hedgeraider
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http://www.globalhemp.com/1994/01/fiber-wars-the-extinction-of-kentucky-hemp.html
Chapter 1: Once Upon a Time
The scene is a dairy farm in east-central Wisconsin, August 21, 1993. On its fifth pass over the farm, the helicopter comes in low and hovers. The farmer’s terrified, triple-A, artificially-inseminated cow tries to leap the fence, breaks her leg and in three days is dead, calf lost. The newspaper report explains that “Local authorities have been using the National Guard helicopters in the area to search for wild marijuana patches.” According to their press release, the Wisconsin Department of Narcotic Enforcement’s Project CEASE removed 9.3 million hemp plants in 1993 in Wisconsin. ‘Hemp,’ they explain, “is the plant from which marijuana is extracted.”1
Since 1983, when the program first began, CEASE has employed Sheriff’s deputies, the US Army Reserves, National Guard and law officers of the Wisconsin State Division of Narcotics Enforcement to search and destroy ‘wild marijuana:’ 3 tons in ’83; 22 in ’84; 41 in ’85; 104 in ’86; 165 in ’87; 113.7 in ’88 (estimated, ‘conservatively,’ to be worth $113.3 million on the illegal market).2 More recently, plant counts rather than tonnage have been reported: 9.3 million plants pulled up in 1993.
Hemp, cannabis, is a pariah. Plant breeders could contribute some factual information to the discussion of the variation that exists within the genusCannabis, but researchers in the United States find it virtually impossible to obtain permit number 225 issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration and required to legally grow and conduct research on any cannabis3 plant. The loops through which one must jump to obtain this permit are sufficient to dissuade and obstruct those who try. Ironically, the state where the cow fell victim to the War on Drugs was once the number one producer of hemp.4 And nobody smoked it.
There is a lesion in our national memory banks regarding the role of this plant in our history.5 How do we reconcile the heinous character of this plant with the fact that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were dedicated hemp farmers? (The former said, ‘Sow it everywhere’ and the latter invented a hemp brake.) How is it that hemp was safe enough to be used as legal tender in colonial times, yet the curators of the Smithsonian Institute found it necessary to remove all reference to hemp from their displays?
Chapter 1: Once Upon a Time
The scene is a dairy farm in east-central Wisconsin, August 21, 1993. On its fifth pass over the farm, the helicopter comes in low and hovers. The farmer’s terrified, triple-A, artificially-inseminated cow tries to leap the fence, breaks her leg and in three days is dead, calf lost. The newspaper report explains that “Local authorities have been using the National Guard helicopters in the area to search for wild marijuana patches.” According to their press release, the Wisconsin Department of Narcotic Enforcement’s Project CEASE removed 9.3 million hemp plants in 1993 in Wisconsin. ‘Hemp,’ they explain, “is the plant from which marijuana is extracted.”1
Since 1983, when the program first began, CEASE has employed Sheriff’s deputies, the US Army Reserves, National Guard and law officers of the Wisconsin State Division of Narcotics Enforcement to search and destroy ‘wild marijuana:’ 3 tons in ’83; 22 in ’84; 41 in ’85; 104 in ’86; 165 in ’87; 113.7 in ’88 (estimated, ‘conservatively,’ to be worth $113.3 million on the illegal market).2 More recently, plant counts rather than tonnage have been reported: 9.3 million plants pulled up in 1993.
Hemp, cannabis, is a pariah. Plant breeders could contribute some factual information to the discussion of the variation that exists within the genusCannabis, but researchers in the United States find it virtually impossible to obtain permit number 225 issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration and required to legally grow and conduct research on any cannabis3 plant. The loops through which one must jump to obtain this permit are sufficient to dissuade and obstruct those who try. Ironically, the state where the cow fell victim to the War on Drugs was once the number one producer of hemp.4 And nobody smoked it.
There is a lesion in our national memory banks regarding the role of this plant in our history.5 How do we reconcile the heinous character of this plant with the fact that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were dedicated hemp farmers? (The former said, ‘Sow it everywhere’ and the latter invented a hemp brake.) How is it that hemp was safe enough to be used as legal tender in colonial times, yet the curators of the Smithsonian Institute found it necessary to remove all reference to hemp from their displays?
