New Law Allows Hemp Farming Without DEA License, Farmers to Challenge DEA.

BISMARCK, N.D., April 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- North Dakota's legislature wrapped up last week by telling the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that it would no longer require state-licensed industrial hemp farmers to seek DEA licenses. The law change removes the DEA license as a requirement of state law, but it can't protect farmers from federal prosecution. Vote Hemp, the nation's leading industrial hemp advocacy group, will support a lawsuit brought by ND-licensed hemp farmers to prevent the DEA from enforcing federal marijuana laws against them. If the farmers' lawsuit, which will be filed in the coming weeks, is successful, states across the nation will be free to implement hemp farming laws without fear of federal interference.

"With the broad authority that has been granted to them by Congress, the DEA could have easily approved the applications of the farmers in North Dakota," says Tom Murphy, National Outreach Coordinator for Vote Hemp. "The DEA could have also easily negotiated industrial hemp farming rules with North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson who has been talking to them about this for a year. Instead, they kept stalling until the time to plant had passed," says Mr. Murphy. "North Dakota had nothing left to do but cut the DEA out of the picture."

"I applied for my ND license in January and was hopeful the DEA would act quickly and affirm my right to plant industrial hemp this year. Unfortunately, the DEA has not responded in any way other than to state that it would take them a lot more time than the window of time I have to import seed and plant the crop," said ND farmer, David Monson. "It appears that DEA really doesn't want to work with anyone to resolve the issue", Monson added.

The hemp language in HB 1020 was the result of several months of fruitless negotiations between the DEA and North Dakota officials, who hoped to gain federal recognition for the state-licensed hemp farmers. It amends the state hemp farming law to explicitly remove the Drug Enforcement Administration from the process.

"The legislative action is a direct response to the DEA's refusal to waive registration requirements, including $3,440 per farmer in non-refundable yearly application fees, and the agency's inability to respond to the farmers' federal applications in time for spring planting," says Alexis Baden-Mayer, Vote Hemp's Legislative Director.

Read the DEA letter that was ND's last straw at:

http://www.votehemp.com/PDF/DEA_Letter_to_NDDA_03272007.pdf

"The North Dakota legislature's bold action gives Vote Hemp the opportunity we've been working towards for nearly a decade. Now that there is a state with comprehensive hemp farming regulations that has explicitly eschewed DEA involvement, we can finally make the case that states have the legal ability to regulate industrial hemp farming within their borders without federal interference," says Baden-Mayer. Adding, "And, because ND Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson actually did spend nearly a year trying to work out an agreement with the DEA, it's clear that DEA isn't going to act in a reasonable way and isn't ever to going to acknowledge the practical differences between industrial hemp and marijuana and accommodate ND's plan to commercialize hemp farming."

Source: Vote Hemp

If you ask me to live off the land as a farmer, I would starve. I am not skilled, have not been brought up to do this. I have been educated to a degree, but mostly by my own inclination to learn and to grow.

I believe that what I do is what I am good at doing and it helps people. I believe that to destroy my ability to survive on my intelligence and social construct would be an injustice not only to me but to the world. I believe that my voice is as important as yours.

Am I rotten?

Everything was pretty cut and dried; You go to school, you graduate, get a job, get a family, buy a house, and raise kids. Simple.

Of course the American Dream was in full swing during the fifties. The idea that I might not be able to do all those simple things I mentioned, didn't occur to me until after I completed the first task -High School.

Viet Nam was the first clue that something wasn't right, but even then I took it as a true 'patriot' and volunteered for military service. After getting a real good dose of that, I realized one shocking day, that everything that my teachers, the ministers, and the New Gospel of Television had been repeating into my youthful thinking process, over and over, every day, was nothing more than a huge pile of crap.

That wasn't enough though, because most of my own peers, and nearly the entire generation preceding me, kept going to church, college, and their nine-to-fives. Even after such revelations as Jim Morrison's famed "You're all a bunch of slaves!" was delivered.

Then I started smoking cannabis. Not because of the 'hippies' or the antiwar movement, or even because a large part of my generation was experimenting, but because the first time I got high I realized the intellect enhancement factor, and the Spiritual Key that exists in the unique combination of cannabis and the human brain.

The more I smoked, the more I got outside the confines of the status quo box that so many just couldn't see or realize. I found myself looking at the ugly naked emporer in a crowd that cheered his 'glory.'

Ancient xtian traditions supposedly connected to 'upright and morally correct' behavior turned out to be nothing more than twisted logic calculated to create willing, fearful slaves. The 'Land of Opportunity' turned out to be the 'Land of Opportunists' -funded by the system of weights and measures which long ago denounced the value of such things as 'love,' 'compassion,' 'forgiveness,' 'truth,' and 'freedom.'

As my mind and experience began to grow -outside the extremely limiting box of social programming- so did my resolve towards truth.

Truth is not a part of Government. It is not a part of education. It exists within the church only in carefully restricted access to bits of information steeped in deliberately erroneous interpretation. The Truth is ambient, and imminent. It exists within and without you, and needs no 'special' or exclusive education to grasp or perceive. All it needs is a willing mind.

Truth does not belong to any one group of people, or any persons of 'significance.' If that were the case than I wouldn't have two words of it to 'rub together' because I am certainly not of any worldy significance. Quite the contrary, I am known as 'trailer trash,' 'white trash,' 'illegitimate.' I have no paper degrees on my wall signifying my allegiance to BullShit, and the Naked Emporer. I 'wasted my life' seeking truth, and Spiritual experience -obviously, because now I am 'dependent on the very same system' that I hate to the core of my being. Of course the fact that this entire reality has been hijacked by terrorists -who call themselves "high society" doesn't have anything to do with the fact that my 'opportunities' never actually existed within the current framework of society. All so called 'social programs' are nothing more than a well scripted system of control and restraint - to keep the poor in line. There is no "charity" that exists by the same name as some kind of 'charitable organization' that charity is reserved for the children of the rich -so to appear to be 'doing something' for society.

Propaganda is American Doctrine at this point. While millions starve, the earth suffers, species are dying, humanity itself stands collectively on the brink of self annihilation, but the machine, powered by the peoples' willingness to be enslaved, just keeps rolling closer and closer to the abyss.

The facts are that the lifestyles of the materialists with capital -the rich- (you can define those lines, 'who is rich,' I've already attempted that, and the resulting denial and defence of that deeply ingrained human error is just another part of the propaganda that has been swallowed by a majority of Americans, and Old World consciousness.) are the reasons why we are all in this mess. They are the authors of war, the architects of confusion, and the perpetuators of ignorance. Just as responsible are the huge masses of 'middle class' who support the various regimes of power with their very lives, and time. The propaganda goes way beyond current political BS, it is insinuated into the common thread of everyone's life. It is ancient, and established in the system of propriety worship which currently rules the world.

God did not issue any specific material allottment to any of us. We are all born with the same equipment. Anyone who believes that they somehow 'deserve' more than the rest of us is a fool, and an active contributor to error and dstructive patterns of behavior, but it is in their best interests to defend their 'divine right' to posession and power, so propaganda is a valuable tool for maintaining their status quo.

I condemn no persons for their lack of understanding, but once the information has become available, -and as far as I am concerned the information was delivered exactly and precisely as needed about 2,000 years ago (The fact that it was hurriedly turned into doctrinal BS and proprietarian propaganda obviously escapes the spiritually lazy person who is content to have meaningless rote and ritual spoon fed by either equally ignorant 'ministers' or deliberate liars, instead of an active realationship with God.)- there is no excuse for continuing to uphold it, except some kind of denial.

The tree is rotten to the core. Trying to save the dying branches is a supreme waste. The fruit of the tree is on display for anyone to witness, and those who eat of it "will surely die."

-- William Drummond

Jim Morrison figured out that most of us are slaves a long time ago.

Who is ONDCP's propaganda really targeting? The 16 year olds who already know what cannabis does and does not do compared to alcohol? No. It's targeted to those who have never used cannabis. Most of those people are those who graduated college or turned 22 before 1962-1963.

All the sinister symbolism, purported ties to terrorism, etc., these are designed to scare parents and older adults who never tried cannabis into supporting the police attack on cannabis users. And it works!

Once you understand this, you begin to see how fear is used to control the population on many different levels. My own mother will not go outside once it's dark out. Even though she lives in a totally safe suburban town with no violent crime whatsoever, she is terrified of walking outside at night.

I know I'd rather die than be ruled by my own fears. I'd rather die facing my fears than succumbing to them. That's probably why I tried cannabis in the first place.

"Quick to judge, quick to anger.... slow to understand.

Ignorance and prejudice, and fear, walk hand in hand."

Neil Peart (Rush)

"Whatever we know about," he said, "odds are there's a lot more we don't know about."

"It's like a pot of gold sitting in those houses, and people are going to do whatever it takes to get their hands on it," a California state drug enforcement officer told the Los Angeles Times recently. "There's already been some takeover robberies of indoor grows, some that gets reported, some that does not."

Wow, pot of gold. Great analogy. How many beer robberies have we had in the last 50 years? Morons.

I think it's easy to underestimate how well scare tactics work on senior citizens - the most powerful voting block in the US by far. I recently had a chat with a friend in his late 60's. Somehow this subject came up - indoor grows. Apparently he had seen a single article in the paper about a NH grow bust.

He raised his voice to a fever pitch and said - it's everywhere! It's an epidemic! They found these houses full of lights and marijuana! It's exploding! Everywhere! In the suburbs!

I tried to say a few things like "did you see any reports of many grow ops there are?" "how many busts have their actually been?" "what do you think we should do about it?" "the government wants to exploit your fear and outrage". It was like I was saying "blah blah blah". Once the fear has been planted in their minds, there's no more listening to logic or reason. There's no more listening, period.

Fear is incredibly powerful. Just talk to some seniors citizens if you don't believe me. Most women and senior outside of big cities have deep-seated neurotic fear of big dark thugs coming out to their suburban homes and attacking them. If you think I sound crazy, just try talking to some of these people about these issues.

For most older people, the word "marijuana" means much, much more than a plant. It encapsulates ALL their fears of the dark thugs coming to get them.

Once you understand this, you've made a huge leap into understanding how our system works. Why the mass education and standardized tests are so critical. It all erodes the ability of the individual to think, to question.

The less thinking you do, the more easily you slide into that instinctive fear reaction. Once there, you are putty in the hands of the government and the sexy CNN anchors.

April 26, 2007

Three Atlanta police narcotics officers involved in the botched drug raid that killed an elderly woman in her northwest Atlanta home have been indicted by a Fulton County grand jury.

The indictments, reached late Wednesday, were announced Thursday morning.

Copyright: 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution