Ziggy Marley to Promote Hemp

by Gary Graff, Detroit  |   April 11, 2011 12:24 EDT Source: Billboard.com

After taking on children's music on 2009's "Family Time," Ziggy Marley returns to his regular musical path with "Wild and Free," due out June 14 on his family's Tuff Gong Worldwide label. 

"I really enjoyed 'Family Time'," Marley tells Billboard.com. "But it was such a specific album for a specific reason, I just consider it in a different league than (2006's Grammy Award-winning) 'Love is My Religion.' So it's been awhile since I've done an album where I can go back to some issues and sing about some things I couldn't address on 'Family Time.' But ('Family Time') was a really good project for me, and necessary at the time."

Marley recorded "Wild and Free" in Los Angeles with producer Don Was and a group of musicians that includes Rolling Stones bassist Darryl Johnson; "He played with Miles Davis, and I wanted to hear Miles stories," Marley says with a laugh. Guests on the album include actor Woody Harrelson on the title track, which was used for California's Proposition 19 campaign to legalize recreational marijuana, Heavy D on "It" and Marley's oldest son, Daniel, on "Changes." Key to the album, however, were the extensive demos that Marley made in his home studio, which he says made it easier to achieve the sound he was looking for on "Wild and Free's" 12 tracks.

"The problem with using live musicians before was it was hard for them to come in and capture what I needed," he explains. "So the whole process of doing the pre-production on my own -- putting on bass parts, putting on drum parts -- was to avoid putting that amount of pressure on a musician coming into the studio to try to figure out what Ziggy wants, or what Ziggy's sound is or what Ziggy likes. So I'd give them the sound. I'd give them a lot of the parts and they could interpret it or play it properly. I wanted it to be very organic and not over-thought or over-processed."

A variety of themes run through the album, including "changes and revolution" both globally and personally. "Social revolutions and group revolutions are good and we need that," Marley says, "but we also need personal revolution, revolution within ourselves that change who we are as people." To that end is the album's first single, "Forward to Love," which was inspired by his wife, Orly. The use of cannabis and hemp are also promoted on the album, but not just for recreational purposes, Marley says. 

"I wanted a movement attached to the record, and the movement is the whole idea of using the cannabis plant for more than what it's used for now," Marley explains. "It can be used for environmental reasons and industrial reasons and nutritional reasons, to benefit the planet, not just for getting high." He's also created a new super-hero, Marijuanaman, for his first graphic novel, which will be published on April 20.

"It's entertainment," Marley says, "but I don't want this to be a novelty. This is a very deep character with issues to solve in this world. The story's not about getting high and the munchies and all of that; the story's about utilizing the plant in all its properties. I don't think people understand how much good it can do."

Marley has several concert dates booked already this year, but he says that the real push for "Wild and Free" will likely come later this year and in 2012. "I don't think I'm going to get enough time this year to really explore this album live," Marley notes, "so I'm looking for next year for it to be really about this album. I'll probably play this album more extensively live next year than this year, so it's looking like it's gonna be a two-year plan of touring with this one."

Check out more information on marijuanaman at Ziggy's website: Marijuanaman

It's a Gray Area: Regulate marijuana like wine

By James P. Gray

April 8, 2011 | 1:40 p.m.

In my public discussions about our nation's failed and hopeless policy of marijuana prohibition, I often say that Proposition 19 actually won the election last November, but we will simply be delaying implementation for two years.

I say that for two reasons. First, Proposition 19 was so successful in legitimizing the discussion about the failure of marijuana prohibition both statewide and nationwide, and even worldwide, that people for the first time have actually started to think seriously about the issue. And that is really all we need, because what we are doing today simply doesn't make sense.

Second, in some of my debates on Proposition 19, numbers of people, including several chiefs of police, stated publicly that they had no problem treating marijuana like alcohol, but they did not like some specific provisions of Proposition 19 and therefore opposed it. Many voters felt exactly the same way.

So since November, quite a few people involved in marijuana drug law reform have been working to craft a new initiative, the Regulate Marijuana like Wine Act of 2012, and its basic provisions are as follows:

All California laws that prohibit marijuana possession, use, sales, distribution, cultivation, etc. by people who are 21 and older would be repealed, except for those pertaining to driving a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana; using or being impaired by marijuana in public or in the workplace; the use, possession, sales, etc. of marijuana by people younger than 21; providing, transferring or selling marijuana to a person younger than 21; or any laws or regulations regarding medical marijuana as set forth by Proposition 215 and its related statutes. All of those laws and regulations would expressly remain in effect.

The proposal then breaks down what we now call marijuana into two classifications. The first is marijuana with a THC or "potency" level of 3% or higher, which would be governed by regulations, taxes and fees that use the wine industry as a model. But, importantly enough, the act would not permit state, county or city governments to use their taxing, zoning or licensing authority as a means to thwart the provisions of the initiative, unless those regulations would also be applicable to the wine industry.

Marijuana with a THC level of less than 3%. would be classified as hemp, and would be governed by the same regulations, taxes and fees that use the cotton industry as a model. Of course the hemp industry goes back thousands of years, such that in ancient Greek the word for "canvas" was the same word as "cannabis," or marijuana. Similarly, the plantations owned by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and many other planters grew large crops of hemp, which were used for things like rope, gunny sacks and coarse cloth.

Since the colonial period the uses of hemp have been greatly expanded. For example, today manufacturers can get four times the amount of paper pulp from an acre of hemp as they can from an acre of trees. Furthermore, the hemp crop can be raised in one season of about eight months, while it takes about 20 years to grow the trees. This means that the paper pulp industry in the northwest United States could be reclaimed, along with all of the jobs, revenues and taxes that this would entail.

The proposal would also prohibit all commercial advertising of the sales, distribution and use of marijuana, except for medical marijuana and products made from industrial hemp. This would go a long way in taking the glamour out of marijuana, especially for children.

After Holland decriminalized marijuana back in the 1970s, its minister of health stated that they had only half the marijuana usage per capita in their country as we do in ours — for both adults and for teenagers! And he went on to explain why by saying that "we have succeeded in making pot boring." A system in which marijuana is no longer sold illegally and also is not advertised commercially will achieve the same results.

Another main purpose of the initiative would be to deprive Mexican drug cartels, juvenile street gangs and other thugs of large amounts of money, while at the same time providing significant amounts of tax revenues to city, county and state governments to use for things like fixing potholes and educating children.

In addition, many medical and legal professionals believe that in many ways marijuana is actually less harmful than my drug of choice, alcohol. So if adults choose to use marijuana instead of alcohol, the governments, as a matter of freedom and liberty, should not be able to prohibit them from doing so.

Yes, the use, possession, growing and sale of marijuana and hemp would still be illegal under federal law, and the proposal recognizes that fact. But if the federal government still wants to enforce its laws of marijuana prohibition it will be forced to do so alone, because the proposal would prohibit anyone working for or contracting with any of our state, county or city governments from cooperating with any such investigations, prosecutions, punishments or forfeitures, as long as the subjects were acting within the provisions of the proposal.

So what are your thoughts? This proposal is still only in draft form, so give it some consideration. We would both appreciate and benefit from your suggestions and comments.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs" (Temple University Press, 2001), and can be contacted at JudgeJimGray@sbcglobal.net orhttp://www.JudgeJimGray.com.

North Carolina May Say Yes to Pot: Here's the Socionomic Angle

By Nathaniel Williams
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:00:00 ET



The list of states proposing and passing bills to legalize medical marijuana continues to grow. North Carolina's House Bill 577 now seeks to amend the state’s laws to "authorize an individual to use marijuana for medical purposes as directed by a physician."

Two years ago in The Socionomist, Euan Wilson foresaw the trend. Wilson’s in-depth, historical study of attitudes toward recreational drugs found that societies tend to ban during the bull markets and chill with the bears.

 

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Excerpted from The Coming Collapse of a Modern Prohibition by Euan Wilson, originally published in the July 2009 Socionomist:

 

History shows that mood governs society's tolerance for recreational drugs. A rising social mood produces prohibition of substances such as alcohol and marijuana; a falling mood produces tolerance and relaxed regulation. In the case of alcohol, the path from prohibition to decriminalization became littered with corruption and violence as the government waged a failed war on traffickers. Eventually, as mood continued to sour, the government finally capitulated to public cries for decriminalization as a means to end the corruption and bloodshed.

 

We predict a similar fate for the prohibition of marijuana, if not the entire War on Drugs. The March 1995 Elliott Wave Theorist first forecasted the drug war’s repeal at the end of the bear market and in 2003, EWT stated that during the decline, "The drug war will turn more violent. Eventually, possession and sale of recreational drugs will be decriminalized."

 

The Case of Marijuana

Social mood influences people’s actions and their social judgments. In times of positive mood, people have the resources to enforce their social desires. They can afford to express the black and white moral issues preferred during bull markets, and drug abuse is a favorite target.

 

During times of negative mood, on the other hand, society’s priorities change. People have other, bigger worries and begin to view recreational drugs as less dangerous, if not innocuous in offering stress relief, pain reduction and the ability to cope with the pressures of negative social mood.

Over the past 100 years, governmental activities have manifested these changing attitudes. During periods of rising mood, policymakers stepped up regulation of cannabis. During periods of falling mood, they eased those same stances.

 

 

CLICK TO ENLARGE
 

As shown in Figure 1, each legislative attempt to restrict marijuana use followed at least three, and in most cases four or five, bull-market years. In 1937, Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act. The law banned casual consumption of the drug and limited its use to specific medical and industrial purposes. Franklin Roosevelt signed the law at the top of a roaring bull market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average having quintupled from its 1932 low. The real crackdown, however, came over a decade later during the massive wave III bull move. The Boggs Act, which increased drug use penalties fourfold, and the Narcotics Control Act, which increased penalties another eightfold, both came during the most powerful portion of wave 3 of III of the bull market. Then in 1958, after four more years of rising mood, Wisconsin farmers harvested the last legal crop of U.S.-grown hemp. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush’s famous “War on Drugs” speech came on the heels of seven years of net progress in the stock market. In 1999, a year before the top of the Grand Supercycle bull market, the DEA banned the importation of hemp products that contained even a trace of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient.

 

Negative Social Mood Fosters Tolerance for Marijuana Use

During bear markets, pot users have enjoyed liberal social tolerance. Figure 1 illustrates that the government tends to allow -- and in some cases encourage -- the growing of marijuana during bear markets. In 1942, the year Cycle wave II bottomed, Congress launched its "Hemp for Victory" campaign to encourage farmers to grow the crop for industrial purposes related to the war effort. According to the Wall Street Journal, farmers planted over 50,000 acres of hemp in 1942 and 240,000 acres in 1943. In 1977, a bear market year, President Carter recommended that Congress legalize possession of small quantities of marijuana. An exception occurred in 1996, when, four years before the top of a historic bull market, California and Arizona voted to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. But the federal government maintained consistency with the spirit of the times, and stepped up its raids on marijuana facilities in the states where it was legalized and wrenched convictions from juries who were denied the information that the drug dispensaries were legal in those states, according to the New York Times. But in 2008, as social mood and the stock market plunged at its then-fastest rate since the 1930s, Massachusetts voters took a bigger step in passing an initiative that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Michigan’s voters also passed a loosening law, this one permitting the use of medical marijuana. On June 29, Oregon’s House of Representatives passed a bill in favor of licensing hemp farming. Barring a veto, Oregon will be the sixth state this year to pass pro-hemp legislation. So far, in keeping with the bear market trend, the feds have chosen not to interfere in these recent initiatives.

 

In February, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced his view that states should make their own rules on medical marijuana use and that federal raids on pot dispensaries would cease. Then in June, Congressman Barney Frank introduced two pieces of marijuana-related legislation: the first allowing states to pass medical cannabis laws without interference from the federal government; the second eliminating federal penalties for possessing 100 grams of pot or less (but adding a fine of $100 for public consumption). According to CBS, Frank filed a similar bill last year that failed. We expect the current legislation to fail too, as it is too early in the bear market for Congress to take such contrary measures. But bills similar to Frank’s will gain traction when mood resumes its drop. Cash-strapped states will surely argue that they desperately need tax revenues from pot and that they can also save money by releasing non-violent drug offenders from prison.

 

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The full report is available at http://www.socionomics.net/beta/2009/07/the-coming-collapse-of-a-modern-prohibition/

 

To get the latest research and insights into how social mood is influencing the world around you, subscribe toThe Socionomist.

Ask NORML: Hemp for Victory?

By Erik Altieri, NORML Communications Coordinator

A new installment of ‘Ask NORML’ is now streaming on NORMLtv. This week’s topic, voted on by our Facebook fans, is marijuana’s non-psychoactive sister, hemp. In this segment, Executive Director Allen St. Pierre discusses hemp’s utility as well as its place in the overall marijuana law reform movement.

From the Campana Brothers, a Hemp Rug Priced Like a Piece of Art

By ELAINE LOUIE

Published: April 6, 2011

When is a rug a work of art? Maybe when it’s priced at more than $35,000.

That’s what the manufacturer of the Circus rug, designed by Fernando and Humberto Campana, recently concluded.

The $35,575 hemp rug, which is six and a half feet in diameter and covered in dolls handmade in Brazil, was introduced a year ago at the furniture fair in Milan. It was produced in an edition of 10, by Nodus, an Italian company.

But it wasn’t until last month, when the company shipped the rugs to Perimeter Art & Design, a gallery in Paris, that the first one sold.

“It was so new, it took time to be understood,” said Andrea Galimberti, the company’s president. “At the beginning it is a rug — and now it’s an art piece.”

For the Campana brothers, however, it’s more of a time capsule. The rug was inspired by childhood memories of growing up in the small Brazilian town of Brotas, said Fernando Campana, where “we used to play circus in the backyard.”

The remaining nine rugs are available at Perimeter Art & Design, in Paris. Information: (33) 15542-0122 or perimeter-artanddesign.com.

Capitol Hemp's 3rd Anniversary Event to Benefit Restoring Japanese Agriculture

WASHINGTON, April 4, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Capitol Hemp, DC's only source for high quality hemp clothing and accessories, is celebrating three years since co-founders Alan Amsterdam and Adam Eidinger joined forces to open the first of their two stores. To celebrate Capitol Hemp's valued customers on the annual '420 Holiday,' the store will host DC's first functional glass art show for the public at the Montserrat House located at 2016 9th St, NW Washington, DC 20001 on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 from 7PM to 12AM.


Capitol Hemp has raised expectations among the DMV's functional glass enthusiasts offering unique pieces by highly sought-after American glass artists. 

Capitol Hemp will also feature a room full of glowing uranium glass objects spanning the Victorian (1880s), Depression (1930s), and revival (1990s) eras of glass making. The collection is the largest of its kind to have been shown in Washington DC. Most importantly, proceeds from the sale of the vintage uranium glass will be used for hemp bio-remediation of polluted Japanese farmland.

"Uranium Glass, also known as 'Vaseline glass', is clear glass mixed with uranium oxide at about 1%," says Capitol Hemp Co-Owner, Adam Eidinger. "In the Victorian and Depression eras, without access to artificial UV light, glass makers were unaware Vaseline glowed brilliantly. Glass makers simply used the uranium as a colorant, but today we can appreciate this mystical glass as art form," says Eidinger.

Background on Hemp Bio-Remediation

In the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, an agricultural area within a 30 km radius of the reactor was heavily contaminated with uranium, lead, cesium-137, and strontium-90. In 1998, the Ukraine Institute of Bast Crops and other stake holders began to grow industrial hemp to soak up and trap much of the metals and toxic waste, thereby preserving the nutrient rich topsoil. Why not employ this clean up method in Japan?

The art show will also feature a musical performance by Japanese duo The Nobis, who recently relocated to Washington DCafter being evacuated from their home near the Fukushima reactor.

For more information or to schedule a media only sneak preview of the art please contact Adam Eidinger at 202-744-2671 or email adam@capitolhemp.com .

Can Magna fulfill Ford's dream of Soybean Car?

By Scott Deveau, Financial Post April 4, 2011

 

The height of technology 70 years ago, Henry Ford's 'plastic' car was scuppered by the Second World War.

Photograph by: From the collections of The Henry Ford/ THF73153, From the collections of The Henry Ford/ THF73153

Henry Ford unveiled the first plastic car in Dearborn, Mich., 70 years ago. The cream-coloured automobile was a by-product of Mr. Ford’s life-long ambition to marry modern technology with his agricultural roots. Appropriately, the titan of industry chose a community fair just miles away from the farm where he grew up for the car’s unveiling.

The vehicle was essentially a Ford 60, with the same metal chassis, wheels and engine, but with 14 plastic panels affixed to the frame. The panels were constructed using a state-of-the art chemical compound that was reinforced with fibres derived from wheat, cotton, flax and soybean, which earned it the nickname “the Soybean Car.” The Soybean Car was the height of modern technology at the time. Its plastic components reduced the weight of the car by about a third compared with similar-sized steel car.


Mr. Ford boasted that it was also safer, because unlike a steel car, when it rolled in an accident it wouldn’t be crushed. The unique design also reduced the need for metals like chrome and steel, which were in high demand in North America at the time. But, alas, the promises of Mr. Ford’s plastic car were quickly thwarted. The second unit barely hit the production line before the U.S. entered the Second World War, halting all auto production and leaving the Soybean Car to fall through the cracks of history.

Until now. The echoes of Mr. Ford’s ambitions are finding their way into a new partnership between Magna International Inc. and the National Research Council (NRC), which have begun work at a new facility, known as the Magna-NRC Composites Centre of Excellence, north of Toronto in Concord, Ont. The facility, which has yet to be formally opened, was established with the expressed goal of increasing the amount of plastic components used in modern-day vehicles, trying to marry the NRC’s expertise working with high-performance composite parts in the aerospace sector, for example, with the lean-manufacturing practices championed by Magna.
Their efforts to make these plastic composite parts more affordable for mass production have led them full circle. Like Mr. Ford’s work seven decades ago, the Magna-NRC partnership is trying to find ways to use organic materials derived from hemp, jute, rayon, lignans and other natural products to bring the weight and cost of the plastic parts down.

The use of these so-called thermoplastics and thermosets is not uncommon in the auto industry. Manufacturers from Audi to Mercedes-Benz and McLaren have been using a lot of them in their luxury vehicles for years. Lesser-quality plastics are often used on more mainstream vehicles for a plethora of parts, like running boards, bumpers and oil pans. But the Magna-NRC partnership’s ambitions are to make the use of these composites ubiquitous in automobile production, including in frames, chassis and bodies, which are now made of metal, said William Harney, Magna’s director of engineering and development. While the thought of driving a plastic car might not be that reassuring to consumers, Mr. Harney said some of these plastics are just as strong as steel. “They can be stronger,” he said. “Through the use of composites, we are able to reduce the weight by 60%, and bring other inherent benefits, like corrosion resistance and improved design and styling.”

The efforts of this new-found partnership are becoming increasingly important as fuel prices rise. North American consumers have demonstrated time and again through their buying habits that they don’t want smaller vehicles, they want more fuel-efficient ones, Mr. Harney said. There are only two ways to keep the utility of these larger vehicles and increase their fuel-efficiency — either through improving their drivetrain or by making the vehicles lighter. Magna has done a great deal of work to improve its drivetrains, including through hybridization. Meanwhile, the use of plastic composites is leading the charge to reduce the weight, Mr. Harney said. “The mounting pressure to improve the efficiency of all vehicles is the rising tide that’s going to lift all boats. It’s going to lift the composites boat as well,” he said. There are, however, still some serious hurdles Magna and the NRC must overcome before the use of these composite parts becomes more mainstream, Mr. Harney admitted.

From Magna’s perspective, addressing the waste that is produced in the process of manufacturing them figures first and foremost.
One of the promises composite parts carry is that they could eventually reduce the overall number of individual parts needed by producing one solid piece in a mould, rather than dozens of little metal parts that need to be assembled, he said. Magna has had some success in this area by developing a composite front assembly for the Audi A8, which holds the headlights and cooling systems of the car. The award-winning technology allows Magna to produce one plastic part for the car rather than several small metal bits, cutting down on man-hours required to machine and assemble the component. But to make these composite components more common in the high-volume auto industry, Magna would have to eliminate a lot of waste that is produced in the process to make it more affordable, Mr. Harney said. He likened it to the introduction of aluminum parts to the auto industry decades ago.

Initially, aluminum components required a lot of machining — drilling, welding, etc. — after the component was forged in the foundry. This not only drove up the cost of producing these parts through man-hours, but also created a lot of waste in the process, Mr. Harney said.
There is a similar amount of waste in the labour-intensive approach to making composites used in the aerospace industry, for example, he said. “If you go to see Boeing, EADS or Bombardier, even the motorsport high-performance composite body structures, you’ll see waste in the process at the various steps in the value chain,” Mr. Haney said. He added that if composites are going to be the main frame of cars and trucks, the process will have to become a lot more efficient. The NRC hopes that through its partnership with Magna it might be able to find a more cost-effective way to produce these parts not only for the auto industry, but then for other sectors like aircraft manufacturing, said Martin Bureau, of the NRC’s Industrial Materials Institute. “What they know in automotive is cost-effectiveness, and that’s a huge need for people at the aerospace [manufacturers],” he said. “They’re facing huge challenges to lower their costs. At the same time they’re feeling a lot of pressure to bring in composites into their own structures. But that comes at a huge cost. That’s where cost-effectiveness is so important.”

But Mr. Bureau said there are other efforts in the works to try to reduce the cost of these composite parts, including the materials used.
Composite plastic parts are composed of essentially two parts: the fibres that reinforce them and the resins that act as the glue to hold them together, known as the matrix. While several luxury sports cars use the same sort of high-priced, high-performance synthetic carbon-fibre composites that are used on airplanes, those materials are cost-prohibitive for mainstream auto manufacturing. The NRC has an extensive history working in composite materials with manufacturers like Boeing and Bombardier to produce composite parts for their planes. And it has also worked with smaller Canadian-based aerospace-parts makers, like EADS’ Composites Atlantic Ltd. and Marquez-Transtech Ltdee.

The bulk of the cost associated with these high-performance carbon-fibre composites stems from the synthetic materials used to produce them, which are primarily derived from petroleum. As a result, to reduce the cost of the materials, scientist have increasingly been looking for alternatives.

This is where natural fibres, like the ones used by Mr. Ford in the Soybean Car, are coming into play. “We’re trying to bring those promises of raw materials and their uses to a commercial reality,” Mr. Bureau said. These so-called biofibres are much cheaper than the sort of synthetic fibres used to reinforce high-performance plastics in the aerospace industry. But they are lighter than alternatives, like glass, Mr. Bureau said. The Magna-NRC effort is also exploring ways to make the matrix that glues these fibres together from bio-derived sources, which brings all kinds of benefits, including making them biodegradable after an agent within the compound is triggered.
The one major limiting factor at this point, however, is finding an adequate supply of biofibres to meet the needs of an industry with such high volumes as the auto sector, he said.

From the field to the spinning plant, there just isn’t the proper infrastructure in place to support generating these fibres, Mr. Bureau said.
“While there’s a lot of great work being done with flax and hemp and other fibres, you could never afford or get enough to have them at this point to produce a product of good quality and high performance,” he added. This is the double-edged sword the use of plastics has brought to the auto industry, said David Tyerman, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity, who covers the auto-parts sector. While there are a tremendous number of advantages that come with them, there is also a great deal of difficulty in adapting them, he said. Past and present parts makers have fallen on that sword trying to integrate their use into mainstream manufacturing, from Husky Injection Molding Systems, Plastic Omnium, Dynamit Nobel and Textron. All have made salvos into plastics car parts with various degrees of success, Mr. Tyerman said. But the widespread adoption of composites has proven elusive for an industry with more than a century of institutional knowledge around steel, not plastics, he said.

Unless these and other hurdles can be overcome, Henry Ford’s dream of a Soybean Car may well be put out to pasture. “It has sort of been the Holy Grail of auto construction,” Mr. Tyerman said. “The challenge has always been in dealing with the physical properties of the plastics, which presumably is what this entity [with Magna and the NRC] is being set up to try and address.”


scdeveau@nationalpost.com