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  Debate Over Pot Candy Hones in on Hemp Ingredients
Posted by CN Staff on September 08, 2005 at 16:09:20 PT
By John Bazemore, The Associated Press  
Source: Associated Press 

hemp Chicago -- As lawmakers crack down on the sale of marijuana-flavored lollipops, another debate is raging between their manufacturers and hemp product advocates over what is in the candy.

Hemp advocates say the candy makers aren't being honest about what's in their confection and that publicity is hurting the sale of legal hemp products, made from a variety of the cannabis plant.

Chicago's City Council and Suffolk County, N.Y. both have passed laws banning the sale of marijuana-flavored candies. Lawmakers in Michigan, New Jersey and New York also have introduced legislation to ban or control the candies.

California-based Chronic Candy advertises that every lick of its candy is "like taking a hit." The company, though, says the candies contain only hemp oil, a common ingredient in health food, beauty supplies and other household products.

"There is nothing illegal in our ingredients and they are ingredients that are in most hard candy in the United States," said Tom Durkin, a Chicago attorney who represents California-based Chronic Candy.

Though they have no proof, hemp advocates maintain the candies contain cannabis flower essential oil, which they say is distilled from the flowers of the cannabis plant. That, they say, is illegal.

Rusty Payne, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said cannabis flower essential oil would be illegal if it contains tetrahydrocannabinols, or THC, which is the illegal substance in marijuana, but he did not know whether it did.

Hemp oil has a nutty flavor, said Adam Eidinger, spokesman for Vote Hemp, an advocacy arm of the hemp industry.

"It tastes nothing like these lollipops," he said. "These lollipops taste and smell like marijuana."

Hemp has only a trace of THC, he said. It cannot be legally grown in the United States without a permit from the DEA, he said.

Hemp supporters acknowledge they cannot prove their claim about what's in the lollipops and neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration nor the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration have tested the candies to determine their ingredients.

George Pauli, an associate director in the Office of Food Additive Safety at the FDA, said ingredients used in food and candy have to be approved generically by the FDA or be recognized as safe by scientists. Manufacturers are not required to register their formulas or ingredient lists with the FDA.

Payne said the DEA probably will test the lollipops in the future.

"Certainly, they are on the radar," he said. "It's something we're aware of."

While the debate over the lollipops' ingredients continues, states and cities across the country already are acting.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has issued a subpoena seeking information on the advertising and marketing practices of Chronic Candy.

"Just because something isn't illegal doesn't make it right. These are lollipops that are clearly targeted at kids," Madigan said. "As parents, you spend an enormous amount of time and energy saying to kids, 'Don't smoke, don't drink, don't do drugs.' Anything the glamorizes or lures them into these destructive behaviors shouldn't be promoted."

Durkin, the Chronic Candy attorney, said the lollipops are geared toward adults and the company has never intentionally targeted children.

He also said the company had given Madigan's office a list of ingredients in the lollipops although a Madigan spokeswoman said the office does not have the list.

While Vote Hemp has raised concerns about the contents of the marijuana-flavored lollipops, the group is not pushing to ban the lollipops, board member Tom Murphy said.

"We are pushing to make sure that people understand the difference between hemp oil, which is legal, and something that is illegal," he said. "What legislators and states choose to do is their own business."

Note: Hemp advocates say pot candy manufacturers give misleading information about their ingredients, drawing bad publicity for legal hemp products.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: John Bazemore, The Associated Press
Published: September 8, 2005
Copyright: 2005 The Associated Press

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Comment #11 posted by ekim on September 15, 2005 at 19:24:29 PT
the seed is planted who will water it
Thank u Paul for all you are doing. Your kindness and sense of purpose a true gift to humanity.

Know you have done all that is posibable, you can look in the mirrior and sleep --you have done everything that millions are afraid to think about doing but know must be done.

all the best mike

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #10 posted by paulpeterson on September 15, 2005 at 12:49:32 PT:

ekim- Farm aid shooshed me off yesterday
I went to a farmer's market in Chicago yesterday to make personal contact with these people about my meats and to get someone to try them. I had some really good dried beef that I had just prepared to give them = active with buzz and delicious.

The guy there was totally unaware of the existence of this concept-the people I had contacted at their home office obviously had not discussed this with field reps.

I was asked to leave the public area because it was "inappropriate" to discuss this subject there. The Farm Aid rep, in fact, had lodged a complaint with the market rulers about my subject and the sincerity with which I was trying to get them to take and try some dried beef.

Yes, I was intense in my presentation. Yes, I advised the guy that I was sorry I was "coming on so strong" but that was because I am in a state of desperation about lack of money, rent, ability to get any publicity or any advertizing, or anything and please get this to Willie, please! Yes, I came across as someone that had a lot of loss and anxiety about these things, and yes, I need help, right now!

This is the response I repeatedly get when I merely wish to impart imformation and stimulate discourse about a meat product! I tried to get some D-Jays at WXRT (93.1 fm in Chicago) to listen and I got hung up on. I thought this would be my crowd-you know, hippies listen to rock music, right? Rich Miln told me "you are wasting my time and I am a very busy man". Hung up on me. It reminded me of something that Dickens would about in some Victorian tome about young people gwrowing up in a totally superstitious and striated society where there is little or no room for creative visualization, only the need to pidgenhole a person into a descriptive title and then rigidly monitor him to ensure that no thoughts trickle into the right frontal lobe-uh, uh, your thinking globally again-two raps on your knuckle. There now, isn't that DOS program comforting? Please keep your crayon doodles inside the bold black lines, thank you.

And the most disheartening thing is that with the endemic fear, anxiety, paranoia and other negative emotions that our governments foment and foist and fight with (as control devices, people) being so dominant and so overpowering at least right now in history-I can very easily understand just why and how I get the reactions I routinely get from even people that are supposed to be on the same side as me. That just proves the very point I try so desperately to get through to people with: The total dominance that most people give freely over to their DOS program (left brain, anxiety program that keeps your car from wavering over the yellow line), can be reversed and they can be released from such rigid authoritarian control and lock step behavior, if they would only try my entheogen meats!

How poignant of a perception! That the very information I wish to impart could free them from the limitations of their own perview, if only somehow I could free them from their own limitations long enough to be open to the information. And further, to know that myself, I have suffered desocialization and privation for so long that I have taken on the very aura of seperateness that further limits their willingness to listen and be open to me! To know further that I have voluntarilly taken on this fight and battle specicifally for the GOOD OF HUMANITY, willingly placing myself in battles that I knew and still know that I would be destined to lose, but that ONE PERSON, some person, must be the one person to start on this path, and that once one person plunges thusly into the brine, enough ripples would be generated that others would be spared the same doom. And to know, and see, the very widening of ripples thusly, and even at the same time see our military adventures further split our national spirit and further steel the personal protective shells of persons that I even more desperately need to produce contact with, for I need aid so sorely, is just too much. And I know that I must be dutiful to fully advise ALL PEOPLE about the inebriating factors in the meat, so I cannot "trick" someone into trying it before I fully disclose it's attributes. Further damned by my own internal sense of ethics that is rooted in my legal training.

No, I won't name that Farm Aid guy, since his crime is not really a crime, just an inevitable hardening of his shell for what he thinks is his job-to resist bright-eyed overintensity, especially when the intensity is directed at making direct eye-contact with his boss, Willie Nelson, who has asked that the most bright-eyed and adamant "fans" are the ones that are to rebutted at most cost and force. Willie probably doesn't tell his people "RESIST IDEAS MOST FORCEFULLY" but you see, if a guy wants to get to Willie about "ideas" his handlers get all the more fearful because they probably have some internal filters that get jammed into the fray in unusual ways and angles. For instance, let's say this guy either DOES or DOESN'T like my ideas. He will have his own internal indecision about whether the imparting of ideas up the chain is safe or unsafe. Bottom line: ANY WEIRD IDEAS will be nixed by people at ALL MIDDLE LEVELS OF MANAGEMENT.

So this is just another instance of business as usual. Whatever supports the generation of income or revenue for a rich guy is supported by all the levels of filters applied to the situation. Do Paul Peterson's ideas generate revenue or ticket sales? No. I told him I was broke, that I needed help, that I have this weird idea and that I am a decriminalization advocate. All of these things impart a NO answer in any person's DOS program. The DOS program repeatedly will delete any reference to even the mention of the subject or the face or the name of the individual.

The fact that this guy generated a negative emotional reaction to me and my face and my message, means that he will discuss this matter with sure rebuke in mind for the person that had actually spoken with me on the phone a few times. That person will be negatively impacted and will immediately have the impulse to destroy all evidence of the contact with and from PAUL PETERSON. Any potential for a person to be inclined to call me for more information will be biased against that upon fear (justifiably or not) of being fired for not being totally in line with the rigid efficiency of taking donations and selling tickets and getting the performance to go off without a hitch-just the facts ma'am.

No-one will take the time or risk to ask a boss to detour to go up to Wilmette? that is a good two hours wasted driving up, for what? to try some moldy meat? that gets you high? How spurrious for you to ask for time off to go and do what? That is crazy. You belong with that Peterson guy-If you go you are F-I-R-E-D. Now, that conversation doesn't even have to occur. It is the fear of that conversation that will keep that person from ever even thinking about this concept, you know, after they have destroyed all evidence of the contact.

No, I am sure that Willy Nelson will never ever even hear from his insulators about this product. Very busy men put so many very busy people around them to keep ideas from ever getting to the destination that the idea people give up and the ideas get forgotten in history. The phone messages scrolled from my ranting calls will have been scrunched and tossed before even the ink was dried and the billing has hit my past-due phone bill. The faxed three page letter describing my attempts to get to NBC execs, and detailed description of my research will NEVER GET TO THE NEXT PERSON, let alone Willie Nelson.

You see, from my own experience, it appears that 1) no one will believe that this entheogen production is possible, 2) even if they believe it IS possible, since our dutiful media hasn't picked this up and TOLD THEM about it, they won't believe it HAS HAPPENED. Even if they CAN believe it is possible and has happened, 3) they CAN NOT BELIEVE THAT WIDED EYED AND TALKATIVE PAUL PETERSON was the one that did it. Then, they walk away and threaten to call the cops if I don't leave them alone. (This is called cognitive dissonance-the DOS program tells their windows program to disregard absolute observation in deference to the control program). The persons that took my calls MUST think about the obtuseness of my claims and immediately conclude that THEIR OWN JOBS ARE IN JEAPORDY if they appear, even for a moment, to seriously have taken seriously ANYTHING I have told them. That means that immediately after they hang up the phone they endeavor to NEVER speak a word about what I have imparted, for the very act of LISTENING proves that they are defective. I mean, no-one can tell a friend or co-worker that a guy just invented meat that gets you high, without seeming to be a nut themselves-I mean, you actually bought that guy's story? Just don't give the note to Mikey-he'll fire your ass!

So, since I am only a defrocked lawyer, no income for 4 years, no savings left, no credit (hah!), no friends, no credibility, when I go to my bank to ask for a loan I am told to take my account elsewhere IF I EVER TALK ABOUT THAT MEAT THING AGAIN! No press will pick up this story in light of the repressive thought police control thingy. No doctor will sign on to research it because of this "BUZZ" taint. Sure, I could do a full-page ad in some paper to break the story, but I don't have money for the electricity bill already, etc, so no full-page ad, OK? (no little print ad either-no money).

And what of the local marijuana decriminalization advocates? At a recent "Hempfest" because I wanted to give a hippy a taste and some guy was willing to lend me a grill to try something new-THE ORGANIZER HERSELF THREATENED POLICE ACTION IF I DID NOT LEAVE THE PARK IMMEDIATELY!

I got shooshed from a hemp-marijuana advocacy gathering! I asked the promoter if I could take the stage and speak for a few minutes about the 8 towns on the North shore that I have personally gotten the Chiefs of Police to decriminalize in and have been REFUSED THE MIKE THREE YEARS IN A ROW.

Then this year I had to listen from a distance as that same person took stage and proceeded to rant with lividity about the vicious tactics of the police everywhere! Every time I hear that entrenched hatred rhetoric directed towards the police, my friends, my supporters, that trust me and listen to me and quietly move public policy ahead in lock-step fashion, I cringe to realize that the POLICE, as a whole group, are least likely to have this dreaded creaping degenerative disease I call cognitive dissonance. The hippies, it would seem (blatant generalization, that is, of course), from my own perspective, are the MOST LIKELY to get and keep this disease, as a way of justifying, perhaps, and accounting for their own lack of progress in maturing to the next level. It is as though hippies have a vested interest in KEEPING MARIJUANA ILLEGAL as a way of always knowing where they can project their own hatred-towards the amorphous group of people that people call the "thems" of the world-unquantified and unspecified. Of course, each time I hear the livid cop-hatred banter, I feel I need to find the nearest living policeman or woman and apologize for those florid floppy hippies.

The weird thing is that policemen and women drop their attitude as soon as I start to talk advocacy with them. They lay down their arms and ask me where do we go from here. They know this schism in society is not good and they want to change. They are the only ones that will even talk to me. The community I am trying to reopen my store in is so insulor (and many people know about my advocacy and are afraid because they have young kids) that I am totally isolated aside from the John Blue Shirts. But they are so afraid of the rebuke from the citiznery that they won't try my meats.

No money, no friends, no media, no doctors, no advocacy network (remember, they so are rooted in rooting through the ruminents of rebuke that I get the rebuke from them worse than the police get it-I get threatened with police action and get escorted off the field of play when I wish to merely try to talk about new ideas that would blow their battle away!).

No, Willie Nelson has not tried my meats. Noone from Farm Aid has ever initiated any phone call or any contact with me since my multiple attempts at contact. The last one, yesterday, ended with an escort off public property with threat of police action- "don't call us-we'll call you".

I have 1100 pounds of magic meat. I offered to bring a ton of it to the concert (no, I don't have the money to even buy a ticket to get into Tweeter). Of course, if I did show up, with a cooler of meat, you know that would be thrown out forcibly if I wished to gain entry to the concert hall! Then I would have to stand around listening to music, frustrated as hell at all the mindless hippies that won't even listen to me because they all think I am crazy-MEAT CAN'T GET YOU HIGH! GET AWAY FROM ME-HELP! (I have actually heard this from young people recently).

OK, changing the subject now. Recently there was a heinous shooting in our town, where a young dude blew away a girl at a sidewalk cafe (one block from my store). He then took his own life a few blocks away. The Chief of Police (my greatest supporter, it would seem) was quoted as asking what this kid was thinking (I had a spirit visit and interface with the exiting soul-he witnessed all thoughts & images to me in passing-really weird and all).

Well, when the drug tests came out negative (on the shooter, that is) our Deputy Chief of Police was quoted as saying, additionally, that "however, even if there WAS pot or something, that wouldn't account for it itself". In other words, he went AFFIRMATIVELY one step beyond merely stating the fact (of clean urine) and dispelled any popular notion of drugs being to blame. When I called him the next day to thank him for his positive support, I told him the most important thing here is that HE DIDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT THAT! He agreed, that comment just came naturally. That just proved just HOW FAR WE HAVE COME in the past few years-to where he automatically reacted honestly to what he knows honestly now (about the innocuousness of reefer, etc.). Meanwhile, the 8 towns on the Northern flank continue to learn more about tolerance, our two Southern flank towns have just exported tolerance to another 5 added armies for a total of 15 villages and towns that have stopped pumping citizen fines into the court system and bodies into the incarceration zone.

Now back to Willie Nelson. I asked the Farm Aid people to get Willie Nelson to come to Wilmette and even if he couldn't care a hoot about my meat, or my shuttered restaurant-store, or about my own eviction coming soon (just got the notice yesterday as well) to please get Willie Nelson to at least drive over to the police department and go in, and introduce hisself and to shake the hands of a few police officers (George Carpenter, Chief & Brian King, Deputy Chief-both my good friends, of course) and merely THANK THEM for their rational consideration of these things that are so intrenched by now that positive comments come naturally to them!

Willie Nelson won't get this message. Thank you for listening though. Over and out. PAUL PETERSON 847-853-4200



[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #9 posted by ekim on September 13, 2005 at 19:03:46 PT
all Farm Aiders go eat at Wilmette 847-853-4200
Hi Paul -- has Willie had your phase shifting meat

http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/farmaid.htm

http://www.farmaid.org/site/PageServer

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #8 posted by paulpeterson on September 13, 2005 at 17:19:14 PT:

Illinois Decriminalization Update
Greetings, citizens of the empire. Just checking in from within rebel held territory: We now have 5 more towns and borroughs that have added territory in the past year, these all from the southern flank of Daley's militarized zone (that would be Chicago, of course)to wit: Lynwood, Midlothian, Orland Park, Oak Lawn & Lansing. These will be added to the Southern command, under the leadership of Darien & Naperville, staunch allies since decrim's inception in 1978 (and another salute to our allies to the south-now 7 strong).

Please note also that the Northern command, based in Wilmette, Illinois, now counts 8 strong towns and more considered as likely add-ons: Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Northbrook, Glencoe, Northfield, Glenview, Niles (Morton Grove soon?)

Our Northern command has just completed phase one trials on a new secret weapon, a stealth bomber/fighter with an encrypted virus code already en route to the mother ship. (These are metaphors, only, if anyone is listening).

Why, see how mightily the cringers of change chafe at the mere whisper of a taste of the divine, even if ensconsed in the glass cage of adulthood-ish bookstores?

What I am talking about is my sacramental meats-which get you high, and I have actually TRIED to contact the FDA & DEA (but they are each so rigidly firewalled into their own defensive perimeters all they call hear is their own chatter!)

I am ready to reopen my store, in rebel held zone, Wilmette, that is, as a taco/pizza parlor, with my own magic meats, of course, beef and pork.

This is and will be a drug war refuge and retreat for anyone interested in coming to Chicago (and then go to the end of the "north line" north of Evanston). Call me and I will guide you in 847-853-4200. PAUL PETERSON, time traveller. Over and out.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #7 posted by mayan on September 11, 2005 at 06:03:36 PT
Trafficking
There!

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #6 posted by mayan on September 11, 2005 at 06:02:43 PT
THC
Payne said the DEA probably will test the lollipops in the future.

If the DEA had any suspicion that there was THC in this candy they would have tested it as soon as it hit the shelf, if not sooner. If it does have THC then the government has been collecting tax dollars from it and is guilty of trafficing.



[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #5 posted by Trekkie on September 10, 2005 at 07:11:40 PT
On the other hand...
just because something IS illegal doesn't make it wrong...

I wonder if AG Madigan ever thought about that one?

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #4 posted by Max Flowers on September 09, 2005 at 10:12:29 PT
Cannabis "essential oil"
Um, Eric... "cannabis flower essential oil" is the same as HASH OIL... it's about 80-90% THC. That's all it is---trichomes (resin glands). It's like semi-liquid hash! Never seen "honey oil" or hash oil? It has a very distinctive and pungent smell to it. I could pick it out in an instant. If I got my hands on one of those lollipops I could tell you in a hot second whether it had any "magic" in it or not!

The cannabis club in Oakland called Compassionate Caregivers sells actual hash oil lollipops and I suspect that is where this guy got the idea. They were tasty, but cost $7 each and a single one was not potent enough for me medicinally. I needed to eat two, and at $14 that's just a joke cost-wise, not worth it for one dose.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #3 posted by Trekkie on September 09, 2005 at 08:31:44 PT
Law - right and wrong
{Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has issued a subpoena seeking information on the advertising and marketing practices of Chronic Candy.

"Just because something isn't illegal doesn't make it right.}

That statement - from a lawmaker - is exactly wrong. In law, there is legal, and illegal - that's it. All else is opinion and irrelivant.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #2 posted by CorvallisEric on September 09, 2005 at 01:24:05 PT
essential oil
Though they have no proof, hemp advocates maintain the candies contain cannabis flower essential oil, which they say is distilled from the flowers of the cannabis plant. That, they say, is illegal.

I wonder if drug-sniffing dogs would hit on it. There was some discussion, especially comment #14 (or search "caryophyllene"): http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/11/thread11573.shtml

Rusty Payne, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said cannabis flower essential oil would be illegal if it contains tetrahydrocannabinols, or THC, which is the illegal substance in marijuana, but he did not know whether it did.

Interesting problem. The THC content of hempseed oil is very low but it isn't zero. The same may be true of "cannabis flower essential oil." In either case, if the THC content is below the legally accepted limit, then the enforcers are left only to censor advertising and packaging and odor (in adult novelty stores as runderwo pointed out).

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #1 posted by runderwo on September 08, 2005 at 18:54:31 PT
yeah
Why do none of these articles ever mention that they are only sold in adult novelty stores?

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