Source: scoop.co.nz
When is it possible for a non-owner of a property and agricultural stock-in-trade to take control over the owner's right and freedom to choose what he grows and produces on his own property and to whom he chooses to sell his produce?
When is it possible for a non-owner of a property to deprive the owner of his right to any and all income from his own labours and to require him to discard income-producing stock rather than sell it?
When is it possible for this non-owner of the property to deprive New Zealand citizens of an opportunity, and human right, to choose to purchase all or any of the by-products of the only plant in the world that can provide us with cannabinoids to benefit and maintain our human endocannabinoid system - "the most important physiologic system involved in establishing and maintaining human health." Dr Dustin Sulak, Introduction to the Endocannabinoid System.
When is it possible?
When the non-owner has been, and is still, either the National and Labour government and when the owner has been, and is still, a hemp farmer.
In the farming of hemp in New Zealand, we see first hand a multitude of sins from the corrupted and misguided powers of whom, unfortunately, it has been we voters who have, in good faith, naively placed this power in the hands of people whose party policies and brains bounce with boundless ignorance and whose characters conceal the political conclusions created from self-interest and greed.
Hemp is a plant that is of the genus cannabis and, as such, is a prohibited plant under our NZ law. Ask any government official why hemp is illegal and you will be waiting a long time before you find an acceptable, legitimate or evidence-based answer.
So why the fuss about hemp?
1) Hemp is among the oldest industries on the planet, going back more than 10,000 years to the beginnings of pottery. The Columbia History of the World states that the oldest relic of human industry is a bit of hemp fabric dating back to approximately 8,000 BC.
2) Presidents Washington and Jefferson both grew hemp. Americans were legally bound to grow hemp during the Colonial Era and Early Republic. The federal government subsidized hemp during the Second World War and U.S. farmers grew about a million acres of hemp as part of that program.
3) Hemp seed is nutritious and contains more essential fatty acids than any other source, hempseed oil contains a 3:1 ratio of the two essential fats (PUFAs), omega-6 and omega-3 in the ideal ratio recommended by WHO and Health Canada for cardiovascular health and no other nut or vegetable oil contains this ratio, is second only to soybeans in complete protein (but is more digestible by humans), is high in B-vitamins, and is a good source of dietary fiber. Hemp seed is not psychoactive and cannot be used as a drug.
4) The bark of the hemp stalk contains bast fibers, which are among the Earth's longest natural soft fibers and are also rich in cellulose. The cellulose and hemi-cellulose in its inner woody core are called hurds. Hemp stalk is not psychoactive. Hemp fiber is longer, stronger, more absorbent and more insulative than cotton fiber.
5) According to the US Department of Energy, hemp as a biomass fuel producer requires the least specialized growing and processing procedures of all hemp products. The hydrocarbons in hemp can be processed into a wide range of biomass energy sources, from fuel pellets to liquid fuels and gas. Development of bio-fuels could significantly reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and nuclear power.
6) Hemp can be grown organically. Only eight, out of about one hundred known pests, cause problems, and hemp is most often grown without herbicides, fungicides or pesticides. Hemp is also a natural weed suppressor due to fast growth of the canopy.
7) Hemp produces more pulp per acre than timber on a sustainable basis, and can be used for every quality of paper. Hemp paper manufacturing can reduce waste water contamination. Hemp's low lignin content reduces the need for acids used in pulping, and its creamy color lends itself to environmentally-friendly bleaching instead of harsh chlorine compounds. Less bleaching results in less dioxin and fewer chemical by-products.
8) Hemp fiber paper resists decomposition, and does not yellow with age when an acid-free process is used. Hemp paper more than 1,500 years old has been found. Hemp paper can also be recycled more times than wood-based paper.
9) Hemp fiberboard produced by Washington State University was found to be twice as strong as wood-based fiberboard. No additional resins are required due to naturally-occurring lignins.
10) Eco-friendly hemp can replace most toxic petrochemical products. Research is being done to use hemp in manufacturing biodegradable plastic products: plant-based cellophane, recycled plastic mixed with hemp for injection-molded products, and resins made from the oil, to name a very few examples. Over two million cars on the road today have hemp composite parts for door panels, dashboards, luggage racks, etc.
11) Hemp does not contain high levels of nitrogen or sulfur which come from burning fossil fuels and cause acid rain. If we burned hemp for electricity and gasoline we would stop releasing sulfur compounds. Acid rain destroys our perfectly balanced ecosystems; it changes the pH of a lake or stream, the plants and animals can be harmed, small food species like the mayfly cannot handle the change and will die out, larger species that consume bugs like the mayfly (frogs, in this case) will also be affected.
Yet, defiant to all logic and common sense, hemp, from the genus cannabis, is a "prohibited plant" throughout the Western world. To grow hemp in New Zealand, one needs to complete detailed Application Forms and agree to become subject to the government's controls over your property, labour and profits, the product and by-products themselves and all manner of limitations and security arrangements in order for a farmer to buy a licence. Two licenses have been issued to two New Zealand farmers. But government control doesn't stop there over this miracle plant. The government prohibits any person removing any product from the hemp farm without permission from the Ministry of Health. And each of those by-products - the leaf, the resin and the seeds (illegal) - provide humans with the essential dietary cannabinoid supplements we need for a healthy and effective endocannabinoid system and our good health. So, instead of allowing hemp to be New Zealand's greatest economy booster, human health protector and planet-saving cure, the government requires that hemp farms put in place cost-prohibitive security measures equivalent to a nuclear power plant and keep all the vast, many, and limitless economic, health and environmental benefits from the producer as much as the people.
The difference between the need for security over the hemp plant versus the nuclear plant, however, is that the hemp plant is a healer of the world whereas the nuclear plant has the potential to create another Chernobyl. The similarity between the two plants is that the government's non evidence-based law surrounding hemp could see another kind of Chernobyl for both humans and the planet.
So why does the government keep hemp (and cannabis) illegal? Their silence is found in the truth of the "conspiracy theory" (say the government and its supporters) which is that governments have "sold out" to the industries that will lose much profit should the obviously superior nature and competitiveness of hemp be made legal.
Prohibition of hemp immediately followed the prohibition of alcohol in the 1930s USA with financial lobbying from the paper, pharmaceutical and nylon (clothing) industries culminating in The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Soon after, the oil and alcohol industries added their weight in coinage to the ten pieces of silver of this growing corporate lobby group. As Justice Rosenberg summarised with unabashed outrage in the infamous, yet very-difficult-to-find-on-the-Internet, 1999 Canadian Court of Appeal case, Rv Parker, which judgment lifted the Canadian government's unconstitutional prohibition of medicinal cannabis, prohibition of cannabis is based on a history of laws and "regulation that lack any significant foundation ...and...an embarrassing history based upon misinformation and racism".
The USA, as world leader, in 1971, through that notorious deceiver, Richard Nixon, continued Prohibition of cannabis with its "War on Drugs" (a cleverly disguised shield for issuing new fears and propaganda in the corporate lobbying and quest to maintain and continue the prohibition of cannabis) and the United Nations in 1975 with its Convention on Narcotic Drugs, both agents of whom made the cannabis plant a "prohibited plant" in all the countries signed up to the United Nations. It is curious to point out that the opium poppy is not and never has been a prohibited plant in the same way as cannabis by either the USA or the UN , and hence the other countries of the West; only its manufacture requires regulation.)
This year, however, in the United States, after years and years of secret research and development as well as international patenting in the US Patents office, hemp has now been legalised and industry, employment, agriculture and imagination begin to flourish with this marvellous plant in the United States. We, in New Zealand, have not yet been given the nod by the world powers to legalise cannabis and hemp. And to be sure this will only happen when US industries have patented, produced, marketed, branded and grabbed the cornerstone of the world market, and, of course, all the profits. Until then it is doubtful that the United States will give the green light for other countries to follow suit. And then it is also sure that we will only be "allowed" the McDonalds, Kentucky Fried type franchises of a market now too dominant and too big with which to compete.
NZ is a country of uniquely innovative, "number 8 wire" people. We have an agricultural nation whose sheep and cattle industry, crop and wine industry has taken a bashing following the exclusion from European markets, South American and other competition and over-production. Trading and finding overseas markets for basics and unfashionable product is now hard work; and there is little profit in it.
Were it not for the continuing "ignorance and misinformation" of our New Zealand government, we too could be growing hemp, becoming healthy, wealthy, semi-autonomous and wise enough to escape the manipulating control of the USA and its secretive, corporate-controlling TPP Agreement, a document that NZ, yet again, is being encouraged to sign to further USA corporations.
It is time for our Prime Minister, our representative for decisions made in the best interests of the country and its people, to legalise hemp and create a semi-autonomous, independent, sustainable, agricultural and industrial economy we can be proud to own and develop for the benefit of the world.
It is time for our Prime Minister to make his decisions with New Zealand and New Zealanders as his priority and not his and his family's fiscal, personal and social ambitions, his deluded powerlust and his ignorant subservience to corporate interests to attain the former personal interests and desires.
It is time for our Prime Minister to listen to his protesting citizens and his advisers - the Law Commission with support from the NZ Medical Association advised him in 2010 to consider the decriminalisation of cannabis (hemp is of the genus Cannabis), his attorney general advised him that the GCSB was contrary to human rights and the Law Society took this issue to the United Nations in a Submission in 2013.
It is time for our Prime Minister, his National Party and his policy clones, the Labour, NZ First and ACT Parties, to go.
The ALCP is the only registered political party outside of parliament to support legalisation of cannabis and hemp and The Green Party is the only political party with members already in parliament whom, in 2009, actively placed a Bill before parliament advocating the decriminalisation of cannabis and who openly support the legalisation and realisation of a nation-changing hemp industry.The Bill failed to pass the First Reading, however, due to the scorn and presiding ignorance of the National Party, the NZ First Party and the majority of MPs from the Labour and ACT Parties.
The Ukranians replaced their corporate-controlled, USA-manipulated government via a revolution by the people. We can do the same, but by being "as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves", through the democratic process of our election system.
And this year, 2014, is our election year.
No comments:
Post a Comment