Green Options

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Texas Congressman Ron Paul today released a statement urging public support for a House Bill advocating the government stay out of the medical marijuana business and allow state sanctioned clinics the freedom to dispense pot without fear of being raided.

Paul has introduced the “Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act”, H.R. 5842, which would bar the Federal Government from intervening in doctor/patient relationships that violate no state law. This, by the way, is the second legislation co-sponsored by Congressman Paul dealing with the cannabis plant. More on that later.

As a physician, Paul states his position that doctors and patients should make health care decisions, not politicians or federal agents. His legislation would call off the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) “dogs” that regularly hassle state-sanctioned clinics and their patients.

Anyone See The Irony Here?

You’ve probably read the story about an estimated 10,000 people gathered on the University of Colorado’s Norlin Quadrangle Sunday, puffing joints till the air turned blue. University police stood by to maintain order, but no one was busted for smoking pot.

In the meantime, the DEA is staunchly defending its policy against American farmers legally growing industrial hemp, citing the law that says all hemp is marijuana.

How’s your war on drugs coming along, anyway, DEA? The sun is shining, and if you’d pull your heads out, you’d see it. Pot is here, lots of it available, if this number of people can show up and get loaded on just one day in one city and no one is arrested.

After recent reports that pesticides are present in children’s urine and saliva, Humboldt County, CA sheriffs have arrested Gina and Louis Mays for feeding their children commercially grown food.  This is the first such case in the country that accuses parents of neglect and abuse for not feeding their children organically grown food.  The Mays are facing a stiff fine, and their two young children may be removed from the home.

Humboldt County Child Protective Services Director Tina Moore stated, “Any aspect of a child’s life that threatens their well being and health is a concern of our agency. We will not sit by docilely as parents poison their children.”  Ironically, the accused parents have an organically grown medical marijuana garden, but they had not considered the effects of pesticides on their own children’s health.  Accused mother Gina Mays said, “We thought that if we bought our children food at the grocery store it would be safe. We had no idea how dangerous commercially grown produce was to our little ones.” 

Sorting through the lawn debris at a San Jose recycling center, workers found a large trash bag full of marijuana plants.  The police say they won’t be composting this natural material.

Source:  AP

Image: laughparty.com

Two North Dakota farmers, State Representative David Monson and Wayne Hauge, have taken their fight to legalize hemp farming to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

The pair, licensed by the state to grow industrial hemp, filed a federal lawsuit last year, asking that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s ban on industrial hemp farming in North Dakota be lifted. The court dismissed the suit in late November, saying industrial hemp and marijuana [...]

I love David and Goliath stories, and the recent news from North Dakota is just that: two farmers and a publicly funded land grant university sticking it to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). As you know from an earlier article on Green Options , and my subsequent podcast Greening the Golden Years Podcast: Hemp, The North Dakota Story, two North Dakota farmers, State Rep. Dave Monson and Wayne

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Today’s podcast is a follow-up of my earlier article, Opinion: California Governor Nixes Industrial Hemp While North Dakota Moves On. I felt it necessary to further investigate the North Dakota story and help bring you up to date on other activity around the country.

Twenty-eight states have introduced hemp legislation and fifteen have passed legislation; seven, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, West Virginia and North Dakota have removed

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Well, California’s "Fearless Fosdick" Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger has again stifled any hope of bringing the industrial hemp industry to California and the United States. Unlike his more forward-thinking and courageous counterpart in North Dakota, Schwarzenegger bowed to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and useless fears that industrial hemp will get you high, and vetoed Assembly Bill 684 which would have allowed a four-county, five-year pilot program of industrial hemp

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MYTH: The United States Government considers ALL strains of hemp as marijuana.

Facts: Partially true, although things are changing. For in its more than 8000 years of cultivation, hemp and its psychoactive drug Cannabis Sativa have been inextricably linked. The name marijuana is a recent moniker. It was first called K(a)N(a)B(a) (cannibas) in early Sumeria and in is referred to as hashish in the Middle East.

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