I started learning about hemp as a teenager when I met a man named Jack Herer who was promoting hemp at a table set up on the Venice Beach boardwalk.
Little by little as I considered the topic I realized that people knew very little about hemp, and what they did know about it was often mythical or a distortion of the truth. Because of this, I figured there was a pretty good possibility that I could write a book about it that could be useful. But my writing of a book about hemp wasn’t going to happen overnight.
For some years I very casually and randomly researched the topic of hemp. I took notes, wrote some things, and sometimes interviewed people involved in the hemp industry. I sporadically worked on the manuscript with no plan of when to finish the thing. Sometimes I wouldn’t touch the manuscript for several months, or more than a year – until something about hemp sparked my interest. Then I would go into another phase of working on the manuscript.
Meanwhile, Jack Herer published a book about hemp that became a best-seller on the topic. That book is titled The Emperor Wears No Clothes.
In the summer of 2006 I realized that my manuscript was nearing a stage where it could be published. It wasn’t so much that the book was finished. Because of changes that are being made in laws, the number of people involved with the hemp movement, and the growing worldwide hemp industry, a book on this topic could never be finished. But it seemed the manuscript was at a point where it contained enough information that it could serve its purpose, or at least the purpose I want it to have.
The book reached a point to where it had the capability of doing what I intended it to do: to help bring people out of the dark ages about hemp, clear up rumors, bring people up to speed with what hemp is about, and help propel actions to legalize industrial hemp farming and a self-sustaining hemp market in the U.S.
Publishers interested in the book wanted me to shorten it, to cut out the controversial parts, and to simply focus on the environmental benefits hemp can provide. However, I saw no need to keep people ignorant about the history of hemp and how it is tangled up in the drug war, nor did I feel the need to remove the parts of the manuscript that the publishers thought were controversial: the overview of the drug war and the political corruption that keeps creating it.
As the economic downturn of 2008 set in, many publishing companies limited the number of books they were publishing, some stopped acquiring new titles, and others simply put all newly acquired manuscripts on hold while eliminating some of their staff positions. One publishing company interested in publishing this book was one that put all new publishing projects on hold.
With the problems facing the publishing industry, I figured that the easiest way to make this book available to the masses is to provide the entire manuscript for free on an advertiser-supported Internet site. People in the book industry told me, “Oh, you can’t do that. You worked so hard on it. You can’t just give it away.” To them I say, Yes, I can! I want the information out there, and I don’t want some publisher chopping the book in half to edit out what they consider to be the controversial segments.
One benefit of putting the manuscript on the Internet is that there is no paper involved, and no trees had to be cut down to publish a book. By having it on the Internet, nobody has to pay for the book, and people all over the world can read it. I could also update the manuscript at any time.
Even as I write this there are changes happening in the world of hemp.
In January 2007 the state of North Dakota began offering “hemp growers license applications.” In April 2007 the North Dakota legislature passed Hemp Bill 1020, deciding that state-licensed industrial hemp farmers would no longer be required to carry Drug Enforcement Administration licenses. But the state also acknowledged that it could not protect farmers who decide to grow hemp from being prosecuted under federal drug laws. And, so far, no farmers in North Dakota, or anywhere else in the U.S., have begun to grow hemp.
In 2008, the state of Vermont legalized industrial hemp farming.
“With the broad authority that has been granted to them by Congress, the DEA could have easily approved the applications of the farmers in North Dakota. The DEA could have also easily negotiated industrial hemp farming rules with North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson who has been talking to them about this for a year. Instead, they kept stalling until the time to plant had passed. North Dakota had nothing left to do but cut the DEA out of the picture.”
– Tom Murphy, National Outreach Coordinator for Vote Hemp, April 30, 2007
“I applied for my North Dakota license in January and was hopeful the DEA would act quickly and affirm my right to plant industrial hemp this year. Unfortunately, the DEA has not responded in any way other than to state that it would take them a lot more time than the window of time I have to import seed and plant the crop. It appears that DEA really doesn’t want to work with anyone to resolve the issue.”
– Farmer and North Dakota Republican state representative, David Monson, April 2007
The reason North Dakota has been trying to work with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on this issue of allowing farmers to grow hemp is that, as I explain in detail later in the book, hemp has been classified as a drug since the Nixon administration, even though hemp can’t get a person high. The DEA has been granted authority by Congress to interpret the statutes of the United States Code, such as the Controlled Substance Act, including rescheduling controlled substances and determining the rules and regulations of the substances. Under the Administrative Procedures Act (5USC 536), the DEA could negotiate industrial hemp farming rules with the states. But the DEA has been refusing to do so. Not only that, but those working for the DEA have made statements confusing the issue, either because they want it that way, or because they are ignorant as to the power the DEA holds (which is not likely).
When North Dakota was trying to negotiate with the DEA to allow farmers in that state to grow industrial hemp, a special agent with the DEA, Steve Robertson, was quoted in the Grand Forks Herald saying, “The DEA does not have the authority to change existing federal law… It’s very simple for us: the law is there and we enforce the law… we are law enforcement, not lawmakers.” The lobbying group, Vote Hemp, responded with a press release explaining that, yes, the DEA does have the authority over the laws regulating hemp. Vote Hemp’s National Outreach Coordinator, Tom Murphy, was quoted as saying, “It’s interesting that Special Agent Robertson pretends that the DEA is purely a law enforcement entity, as they are not.”
“The legislative action is a direct response to the DEA’s refusal to waive registration requirements, including $3,440 per farmer in nonrefundable yearly application fees, and the agency’s inability to respond to the farmers’ federal applications in time for spring planting.
The North Dakota legislature’s bold action gives Vote Hemp the opportunity we’ve been working towards for nearly a decade. Now that there is a state with comprehensive hemp farming regulations that has explicitly eschewed DEA involvement, we can finally make the case that states have the legal ability to regulate industrial hemp farming within their borders without federal interference. And, because ND Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson actually did spend nearly a year trying to work out an agreement with the DEA, it’s clear that DEA isn’t going to act in a reasonable way and isn’t ever to going to acknowledge the practical differences between industrial hemp and marijuana and accommodate ND’s plan to commercialize hemp farming.”
– Alexis Baden-Mayer, Vote Hemp’s Legislative Director, April 2007
North Dakota is a major producer of flax oil, sunflower oil, and canola oil. Allowing hemp to be grown in that state would mean the local economy would benefit from producing hemp seed oil, hemp seed nutrition powders, and other hemp products, including hemp fiberboard, hemp fabric, and pulp for paper mills. Allowing another crop to be grown would also help preserve farmland in that state, and also protect forests.
North Dakota borders a region of Canada where hemp is growing on farms. Many of the hemp products imported into the U.S. are brought through North Dakota. It is frustrating for farmers in North Dakota to see this taking place: Canadian farmers profiting in the U.S. in ways that U.S. farmers can’t.
“American farmers look across the border in Canada, which exports hemp fiber to the U.S., and ask, ‘why can’t we grow it?’”
– Jeffrey W. Gain, former CEO of both the National Corn Growers and American Soybean Association
In July 2007, Ruth’s Hemp Foods began producing a nutritional food bar, the “red, white, and blueberry” Vote Hemp Bar, which is sold with the intent of helping to fund the legal costs of farmers Dave Monson and Wayne Hauge in their lawsuit filed on June 18, 2007, against the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
“The United States government should get past all the drug association rhetoric and take a clear-eyed look at low-THC industrial hemp for its many valuable assets, including its being a healthy, nutrient-dense food. And, as a bonus, it is a very low-impact, environmentally-friendly crop… It’s time to give U.S. farmers the freedom to choose a crop that, in Canada and elsewhere, has proven to be an environmentally-friendly and economically-viable crop.”
– Ruth Shamai of Ruth’s Hemp Foods, July 2007
In the last decade the U.S. has lost thousands of square miles of farmland to “land development” in the form of suburbs, shopping centers, factories, and office complexes. Allowing farmers nationwide to grow a new crop would increase the income of farmers and raise the value of farmland nationwide.
“There are numerous environmental advantages to hemp. Hemp often requires less energy to manufacture into products. It is less toxic to process. And it is easier to recycle and more biodegradable than most competing crops and products. Unfortunately, we won’t realize the full economic and environmental benefits of hemp until the crop is legal in the United States.”
– Skaidra Smith-Heisters, policy analyst, Reason Foundation; reason.org
On February 13, 2007, Republican Representative Dr. Ron Paul of Texas introduced the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2007 to Congress. In the first half of 2007 there were 11 states that had industrial hemp farming bills introduced. These included California, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
On March 5, 2007, New Mexico lawmakers voted 59 to 2 to study legalizing hemp farming in that state. The vote authorized an “in-depth economic analysis to address the benefits of a legal hemp industry in New Mexico and the long-term impacts of establishing proper permitting and licensing procedures.” A goal of the study is “to determine the costs and benefits associated with encouraging economic development in various areas, including textiles, pulping products for paper, biocomposites and building materials, animal bedding, nutritional products for livestock, industries related to seed extraction and resins for potential biofuels, lubricants, paints and inks, cosmetics, body care products, and nutritional supplements.” The vote encouraged the U.S. Congress “to recognize industrial hemp as a valuable agricultural commodity, to define industrial hemp in federal law as a nonpsychoactive and genetically identifiable species of the genus Cannabis, and acknowledge that allowing and encouraging farmers to produce industrial hemp will improve the balance of trade by promoting domestic sources of industrial hemp and [that hemp] can make a positive contribution to the issues of global climate change and carbon sequestration [through, among other things, producing ethanol from hemp to fuel gasoline engines, and oil from hemp seed to fuel diesel engines].”
“The legislature has spoken saying that New Mexico lawmakers are on-board in support of industrial hemp farming, and encouraging our scientists and educators to look at the subject without fear of retribution by law enforcement or negative conventional wisdom. All of the benefits of hemp can now be explored in a legal forum. This will give people all over the country the ability to approach the federal Drug Enforcement Authority to demand that industrial hemp be removed from their schedule of narcotic drugs and be allowed to once again become one of our major cash crops in the United States.”
– Attorney John McCall of Albuquerque, New Mexico, March 2007
The U.S. hemp farming industry was briefly revived in the early 1940s, and then suddenly halted a few years later when the government ended its Hemp for Victory program to supply hemp fiber and oil to the U.S. military. That is one part of American history that many people do not know of, or do not understand: that the U.S. encouraged farmers to grow hemp during WWII to provide the military with hemp rope and hemp fabric, which was used in parachutes, uniforms, and tents.
Because the U.S. government has stupidly classified hemp as a drug, it has been a fight to get the Drug Enforcement Administration to allow hemp farming to proceed. But if things work out, the approval for industrial hemp farming may be granted and fields of hemp may be growing within the U.S. within several years.
Or not.
Even so, as hemp farming remains illegal in its borders, the U.S. is the world’s largest consumer of industrial hemp products – all of which are imported from countries where hemp farming is legal. From 2005 to 2007 the imported hemp products industry in the U.S. has increased by at least 50 percent. With that in mind, it is clear to understand how much revenue U.S. farmers are missing out on – because the money is going to farmers in foreign countries.
It is my hope that this book could play some role in bringing hemp into the modern age.