugs, sloshed on booze & stinking of tobacco that presumes to disapprove of the world’s oldest truly global culture.
Drugs don’t make seeds. Herbs do.
Freedom to farm “every herb bearing seed” is the first test of religious freedom.
The First Amendment protects the relationship between religion and agriculture, over-ruling the illegal statutes prohibiting Cannabis farming.
End the war against industrial hemp agriculture and the Great Collapse will not happen. Continue the so-called “drug war” and synergistic collapse will prevent our species from seeing the end of this century.
( In response to a Chelsea Green article on the Great Collapse)
“Synergistic collapse” is a more appropriate term for what’s happening. We’re in the beginning stages of a process that could become irreversible overnight. What’s different about our present crisis from that of the Great Depression is that in 1920, the environment and our social structures hadn’t been weakened to the point that they are now.
The question isn’t what to call the looming tragedy. The question is “How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered?”
When people in the US get worried enough to consider all solutions, it will already be too late in much of the rest of the world to recover the environmental, economic and social balance that’s being lost.
So what to do first? Revaluate Cannabis agriculture, manufacture and trade for what they are truly worth in the context of critical environmental, economic and social crises. Recognize that time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. Understand that Cannabis is a critical “strategic resource” without which our species will never achieve sustainability on this planet.
End the “drug war” against Cannabis agriculture, both “industrial hemp” and ‘marijuana.’ Prohibition has crippled organic agricultural energy and food production in the United States for seventy years. Prohibition has eroded the credibility of law and threatens national security by imposing essential resource scarcity. Prohibition enriches a vicious black market that appears wealthy & cool to young people as times get more hypocritical and tougher.
Cannabis is nutritionally unique and essential, beyond the rightful jurisdiction of any court. How can a “strategic food resource” also be a “Schedule I drug”? How can we be talking about taxing marijuana without first ending the prohibition of industrial hemp? Are taxes more valuable than food?
Personally, I’m sick of the hypocrisy of a President who smoked pot “frequently” yet refuses to end the war on Cannabis. I’m sick of the hypocrisy of a society hyped on sugar & chemical drugs, sloshed on booze & stinking of tobacco that presumes to disapprove of the world’s oldest truly global culture.
Drugs don’t make seeds. Herbs do.
Freedom to farm “every herb bearing seed” is the first test of religious freedom.
The First Amendment protects the relationship between religion and agriculture, over-ruling the illegal statutes prohibiting Cannabis farming.
End the war against industrial hemp agriculture and the Great Collapse will not happen. Continue the so-called “drug war” and synergistic collapse will prevent our species from seeing the end of this century.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
How to stop the drug wars, From "The Economist" March 5th
To stop the drug war, the true value of Cannabis agriculture, manufacture and trade needs to be recognized for what it is: unique and essential.
In the context of present critical imbalances in environment, economics and social structures upon which our common future depends, Cannabis is beyond the rightful jurisdiction of any court. It always has been.
The freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom. The First Amendment ends prohibition of Cannabis as soon as the ancient cultural relationship between religion and agriculture is considered. Without Cannabis agriculture, and a spiritual dimension returned to mankind's economic system, our species won't see the end of this century.
Time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. Time is the only thing we can't make more of. Every Spring planting season that passes without the many benefits of Cannabis agriculture is gone forever. There's work that needs to begin soon if it's going to get done at all.
An objective, definitive comprehensive, peer-reviewed revaluation is needed by June 2009. The importance of beginning an intensive campaign of Cannabis farming this year is being determined by increasing global food insecurity and malnutrition.
Cannabis is the only common seed with three essential fatty acids (EFAs) and is the best available source of organic vegetable protein on Earth. That makes Cannabis both unique and essential. Since the prohibition of marijuana is largely motivated by industries competitive with industrial hemp, the end of hemp prohibition is prerequisite for shutting down the lifeblood of the so-called "drug war."
Cannabis is enormously significant in that it's the only crop from which food and fuel can be made from the same harvest. This eliminates the trade-off between fuel and food production of other biofuel crops, like GMO corn.
Because the DEA supposedly can't tell the difference between hemp and marijuana, the world's most nutritious and useful agricultural resource is banned in the U.S. and many developing countries of the world. Even if such an impotent excuse was remotely plausible (which it's not since the plant structures of pot and hemp are entirely different), crippling organic agricultural production for any reason potentiates extinction.
Cannabis is critical for mitigating climate change in ways that are hardly being considered because of prohibition. For sequestering carbon, producing oxygen, and releasing "biogenic volatile organic compounds" (BVOCs) into the atmosphere, there is no other crop that even comes close to Cannabis. The atmospheric aerosols produced, called "monoterpenes," reflect solar radiation and seed cloud formation, protecting the planet from increasing UV-B radiation. "Global broiling" by UV-B has been implicated in genetic mutation, stunted growth and depressed immune response in several indicator species, including plants, amphibians, bats, and insects.
To end the "war on [some] drugs" the legal distinction between "drugs" and "herbs" needs to be established: Drugs don't make seeds. Herbs do.
Substantive due process, strict scrutiny and other legal tenets reinforce the fundamental human right to farm Cannabis. The world's most ancient global culture doesn't require permission to exist from a dysfunctional toxic culture based in chemicals. When does a law become so transparently perverse that it ceases to command respect? Exactly when did the government ever get rightful jurisdiction over unique and essential natural resources?
Sunlight and rain are all that's needed to grow hemp to make fuel and produce abundant essential nutrition while improving the soil. No one needs permission to eat.
Remembering the precious "strategic resource" value of Cannabis (Executive Order 12919) requires immediate global attention and consensus. If this doesn't happen soon, then things could get uglier than imaginable as the synergistic collapse of atmospheric integrity, the terrestrial environment, unfounded economics and collapse of social structures becomes irreversible.
Hemp is good news. Be actively thankful that there's a potentially abundant, globally distributed agricultural resource that can help us. Help to exercise "essential civilian demand" for hemp in 2009. If there's a more cost-effective, time-efficient, globally available response to climate change, I haven't heard it.
If anyone can give one good reason that's true not to grow Cannabis, I'll stop writing about it. Until then, I publicly challenge the U.S. government to take responsibility for the true value of Cannabis. Obama's administration must end Cannabis prohibition or face charges of gross negligence for the delay in recognizing the strategic value hemp agriculture in an era of agricultural necessity.
We have nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself. If we don't solve the problems of global broiling and global warming, then it won't matter what problems we do solve.
PvH
In the context of present critical imbalances in environment, economics and social structures upon which our common future depends, Cannabis is beyond the rightful jurisdiction of any court. It always has been.
The freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom. The First Amendment ends prohibition of Cannabis as soon as the ancient cultural relationship between religion and agriculture is considered. Without Cannabis agriculture, and a spiritual dimension returned to mankind's economic system, our species won't see the end of this century.
Time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. Time is the only thing we can't make more of. Every Spring planting season that passes without the many benefits of Cannabis agriculture is gone forever. There's work that needs to begin soon if it's going to get done at all.
An objective, definitive comprehensive, peer-reviewed revaluation is needed by June 2009. The importance of beginning an intensive campaign of Cannabis farming this year is being determined by increasing global food insecurity and malnutrition.
Cannabis is the only common seed with three essential fatty acids (EFAs) and is the best available source of organic vegetable protein on Earth. That makes Cannabis both unique and essential. Since the prohibition of marijuana is largely motivated by industries competitive with industrial hemp, the end of hemp prohibition is prerequisite for shutting down the lifeblood of the so-called "drug war."
Cannabis is enormously significant in that it's the only crop from which food and fuel can be made from the same harvest. This eliminates the trade-off between fuel and food production of other biofuel crops, like GMO corn.
Because the DEA supposedly can't tell the difference between hemp and marijuana, the world's most nutritious and useful agricultural resource is banned in the U.S. and many developing countries of the world. Even if such an impotent excuse was remotely plausible (which it's not since the plant structures of pot and hemp are entirely different), crippling organic agricultural production for any reason potentiates extinction.
Cannabis is critical for mitigating climate change in ways that are hardly being considered because of prohibition. For sequestering carbon, producing oxygen, and releasing "biogenic volatile organic compounds" (BVOCs) into the atmosphere, there is no other crop that even comes close to Cannabis. The atmospheric aerosols produced, called "monoterpenes," reflect solar radiation and seed cloud formation, protecting the planet from increasing UV-B radiation. "Global broiling" by UV-B has been implicated in genetic mutation, stunted growth and depressed immune response in several indicator species, including plants, amphibians, bats, and insects.
To end the "war on [some] drugs" the legal distinction between "drugs" and "herbs" needs to be established: Drugs don't make seeds. Herbs do.
Substantive due process, strict scrutiny and other legal tenets reinforce the fundamental human right to farm Cannabis. The world's most ancient global culture doesn't require permission to exist from a dysfunctional toxic culture based in chemicals. When does a law become so transparently perverse that it ceases to command respect? Exactly when did the government ever get rightful jurisdiction over unique and essential natural resources?
Sunlight and rain are all that's needed to grow hemp to make fuel and produce abundant essential nutrition while improving the soil. No one needs permission to eat.
Remembering the precious "strategic resource" value of Cannabis (Executive Order 12919) requires immediate global attention and consensus. If this doesn't happen soon, then things could get uglier than imaginable as the synergistic collapse of atmospheric integrity, the terrestrial environment, unfounded economics and collapse of social structures becomes irreversible.
Hemp is good news. Be actively thankful that there's a potentially abundant, globally distributed agricultural resource that can help us. Help to exercise "essential civilian demand" for hemp in 2009. If there's a more cost-effective, time-efficient, globally available response to climate change, I haven't heard it.
If anyone can give one good reason that's true not to grow Cannabis, I'll stop writing about it. Until then, I publicly challenge the U.S. government to take responsibility for the true value of Cannabis. Obama's administration must end Cannabis prohibition or face charges of gross negligence for the delay in recognizing the strategic value hemp agriculture in an era of agricultural necessity.
We have nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself. If we don't solve the problems of global broiling and global warming, then it won't matter what problems we do solve.
PvH
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Hemp is to marijuana as water is to gin
Law enforcement's supposed inability to tell the difference between 'marijuana' and "industrial hemp" is all that stands between America and environmental, economic and social recovery.
Prohibition of all strains will end as soon as the true value of industrial hemp is widely appreciated for its critical importance to mitigating climate change and addressing food insecurity & malnutrition. Cannabis is as essential to sustainable human existence on Earth as water is.
Consider the tragic absurdity if an equivalent excuse was used during alcohol prohibition. Water would have been "prohibited" because of law enforcement's inability to differentiate between water & gin.
Both water AND Cannabis are unique and essential natural resources. The availability of both determines either abundance & health, or scarcity & illness. If you don't know the true value of Cannabis, then you cannot possibly decide whether it is legal or not. Our government refuses to acknowledge the true value of the world's most useful, potentially abundant, nutritious agricultural resource, but it doesn't mean that "We the People" have to go along with the erroneous valuation of a corrupt government.
Cannabis hemp seed is the only common seed with three essential fatty acids. Because it is both unique and essential, hemp has never been within the rightful jurisdiction of any court.
Drugs don't make seeds. Herbs do. Every "god" that's ever been worshipped agrees that every one of us has been given "every herb bearing seed...and every green herb" as stated in Genesis 1:29, on the first page of the Bible.
That means essentially that the freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom. End of argument. The world's oldest global culture doesn't require permission from a corrupt and dysfunctional bureaucracy to exist.
Cannabis agriculture is the best available proportionate response to global warming and global broiling, by increasing UV-B radiation. If people don't wake up to the fact that Cannabis is the world's most valuable and nutritious agricultural resource, then our species won't see the end of this century.
Prohibition of all strains will end as soon as the true value of industrial hemp is widely appreciated for its critical importance to mitigating climate change and addressing food insecurity & malnutrition. Cannabis is as essential to sustainable human existence on Earth as water is.
Consider the tragic absurdity if an equivalent excuse was used during alcohol prohibition. Water would have been "prohibited" because of law enforcement's inability to differentiate between water & gin.
Both water AND Cannabis are unique and essential natural resources. The availability of both determines either abundance & health, or scarcity & illness. If you don't know the true value of Cannabis, then you cannot possibly decide whether it is legal or not. Our government refuses to acknowledge the true value of the world's most useful, potentially abundant, nutritious agricultural resource, but it doesn't mean that "We the People" have to go along with the erroneous valuation of a corrupt government.
Cannabis hemp seed is the only common seed with three essential fatty acids. Because it is both unique and essential, hemp has never been within the rightful jurisdiction of any court.
Drugs don't make seeds. Herbs do. Every "god" that's ever been worshipped agrees that every one of us has been given "every herb bearing seed...and every green herb" as stated in Genesis 1:29, on the first page of the Bible.
That means essentially that the freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom. End of argument. The world's oldest global culture doesn't require permission from a corrupt and dysfunctional bureaucracy to exist.
Cannabis agriculture is the best available proportionate response to global warming and global broiling, by increasing UV-B radiation. If people don't wake up to the fact that Cannabis is the world's most valuable and nutritious agricultural resource, then our species won't see the end of this century.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Dear Mr. Costa,
In prelude to UNGASS
http://www.ungassondrugs.org/
It would be nothing less than criminal if all proven public health measures to reduce HIV among injecting drug users and nursing mothers were not featured uppermost in the Political Declaration that will arise out of the forthcoming High Level Meeting on drugs to be held in Vienna in March.
Certainly you must be aware of the most globally available and cost effective agricultural strategy that uses hemp seed nutrition to prevent the spread of AIDS between nursing mothers and their children.
You must know that Cannabis seed is the ONLY common seed with three ESSENTIAL fatty acids, and the best available source of organic, non-GMO, vegetable protein on Earth, yet the UN doesn't even recognize hemp seed as food for humans. Drugs don't make seeds. Herbs do. Exactly when did the government get rightful authority over "herbs bearing seeds" that are both unique and essential?
Mankind is far beyond its rightful authority in legislating scarcity of an unique and essential food resource upon which other species also depend for their survival.
It is criminally negligent for the UNFAO not to actively promote and facilitate industrial hemp agriculture throughout the world. At the very least the UN could recognize the true, unique and essential food value of Cannabis hemp seed on their website.
At what point does a law become so transparently perverse that it ceases to command respect? How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered?
Solutions are usually simple, Mr. Costa. It is the problems that are complicated. End Cannabis prohibition and much of the hard drug use will stop. End Cannabis prohibition and a huge chunk of the black market in drugs will just disappear. End Cannabis prohibition and sustainable economics will lead to a clean environment and natural abundance.
You may also be encouraged to know that Cannabis agriculture produces biogenic atmospheric aerosols that could mitigate climate change more effectively and efficiently than any other human response to global warming and global broiling.
The freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed...and every green herb" is the first test of religious freedom. I challenge the rightful jurisdiction of any court over unique and essential natural resources, under individual protection afforded by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the freedom of religion that is assured by the International Declaration of Human Rights.
Time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. Every Spring planting season that passes is gone forever. 2009 is the year of "essential civilian demand" in the U.S., as provided for in Executive Order 12919, signed by President Clinton in 1994.
Thank you for your consideration. I trust that you will recognize the urgency of rescheduling Cannabis hemp at UNFAO, and make it the UNODC top priority.
http://www.ungassondrugs.org/
It would be nothing less than criminal if all proven public health measures to reduce HIV among injecting drug users and nursing mothers were not featured uppermost in the Political Declaration that will arise out of the forthcoming High Level Meeting on drugs to be held in Vienna in March.
Certainly you must be aware of the most globally available and cost effective agricultural strategy that uses hemp seed nutrition to prevent the spread of AIDS between nursing mothers and their children.
You must know that Cannabis seed is the ONLY common seed with three ESSENTIAL fatty acids, and the best available source of organic, non-GMO, vegetable protein on Earth, yet the UN doesn't even recognize hemp seed as food for humans. Drugs don't make seeds. Herbs do. Exactly when did the government get rightful authority over "herbs bearing seeds" that are both unique and essential?
Mankind is far beyond its rightful authority in legislating scarcity of an unique and essential food resource upon which other species also depend for their survival.
It is criminally negligent for the UNFAO not to actively promote and facilitate industrial hemp agriculture throughout the world. At the very least the UN could recognize the true, unique and essential food value of Cannabis hemp seed on their website.
At what point does a law become so transparently perverse that it ceases to command respect? How bad do things have to get before all solutions are considered?
Solutions are usually simple, Mr. Costa. It is the problems that are complicated. End Cannabis prohibition and much of the hard drug use will stop. End Cannabis prohibition and a huge chunk of the black market in drugs will just disappear. End Cannabis prohibition and sustainable economics will lead to a clean environment and natural abundance.
You may also be encouraged to know that Cannabis agriculture produces biogenic atmospheric aerosols that could mitigate climate change more effectively and efficiently than any other human response to global warming and global broiling.
The freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed...and every green herb" is the first test of religious freedom. I challenge the rightful jurisdiction of any court over unique and essential natural resources, under individual protection afforded by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the freedom of religion that is assured by the International Declaration of Human Rights.
Time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival. Every Spring planting season that passes is gone forever. 2009 is the year of "essential civilian demand" in the U.S., as provided for in Executive Order 12919, signed by President Clinton in 1994.
Thank you for your consideration. I trust that you will recognize the urgency of rescheduling Cannabis hemp at UNFAO, and make it the UNODC top priority.
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