FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: August 28, 2006
CONTACT: MIGHTY MOUTH MEDIA mightymouth@asis.com
JACK HERER 707-279-2333
CONNECTING THE DOTS: BACKGROUND ON HEMP AND GMOs
A 2003 Hemp Report from the Saskatoon Research Center in Canada by Cecil L. Vera of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada concludes that of six hemp cultivars grown in Melfort, SK, that year, the one with the best yield also had the most THC. A 1999 study from Thunder Bay showed marked differences between 1 percent cultivars vs. 0.3 percent ones. See: AGF.Gov.BC.ca/SpecCrop/Publications/Ind_Hemp.htm
A 1998 Vermont state auditor’s report evaluating the DEA’s marijuana eradication efforts in the U.S. revealed that over 99 percent of the 422,716,526 total cannabis plants eliminated nationwide by the agency in 1996 were “ditchweed,” non-psychoactive hemp. Many of those plants were remnants from government-subsidized plots grown during World War II’s “Hemp for Victory” campaign. See: NORML.org/Index.CFM?Group_ID=4401
Commenting on the study in summer 1998, publisher Mari Kane wrote in HempWorld magazine, “That hemp cultivation is not currently legally allowed in the United States has not stopped seed and chemical corporations from developing low-THC hybrids using European seed stock. Once they patent these new strains, I suspect that hemp prohibition will magically become a thing of the past, with the usual players monopolizing the seed supply. The wild hemp growing on the prairies is a threat to these companies' plans to control hempseed, and government-sponsored eradication is the simplest way to eliminate the competition. Perhaps that is what this plan is really about.” [Plant breeder Dr. David West says that hemp seed is not hybridized, and that extrapolating from studies is speculative, since factors other than seed type affect yields.]
Of the Monsanto/D&PL merger, Ibrahim Coulibaly, president of the National Coordination of Peasants’ Organizations of Mali, said, “This merger guarantees an intensification of the already immense political pressure on West African governments to accept genetically modified seeds.” Monsanto and D&PL together account for over 57 percent of the US cotton seed market. See: Banterminator.org/
Under the guise of a group called CropLife America, Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Du Pont and other corporations spent $621,000 to oppose Mendocino county, California’s anti-GMO Measure H in 2004. In response, Measure H backers brought in 73-year-old Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, whose canola crops were contaminated with Monsanto’s patented “Round-up Ready” GMO/GE canola, causing him to be sued by Monsanto for “property theft” and “patent infringement.” Measure H passed, but Mendocino and a handful of hamlets across California are fighting off a state bill that would undo the law and preclude other cities and counties from outlawing GMOs. See: GMOFreeMendo.com
The use of seed oils for fuel has been on the international stage as far back as 1992, when George H.W. Bush raised tariffs on seed oils as his first act as president. (In retaliation, France raised their tariff on wine.) At BIO 2006, the annual Convention of the Biotechnology Industry Organization held in mid-April in Chicago, “biofuels” – renewable fuels made from plant materials – were the center of attention, with biodiesel and ethanol as the industry’s two leading hopes for spurring renewed interest and investment, wrote Charles Shaw of AlterNet.
On the heels of [George W.] Bush’s “addicted to oil” speech, heading into the convention, BIO released a letter to Congress on March 13, 2006, requesting full funding for programs that would support research and development into ethanol production.
At a BIO conference plenary session on biofuels, former CIA head and NAIHC lobbyist R. James Woolsey claimed that “Biotechnology will be for the twenty-first-century what physics was to the 20th,” unlocking the secret potential of the planet in ways never before imagined, while at the same time rescuing us from the social and environmental perils of the petrochemical system. “For every billion dollars we shift from foreign oil to domestic biofuels, we can add anywhere from 10-20,000 American jobs,” Woolsey said, “and at least half of our gasoline needs can be grown here with cellulose.”
Biodiesel fuel is primarily made of soy, grown by farmers in the Midwest. Although there’s no sure way to say how much soy-based biodiesel comes from genetically modified stock, as of 2003, 81 percent of the U.S. soy harvest was genetically modified. See: Alternet.org/EnviroHealth/35243