source: www.bizlex.com
Lexington, KY - A couple of weeks ago, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported that Lexington police had raided a head shop on Winchester Road called The Botany Bay. The operation resulted in the police's confiscation of money, guns, bongs and, importantly, a quantity of "synthetic marijuana," the selling of which apparently prompted the raid in the first place. For the uninitiated, the term synthetic marijuana refers to some combination of herbs and lab-concocted cannabinoids, the latter of which produce a mild high when smoked.
This ersatz grass, sold under various brand names, was made temporarily illegal in this country on March 1 by the emergency powers of the Drug Enforcement Administration, a move that, for at least 12 months, reclassified several chemicals common to synthetic pot as Schedule 1 controlled substances. Other Schedule 1 substances include heroin, meth and marijuana itself. The Botany Bay continued to sell the stuff despite the ban.
But head shops get busted all the time for reasons legitimate and otherwise; by the letter of the law, this bust was by the book. What makes this bust worthy of commentary was gubernatorial candidate Phil Moffett's association with The Botany Bay: According to the Herald-Leader, Ginny Saville, the shop's owner, "helped organize a Dec. 7 fund-raiser for Moffett and, with her husband, donated $2,000 to him. When the raid happened, she and her husband were with the Moffett campaign at the Conservative Action Political Conference in Washington, D.C."
Let's backtrack a bit: On March 14, Moffett issued a press release that called for Gov. Steve Beshear to take the steps necessary to "get the FDA, DEA and Department of Agriculture off our farms and defend Kentucky against this federal choke hold." Now, while one could certainly question the wisdom of completely deregulating our food supply — for example, the FDA spends a lot of time protecting us from things like botulism, salmonella and listeria, which anyone who's suffered acute food poisoning would agree is a pretty good thing — the issue of DEA meddling in state affairs is one of great importance to proponents of industrial hemp production in Kentucky and elsewhere. And Moffett was on target when he stated, in the same press release, that "we are importing industrial hemp products into the United States from 31 Western industrialized countries, including Canada, worth hundreds of millions of dollars in textiles, clothing, fabrics, oils, rope, pet products and many other goods. We are needlessly exporting jobs and dollars that could be in the pockets of Kentuckians."
Actually, Canada's hemp industry, which was legalized in 1998, is currently suffering from the problem of too much supply for too little demand, and exports of hemp seed and products to the United States and other countries generated revenue of only around $8 million Canadian in 2009. Most of the world's hemp imports come from China, not Canada. Still, Moffett's reasoning is sound; in fact, the outlook in Canada is bright enough that, this past December, the government in Ottawa supplied hemp processors with a substantial grant designed to, according to the Alberta Office of Agriculture and Rural Development, "increase production capacity and make new inroads into the U.S. market." These inroads, Moffett and other supporters of industrial hemp believe, could be made by Kentuckians instead.
Which is why Moffett's association with head shops is disappointing, and damaging to the cause. Despite the fact that the United States is the only major industrialized nation that has yet to legalize the production of industrial hemp, which might lead anyone but the most fervent believer in American exceptionalism to think that maybe we've got this one wrong, the conflation in many people's minds of industrial hemp with recreational marijuana, combined with our nation's apparent requirement that politicians distance themselves from anything resembling a pro-drug position if they wish to be taken seriously by the mainstream of American culture, means that the DEA's rigid anti-industrial hemp stance is seen to be the morally correct one, one that politicians challenge at the risk of costing themselves the next election. In short, drugs are immoral, and therefore so is industrial hemp — or so the DEA would have us believe.
The only way to combat this problem, of course, is to divorce the issue of industrial hemp production from the pot-legalization movement and, by doing so, to reclaim moral authority from the DEA. The only moral question involved in the production of industrial hemp is the utter immorality of keeping poor, rural states such as our own from improving our economic situation with specious reasoning and unjustifiable regulatory practices. But what Phil Moffett has done, by associating himself with a head shop selling synthetic pot, is to perpetuate the conflation of industrial hemp with illegal drugs, thereby ceding moral authority straight back to the very agency he rails against in his press releases.
But is it realistic, or even possible, to completely separate industrial hemp from its psychoactive cousin? The analogy most often trotted out by hemp proponents is that of heroin and poppy seeds: Heroin is terrible, but lemon-poppy seed muffins are great, and we never seem to confuse the two, even though it's quite possible to fail a drug test by consuming too many of the latter. It's a tired comparison, but it does seem to point to the possibility that one day we might be able to think about industrial hemp without summoning visions of bongs and head shops. But only if folks like Phil Moffett do their part.
Reader Comments
April 12, 2011 | 08:01 PM
Hemp is an excellent weed and pest controlling crop for fuel, food, and fiber. It is an excellent additive to strengthen recycled paper, and when mixed with lime, a superior concrete-like building material. The reason that Canada has limited exports to the US has to do with the DEA fighting hemp product imports. All imported hemp products have to go "THC checks" which are expensive and unnecessary. This is the consequence of a big-spending federal government. The DEA spends $500 million of taxpayer money annually eradicating non-drug ditchweed. As tobacco smoking is being phased out, Kentucky farmers are going to need to find a new crop if they are going to be able to survive. Email your representatives and tell them that industrial hemp needs to be legalized on a federal basis and regulated by the USDA instead of the DEA.
Kevin Hunt
Hemp is an excellent weed and pest controlling crop for fuel, food, and fiber. It is an excellent additive to strengthen recycled paper, and when mixed with lime, a superior concrete-like building material. The reason that Canada has limited exports to the US has to do with the DEA fighting hemp product imports. All imported hemp products have to go "THC checks" which are expensive and unnecessary. This is the consequence of a big-spending federal government. The DEA spends $500 million of taxpayer money annually eradicating non-drug ditchweed. As tobacco smoking is being phased out, Kentucky farmers are going to need to find a new crop if they are going to be able to survive. Email your representatives and tell them that industrial hemp needs to be legalized on a federal basis and regulated by the USDA instead of the DEA.
Kevin Hunt
April 12, 2011 | 08:25 PM
Whether it is industrial hemp or I will call it recreational hemp should not matter. Hemp is illegal because of a few people who were powerful around the 1930's. Hearst, Mellon, Dupont and Exxon to name of few decided to wage a war against hemp, so oil based products and wood would flourish. Hemp was the substance that would challenge these powerful people's bank accounts. This is not what our founding fathers stood for. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp and probaly smoked a little bit, and Abraham Lincoln was said that he liked nothing better then to sit on his porch and smoke his pipe with hemp. In my humble opinion Phil Moffett is on the side of truth. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. www.thinksubstance.com
Jay
Whether it is industrial hemp or I will call it recreational hemp should not matter. Hemp is illegal because of a few people who were powerful around the 1930's. Hearst, Mellon, Dupont and Exxon to name of few decided to wage a war against hemp, so oil based products and wood would flourish. Hemp was the substance that would challenge these powerful people's bank accounts. This is not what our founding fathers stood for. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp and probaly smoked a little bit, and Abraham Lincoln was said that he liked nothing better then to sit on his porch and smoke his pipe with hemp. In my humble opinion Phil Moffett is on the side of truth. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. www.thinksubstance.com
Jay
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