Why is hemp illegal to grow in the U.S.?
410983
If you're really talking about Hemp (NOT POT).\n\nIt may be illegal now, But.......\n\nState legislation, negotiations with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), federal lawsuits, Congressional legislation — action on industrial hemp is happening on all fronts. There's never been a more exciting time to be involved in the movement to help industrial hemp farming make a comeback as an engine of the U.S. economy.\n\nNorth Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson is prepared to be the first state official to issue regulations implementing a law that allows commercial industrial hemp farming. Johnson organized a meeting for himself and agriculture commissioners from West Virginia, Massachusetts and Wisconsin, last month with Joseph Rannazzisi, a top DEA official, and other agency representatives to discuss his plans. \n\nDEA officials told Johnson that growers, processors and importers of hemp seed would have to be separately licensed, and that the DEA would have to establish quotas for industrial hemp production and processing. \n\nIn the past, the DEA has refused to acknowledge the difference between industrial hemp and marijuana. The sole researcher who obtained a DEA permit to research industrial hemp (in Hawaii) was required to secure his crop with cyclone fencing and security guards as if it were marijuana. No one has ever obtained a DEA permit to grow industrial hemp commercially. \n\nRoger Johnson has gone further than any other state official in his work to make hemp farming a reality for North Dakota. He introduced and passed a pro-hemp resolution at NASDA, the association of state agriculture departments, and now is leading the effort to make North Dakota the first state to plant a commercial hemp crop. If Johnson is successful, he will have blazed a trail for all US farmers back to hemp farming.
95213
China produces a lot of hemp as well (to the common man, hemp is marijuana....) the leaves and fibre are used to make clothes....
98335
My belief is that one reason they are afraid to legalize it is because it would be impossible to reverse that decision. The goverment tried this back in the 1920's - with alcohol. Before this time, it was legal to ingest alcohol. Once it was illegal, anyone using or transporting it was, of course, a criminal. It was this single event that spawned the growth of organized crime families in the U.S.\n\nAnother reason is because they have criminalized it for so long, they would lose credibility if they reversed course. \n\nAnother reason is because when 'Manifest Destiny' was the call of the expansion of the U.S. in the 1700's, it required the destruction and disbursement of the people and culture of the Native Americans. Since the use of marijuana was part of their religious beliefs and way of life, it was automatically labeled as 'savage' and 'uncultured' by the white man.
381777
Not legally... but Hemp can be sold and shipped within the United States. And some states have decriminalization laws, so you may be able to grow a TINY plant for your own use. Check the Law books, though. I know New York has the Rockerfeller Drug Laws, so even a joint can get you jail time. A third offense gets you 25 to life. In NY, Joel Steinberg beat his child TO DEATH and received less than 20 years. In NY, Robert Chambers raped and strangled a girl TO DEATH, claimed she asked for it, got less than 20 years.\nSeems kind of backwards... but NO do not ship pot around the country. The mail is Federal. Federal prisons are amongst the most horrible.
1045398
Mostly fear. And ignorance. \n\nThe medical community and people who decide what is legal and illegal still consider marijuana to be a gateway drug. They think it is  bad for you. \n\nWhile I agree with you about it should be legal, it isn't. \n\nYou can it taken off the list of illegal drugs and work to make it legal, but until it is legal, don't break the law and risk going to jail. Instead, work to get it made legal. \n\nIt is legal for medical use in Oregon and California and all over the west coast. \n\nWork to get it legalized.
72317
"Making Marijuana against the law is like saying God made a mistake"\n-Bill Hicks\n\n\nit's only illegal because the government doesn't have the control over it like they do on every other substance that is legal.\nAlcohol is much worse for you than marijuana, yet it's legal. you do the math.\nIt has nothing to do with the harm that marijuana may have, yet that is what all the propaganda is based on.  Otherwise, how would you have propaganda being at all useful if it was just simply "the government cant control it, so don't use it". No, they want to lie and preach that it's actually harmful to you. That's the only way they get it to stay illegal, too many people think it's actually harmful so there's not enough to overturn the rule.\n\nIt's also not a matter of IF it can harm you at all. You can get harmed by anything taken beyond moderation. The fact is it has less harm than something that is legal. Therefore being nothing short of total hypocrisy and lies by the government.\n\nP.S.\nI'm not a pothead or a hippy, etc.. I don't use it and I never have. I know enough people and have seen enough information that I don't need to be a pothead to have a strong view on the matter.
1082629
I do believe that it is illegal everywhere in the US, but it does seem as though the police are cracking down more on the "harder" stuff.  But please don't get it in your head that you can't be busted for pot....a friend of mine went to jail for a week for a roach in her car ash tray.\n\nNot sure why people call it pot.  I guess people come up with new names for it all the time so other people (like the cops) won't know what they are talking about.
328008
Myth: United States law has always treated hemp and marijuana the same. \n\nReality: The history of federal drug laws clearly shows that at one time the U.S. government understood and accepted the distinction between hemp and marijuana. \n\n\nMyth: Smoking industrial hemp gets a person high.\n\nReality: The THC levels in industrial hemp are so low that no one could get high from smoking it. Moreover, hemp contains a relatively high percentage of another cannabinoid, CBD, that actually blocks the marijuana high. Hemp, it turns out, is not only not marijuana; it could be called "antimarijuana." \n\n\nMyth: Even though THC levels are low in hemp, the THC can be extracted and concentrated to produce a powerful drug.\n\nReality: Extracting THC from industrial hemp and further refining it to eliminate the preponderance of CBD would require such an expensive, hazardous, and time-consuming process that it is extremely unlikely anyone would ever attempt it, rather than simply obtaining high-THC marijuana instead.\n\n\nMyth: Hemp fields would be used to hide marijuana plants.\n\nReality: Hemp is grown quite differently from marijuana. Moreover, it is harvested at a different time than marijuana. Finally, cross-pollination between hemp plants and marijuana plants would significantly reduce the potency of the marijuana plant.\n\n\nMyth: Legalizing hemp while continuing the prohibition on marijuana would burden local police forces.\n\nReality: In countries where hemp is grown as an agricultural crop, the police have experienced no such burdens. \n\n\nMyth: Feral hemp must be eradicated because it can be sold as marijuana.\n\nReality: Feral hemp, or ditchweed, is a remnant of the hemp once grown on more than 400,000 acres by U.S. farmers. It contains extremely low levels of THC, as low as .05 percent. It has no drug value, but does offer important environmental benefits as a nesting habitat for birds. About 99 percent of the "marijuana" being eradicated by the federal government-at great public expense-is this harmless ditchweed. Might it be that the drug enforcement agencies want to convince us that ditchweed is hemp in order to protect their large eradication budgets? \n\n\nMyth: Those who want to legalize hemp are actually seeking a backdoor way to legalize marijuana.\n\nReality: It is true that many of the first hemp stores were started by industrial-hemp advocates who were also in favor of legalizing marijuana. However, as the hemp industry has matured, it has come to be dominated by those who see hemp as the agricultural and industrial crop that it is, and see hemp legalization as a different issue than marijuana legalization. In any case, should we oppose a very good idea simply because some of those who support it also support other ideas with which we disagree? \n\n\nMyth: Hemp oil is a source of THC.\n\nReality: Hemp oil is an increasingly popular product, used for an expanding variety of purposes. The washed hemp seed contains no THC at all. The tiny amounts of THC contained in industrial hemp are in the glands of the plant itself. Sometimes, in the manufacturing process, some THC- and CBD-containing resin sticks to the seed, resulting in traces of THC in the oil that is produced. The concentration of these cannabinoids in the oil is infinitesimal. No one can get high from using hemp oil. \n\n\nMyth: Legalizing hemp would send the wrong message to children.\n\nReality: It is the current refusal of the drug enforcement agencies to distinguish between an agricultural crop and a drug crop that is sending the wrong message to children. \n\n\nMyth: Hemp is not economically viable, and should therefore be outlawed. \n\nReality: The market for hemp products is growing rapidly. But even if it were not, when has a crop ever been outlawed simply because government agencies thought it would be unprofitable to grow?
222593
I don't smoke and don't use it, but marijuana is so much less dangerous than tobacco and alcohol, that it's just crazy not to have it legalized. I'd much rather see people smoking pot than people drunk from alcohol. They're much less dangerous, both to themselves and to society, and they cause much less damage to their bodies. It's harder to get addicted to marijuana than to regular cigarettes or alcohol, too. \nBesides, the hemp plant is so incredibly useful: You can use it to make fabrics, and medication, skin care, fuel, paper and tons of other products. All this at a much lower cost than producing the same producta from wood, cotton or petrolium. \nOne man in Germany built a car entirely out of Hemp, that runs on Hemp too. Imagine what that would do for the invironment!\nThe growers of cotton and wood had a huge campain against Hemp plants, fearing that the cheap easy to grow plant would take away thier income. That's why it was banned. It's all politics.
339051
why does it have to be illegal?
287224
Its A LONG Story  That Includes Chapters About PROHIBITION (Alcohol)--As Far As Marijuana  It All Began With DuPont And His Textile Empire  ..  The Rest Is HISTORY\n\nHeres all kinds of mind-blowing long-suppressed facts about Humanity's best \nfriend "The Cannabis Plant". Hemp or Cannabis as it is scientifically referred to is the fastest growing \nbiomass source on Earth. Biomass is a cheap and efficient source of fuel. As a matter of fact, if we \nwere to farm only 6% of the country's available farmland with hemp we could meet all of the \ncountry's Industrial energy and transportation needs. Hemp is 26 times stronger than cotton and lasts \n10 times longer. We can produce 4 times as much paper from Hemp as we can from trees at one \nfourth the cost and 1/5 the pollution and it is 10 times stronger and lasts ten times longer. It is a fact \nthat Betsy Ross made our first flag "Old Glory" from Hemp fiber. Also, our Constitution and \nDeclaration of Independance were printed on Hemp paper. The soldiers clothes during the \nrevolutionary war were made from Hemp. The second most prescribed medicine in the United \nStates for 150 years for over 100 different medical illnesses was a Cannabis extract and it is alot \nstronger when taken in concentrated form. This means that all the children in America for 150 years \nwere brought up as DRUG USERS from birth. Or, it just means simply, that we had a better \nunderstanding of herbs and their medicinal usage 100 years ago than we do today. So who has \nREALLY lost their mind, people who smoke pot, or the "NORMALS" ?\nThe drug war is nothing more than an excuse to suppress consciousness and use the ignorant in our \nsociety to create laws for the New World Order to use to crack down on all of our rights !! According \nto a Feb. 1938 article in Popular Mechanics the invention of a new machine called the decorticator, \nwould once again put Hemp in the dominant position in the fiber and textiles industry over cotton by \nspeeding up the harvesting methods in use at the time. At this same time Dupont held a patent on a \nsynthetic compound used to break down wood pulp to make paper. To make paper from Hemp didn't \nrequire any chemicals. In order for Dupont to profit from these chemicals, they had to see to it that \nHemp was out-lawed. Andrew Mellon sat on the board of Dupont and Mellon's nephew was \nHarry Anslinger, the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics at the time. William Randolph Hearst \nowned many big newspapers and working together they whipped up a smear campaign of "Yellow \nJournalism" in America, spreading propaganda that the African-Americans and Mexicans were \nsmuggling in a new killer dope weed that would lure white women to fall prey to the seduction of the \n"Negro", while under the influence of Jazz music. Racism and fear were used to outlaw \nsomething that was used by every man, woman, and child in America. It wasn't until after the \nmarijuana tax act was passed that the American Medical Association realized that "marijuana", a \nslang term for hemp was in fact "Cannabis", our second most prescribed medicine. This is when \n"Reefer Madness" began. \n\nNO ONE HAS EVER DIED FROM USING CANNABIS / MARIJUANA !!!\n\nFlexible and environmentally friendly  \nHemp is one of the most versatile plants known to mankind. Its fibres can be used for textiles and ropes or made into paper. Its seeds are a valuable food rich in unsaturated oils, which can also be used as fuel. Hemp requires few pesticides as it quickly outgrows any weeds. It leaves the soil clean for other crops. When hemp stalks are dew-retted in the fields most nutrients are returned to the soil for the next crop. \n\nHemp for textiles  \nWhen in the middle of the 19th century in California Levi Strauss invented the original jeans he made them from hemp canvas because it was the most durable textile availab
669800
Federally it is illegal everywhere in the US. Medical Marijuana growing only works for as long as it doesn't attract the FBI or DEA's attention. Only local police won't bother you if that state has medical marijuana laws. \n\nAs to Arkansas, I really don't know. I don't see anything about them at NORML
534394
before 1920 marijuana was extensively grown by the USA and Mexico for the production of fibre.which made a durable material,cheap and it does not scorch,that was used for all the  jeans,ropes,sails for the sailing ships and millions of jute bags that were used by millions of farmers,representing a multimillion dollars business.\n\nafter 1920 with the coming of synthetic materials,which were products of the petrolium business ,which were owned by the families or associates of most of the presidents,\n\nthis competitive comodity could not be allowed to continue to exist,\nand the war on Mariujana was on.\n\nand to this day the USA does not want to return the biggest competitor to their synthetic business\n\nIn Holland and Africa Hemp fibre is making a comeback and the designer pantalons and shirts sell for very high prices because the quality is superior than linnen.\n\nthese fibre plants do not produce drugs to speak of and are worthless for the drug market .it is the fibre that is the value.\n\nand organically speaking it is an exelent plant to recuporate tired soils ,after cattle and corn field have practically destroyed the land,because the plant is deep rooted grows on most altitudes,and breaks open or loosens compacted soils as well as secreting nitrogen
841363
The government could care less. It's the corporations. And it's not the pot, it's the hemp that they have to keep illegal. It would replace too many poisonous things that they sell. Companies like Monsanto. Those are the kinds of companies that lobbied to make it illegal, many decades ago. Example. The first American battle ship was made of 85% hemp. Do a search and see how it use to be the main stay for the entire planet.
237822
It is not legal in any of the states of the U S but that does not mean a thing. The key is enforcement and there is very little.
348899
I think it should be legal...well it already is in some states. But just think how much money the US can make off of selling that stuff. Perhaps the president might be able to get out of his trillion dollar debt. Alochol is worse than weed. If they want to make something illegal that should be it.
21554
Hemp represented a threat to the cotton and wood pulp industries.  \n\nHarry J. Anslinger, the guy that was charged with forming the Bureau of Narcotics (now known as the DEA) needed something more than opiates to get his agency going (and advance his career).  He teamed up with William Randolph Hearst, who owned a lot of timber that he sold back to his newspapers.  Hearst wanted to protect his profits, Anslinger wanted to make a name for himself.  Hearst threw his yellow journalism skills into the mix, and it became illegal.\n\nIt stays illegal for 2 reasons -- continued opposition by the industries that would be affected by increased hemp production, and an irrational linkage of marijuana with harder drugs.