Farmers Arrested Planting Hemp On DEA Headquarters Lawn (VIDEO)

UPDATE: Scroll down for a video of the arrests.

A group of civilly-disobedient hemp farmers and business leaders were arrested Tuesday morning while digging up the lawn to plant industrial hemp seeds at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

David Bronner, the president of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a more than 60-year-old company that does tens of millions of dollars of business annually, was among those arrested.

Bronner buys the hemp used in his soaps from Canadian farmers. He was arrested outside the DEA museum, which shares space with the headquarters.

"Our kids are going to come to this museum and say, 'My God. Your generation was crazy. What the hell is wrong with you people?'" he said as Arlington County Police handcuffed him and walked him to a waiting car.

The group was arrested for trespassing.

A DEA spokeswoman referred comment to the Department of Justice "because they're the people who set the policy for drugs." A DOJ spokeswoman declined to comment.

Hemp, however, is not a drug and has no capacity to get someone stoned, the farmers pointed out. Wayne Hauge and Will Allen, farmers from North Dakota and Vermont respectively, brought shovels and seeds to the protest, where they were joined by representatives of Vote Hemp, which advocates for federal legislation that would allow states to craft their own hemp policies.

Currently eight states -- Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia -- allow industrial hemp production or research, but federal law, which requires nearly-impossible-to-obtain-permits to grow hemp, trumps those state laws. A bill introduced by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) would allow states to craft their own policies.

Isaac Nichelson, head of LiViTY Outernatioanl, a hemp clothing company, was also planting seeds, telling the officers and a handful of reporters that he'd rather buy his raw material domestically than from China.

"Who's got a permit?" asked David Smith, DEA security supervisor, when he spotted the collection of farmers volunteering their agricultural services to his agency.

"As far as I know, we applied for the permit a long time ago," Nichelson told him.

The farmers asked the next DEA official to arrive if he knew the difference between hemp and marijuana.

He wasn't sure. "It's a cousin, right? Or is it an uncle?"

Hauge is one of two farmers licensed by the state of North Dakota to grow hemp, but he can't do so because of the federal ban. Mother Nature is apparently unaware of the federal restriction: Hemp grows wild through the United States.

President Reagan invested significant resources going after hemp, uprooting millions of plants of what it calls "ditchweed." Reagan's effort against ditchweed steadily increased and by 1989 the DEA was able to claim it had uprooted 120 million ditchweed plants. By 2001, that number reached half a billion.

The farmers argued that Instead of uprooting hemp, the government should allow American farmers to grow it, especially since American companies can already legally sell hemp products. "We've got a billion dollar industry we're sleeping on," said Hauge, who is suing the DEA for the right to raise hemp.

Hauge traces his interest in growing hemp back to the founding fathers, and one particularly famous hemp farmer. "The DEA would have arrested George Washington," he said.

UPDATE:
The Huffington Post has obtained a video of the arrests. The first protester collared - the one taken down pretty hard -- is Adam Eidinger, communications director for Vote Hemp, a hemp clothing store owner and a veteran arrestee. Next comes David Bronner, he of the magic soap. Then goes Will Allen, a Vermont organic farmer, followed by Isaac Nichelson, the hemp clothing company owner. Steve Levine, president of the Hemp Industries Association, is taken in last. Wayne Hauge, the North Dakota farmer, was also arrested but isn't in the video.

WATCH:

--
Ryan Grim is the author of This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America

Comments

[Sol76]

05:25 AM on 10/19/2009

Wow! Those men put their money where their mouth is by protesting for hemp that way. I can see the same thing happening here in Australia. The hemp industry is not who the DEA should be occupied with in the present day; there is an epidemic of methamphet­amine all over the US and Mexico has been the battle-gro­und of a real drug war for over two years. It is easy to take on hemp activists who are voicing an opinion that is at least as popular as the ideas that the government taxes too much and that war should be waged on islamic nations. Why is there no video of tea party protesters being automatica­lly arrested by the police as soon as they start protesting­? Perhaps because they are more likely to be carrying bullets and guns instead of seeds and shovels.

[Mona Kranke]

04:50 PM on 10/29/2009

It's a question of imperialis­m. The pharmaceut­ical industries can buy every government and law. If they knew, how to gain at least 800% by selling Marihuana, you may be reminded currently by coloured lighted advertisin­g spaces in houses size, to use your daily cannabis to make your day!
But they cannot! And if it is written in a book, that it is illegal, you will get imprisoned­! >And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." <
The servants of the rich have nothing to think about the written orders! They have to serve their masters! And this is in the US more than in the European countries! As a result of the prohibitio­n. Overthis it is very difficult to distinguis­h industrial hemp from cannabis indica. How should it be proved by any country cop?

[SinfullySublime]

03:39 AM on 10/19/2009

I still have a few dollars to vote with and, it's a good product so, Dr. Bronner's is the only soap I'll by buying.

[OldHeathen]

10:44 PM on 10/18/2009

I support the Protesters 100%
Down with Fascism! ! !
Prohibitio­n has never worked and never will. Prohibitio­n only makes the Criminals ( those in power )
rich.
Help take a Bite out of the Taliban, Grow Local, Buy Local.

[GO-BAMA]

03:42 PM on 10/15/2009

Well, at least they got some press ... an obscure story in the way back pages of a far left blog site. Smart move, guys. I'm all for hemp, but this was dumb.

[Nathan Ferguson]

12:24 PM on 10/15/2009

I agree with the arrestees. If I were there, I'd go with them.

[fumes]

11:54 AM on 10/15/2009

make cotton and tobacco illegal now!

[condor101]

08:27 AM on 10/15/2009

George Washington grew hemp.
Hemp is a crop that has many many benefits and is Not a drug.
Legalize growing hemp Now.
It's ridiculous that America has to import hemp from Canada and Europe.

[doyle78]

05:21 AM on 10/15/2009

Just got back from a trip to Amsterdam, the Netherland­s. There it's a perfectly normal thing to walk into one of the offically-­licensed so called "coffeshop­s" , buy some bad-ass weed and smoke it there while having a coffee or such. In a yet-to-com­e better future i would like to have that freedom in almost every part of the world....

[Nicon]

04:10 AM on 10/15/2009

I was all behind them until i saw the video. Come on folks. Your plan was to plant hemp on the DEA's Lawn and your coming up with your pro hemp chant mid cuffing?
Effective protests are planned out. They have their chants pre printed and passed out days in advance, the folks involved all know what the game plan is. From what i watched it looked like these folks were bitching about how hemp is still illegal and drove over there with tools they happened to have on hand.

[mjeffn]

03:43 AM on 10/15/2009

The fact that it is outlawed is enough for me to suspect that it is, in reality, truly beneficial­.

[SamKnause]

06:15 PM on 10/15/2009

It is apparent from your post you nothing about hemp. Do some research on your own. Form your own opinion.

[Bogstomper]

01:21 AM on 10/15/2009

Hemp is like a combinatio­n of soybean and cotton in the same plant. Our American farmers could spin that into gold if they were only allowed to grow it.

This is an issue where I disagree with a lot of my conservati­ve comrades. They've bought into the "evil weed" meme, and so they don't understand that legalizing cannabis is actually a perfect expression of true conservati­ve values.

"Why the GOP Should Support Legalizati­on" (7:42)
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=Rfc9qbSx_­GQ

[SinfullySublime]

02:21 AM on 10/19/2009

For a conservati­ve, you're all right, bogstomper­. Fanned!

[Galong]

12:35 AM on 10/15/2009

If we could get Rush off of popping pills and onto Mother Nature's natural medicine it would help our cause.

If the US was really operating on logic and common sense, alcohol would be illegal... it's one of the most dangerous drugs in the world (drunk drivers, causes violent behavior, extremely unhealthy, etc, etc).

[mjeffn]

03:37 AM on 10/15/2009

Rush stoned on weed is hard to wrap my mind around. He'd probably just get the munchies and eat the microphone forgetting that he is supposed to yell into it.

[MyTake]

11:54 PM on 10/14/2009

Where is that OB man when you really need him? He should invite these people and their arresting officer's to the WH for a beer like he did to the officer who arrested his friend.

Americans ordered farmers to grow hemp during WWII as the fiber was needed for war materials. Randolph Hearst knew that the hemp fiber was a threat to his pulp and paper empire and was a direct threat to his vast timber holdings so he bribed in the legislatio­n to classify hemp as a narcotic right after the war.

28 materials can be manufactur­ed from hemp fiber and you can build an entire house using those materials and all this from a crop based renewable resource.

Yes, you can replace wood used in a house with hemp manufactur­ed fiber which would let the trees remain standing and absorb CO2 . Yet the UN climate change panel and Al Gore do not know this fundamenta­l fact.

When you see events like this, the U.S. is a nation in decline and is now one of the most corrupt democracie­s ever assembled.

And yet, the OB man doth not utter a phrase. I wonder if they would give a Nobel prize to a head of state that released the Hemp economy followed by the Hydrogen economy.

[SamKnause]

06:18 PM on 10/15/2009

Excellent post. You've been fanned. Keep trying to help educate the masses. I feel like it is a monumental task. The ignorance that surrounds hemp and marijuana is astounding­.

[Poorsarah]

11:02 PM on 10/14/2009

Legalize, regulate, slap a hefty tax on the herb; legally sold herb would be organic and not contaminat­ed with God knows what from illegal street drugs. The punitive approach to fight drug abuse is not successful­. Legalize drugs, regulate and tax them; use the tax money for rehabilita­tion programs for people.
Drug abuse, legal or illegal, has adverse health effects for we humans. Smoking anything will cause emphysema.
Personally­, I choose not to use drugs because of adverse health effects. But, if some folks want to choose to do so, then take the cartel element (violence/­murders) out of the drug business. Alcohol used to be illegal...­violent/mu­rderous gangs grew out of the prohibitio­n of alcohol. Alcohol was legalized, taxed, and the gangs that ran alcohol magically went out of business.

[SinfullySublime]

02:25 AM on 10/19/2009

Thankfully you don't have to smoke it to realize medicinal benefits.

[Doug Flight]

10:01 PM on 10/14/2009

thanks gentleman.­.. for standing up for a noble cause.

Hemp!!!