Hemp Facts: January 2009

Now Is The Time To Decriminalize Weed

The war on drugs does two things: it makes the business of drugs more profitable and more violent, and it sends lots and lots of people to prison.

Wouldn't it be better if we could bring this business out into the open, slap some taxes on it, and keep people from shooting each other? Of the 2.3 million people incarcerated in this country, more than half are in prison for drug-related offenses. That's unconscionable, and I believe future generations will see this fact, more than the pseudo-legalization of torture under the Bush Administration, as the great moral failing of our time. As the late, great Milton Friedman, an opponent of the War on Drugs from the very beginning when Nixon initiated hostilities, put it, "there is no light at the end of that tunnel. How many of our citizens do we want to turn into criminals before we yell "enough?"

No one believes that illegal drugs are anything but harmful, but Americans, or at least our leaders, use that fact to stop any discussion of a rational policy to deal with the problem.

We've tried [war] for over 30 years, and the only thing the policy succeeds at is ruining lives. What kills me is that nobody seems to care, not about the human cost, or even about the financial cost.

Marijuana, Inc: The Business Boom Ahead

Finally! With both Wall St. and Congress (HR5843) getting a clue, the end of prohibition could indeed be very close!

While it may not be traded on Wall Street any time soon, marijuana has become a booming cash crop. CNBC's Trish Regan goes behind the scenes to explore the inner workings of this secretive industry, focusing on Northern California's "Emerald Triangle," now the marijuana capital of the U.S. In this scenic pocket of America, the pot business, much of it legal under state law, now makes up as much as two-thirds of the local economy.

CNBC Poll

Add your vote now!

Are Marijuana Stocks Getting High?

The Trading Goddess blog thinks maybe so.

U.S. industrial hemp development continues

Biomass Magazine:

While a number of states allow hemp research, North Dakota was the only one to allow hemp cultivation until Vermont granted permission earlier this year.

Hemp pellets have a heat content similar to wood pellets at 7,247 British thermal units per pound with a 19 percent ash content.

In 2007, a Canadian prototype biomass research facility, ViFam Pro Services of Kirkland, Quebec, test[ed] hemp leaf biomass for heating pellets which were then analyzed at the Twin Ports Testing Labs in Superior, Wis. This past year, the tests were repeated using hemp biomass, stalk and leaf.

The pellet made from just hemp stalk had a higher energy content and lower ash content at 7,890 Btu per pound and nine percent ash content.

[F]igures from Canada show straw yields of 6 tons per hectare (2.47 acres) and 1.5 tons of fiber, in addition to 200 liters (50 gallons) of oil pressed from the seed.

About

The purpose of this site is NOT to advocate smoking weed. In order to be EFFECTIVE REVOLUTIONARIES for nonviolent social change, we must make the sacrifice of OBEYING THE LAW as it is, in every way. We must be UNASSAILABLE, UNIMPEACHABLE, IMPERVIOUS to accusations of purely selfish motives. On the day that we win the fight, on the day that we CHANGE THE LAW, that is the day we can roll up the biggest damned fatty you've ever seen and celebrate an unimaginably righteous triumph not witnessed since the end of ignorant prohibition. IT CAN BE DONE and WE CAN BE THE CHANGE WE SEEK IN THE WORLD! But we must follow the examples of leaders of every cause in history; of Gandhi, of MLK, of Mandela. We must be the example and we must win because of the uncontested moral superiority of our cause. When we break the law, when we flaunt the system, we Give the System Power Over Us. Do not let them suck you in! Fight the Good Fight and our day of victory, the day of Full Legalization of Marijuana will come!