All the Rich Flavor With None of That Annoying Euphoria

Ned Goldreyer blogs for just-launched 236.com, where this post originally appeared.

The state of Nebraska wants to grow pot, or so congress would have us believe. What they really want to raise is industrial hemp, a plant that shares many, but not all, of its botanical features with marijuana. One of the things hemp does not have is, you guessed it, large amounts of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. The stuff that makes it's giggly sister Cannibus Indica such fun. What hemp does have is more uses than a Swiss army knife taped to a box of baking soda. So many products can be made from hemp it could stock its own department store, if only it was an enterprising human being instead of a fairly unambitious angiosperm. We won't bore you with what those products are. You undoubtedly have a permanently stoned friend who can list them for you, even though he can't recall his phone number or the kind of car he drives.

Like your stoned friend, the DEA thinks hemp and pot are the same. Unlike him, however, the feds are not sitting listlessly on a fetid plaid couch eating empty taco shells and screaming with laughter at the Boobahs. They are working hard to prevent the farmers of Nebraska, or any other state in the union, from growing a crop that could, among many, many other things, be used to make low-cost paper. They have been doing this since 1937, when congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act. It was then that hemp was classed together with marijuana, all thanks to William Randolph Hearst. Hearst had a large financial interest in the timber industry. He rightly saw hemp as a cheap and fast-growing alternative to his expensive trees, and so he published articles in his newspapers equating hemp with marijuana. These articles became part of the testimony that led to the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act. Hearst is long gone, but guess what industry subsequently picked up his banner, realizing that hemp could also be used to produce synthetic fibers, fuel oil, and plastics? Yes, our good friends at Big Oil have joined forces with the DEA to make sure hemp is never seen as anything but the sneered at pipe dream of future drug lords trying to pass as legitimate American farmers.

Let's put the energy concerns aside for now. After all, they're legitimately protecting themselves from a real threat. Unlike coal, natural gas or petroleum, hemp is a cheap, minimally polluting and renewable energy resource. If it catches on, fossil fuels are headed the way of analog music and network television. But what about the DEA's stake? Why shouldn't hemp be treated like a drug? Because it isn't one. Hemp has about one one-hundredth the THC of marijuana. Calling it a drug is like calling an apple with a dead worm in it "meat," but you can bet your original 16mm copy of "Reefer Madness" that wormy-apple burgers are in regular rotation on the DEA commissary menu. Now, the DEA employees need to keep their jobs like anybody else, but still, doesn't hemp deserve a chance here as much as it does in, say, Canada? In 2006, hemp was that nation's most profitable crop. Take that everyone who thought their greatest contribution to the world was The Red Green Show.

So, in order to keep the DEA busy while giving burgeoning hemp farmers a break, I've compiled a list of other common products that contain traces of controlled substances. Shoving through legislation to criminalize the things on this list should distract the drug cops from busting hemp growers, at least until the first harvest can be brought in.

Sugarless gum contains alcohol, under the commercial names Sorbitol, Xylitol, Maltitol, Mannitol. Amount you'd need to chew before becoming legally drunk: 580 pounds over six hours.

Household smoke detectors contain americurium, a radioactive material that could be used to make either a dirty bomb or even a nuclear weapon. Number of smoke detectors you'd need for an effective dirty bomb: 54,000. Number you'd need achieve critical mass for a real nuke: 21,890,000.

Nutmeg contains an ecstasy like hallucinogen called myristicin. Actually, they could have a case with this one. You only need to eat four teaspoons imparts a mild euphoria, and over five teaspoons can produce a full-on psychotic reaction. Enjoy!

Poppy seeds: opium. Whoops! Here's another one that really works. Brewing a tea from about 300 grams of seeds will give you a pleasant morphine induced state of calm.

Money: most bills have trace amounts of cocaine. Approximately four out five bills carry from a billionth to a thousandth of a gram of blow. Assuming the majority are on the low end of that figure, you'd have to rub your nostrils across close to half a billion dollars (assuming they're all ones) before you felt anything besides idiotic.

You: your brain synthesizes thousands of compounds of which all recreational drugs are merely pale approximations. Saw open the skull and then peel back the protective meniscus to access a veritable buffet of mood altering substances. A hacksaw and a grapefruit spoon are all you'll need to take the ultimate psychedelic safari.

(A clarificatorial note: To those who suspect this is just one more screed from a dope fiend trying to justify his habit, ha ha and phooey on you. I do not smoke pot...anymore. I wish I still could, but it makes me paranoid. The last time I partook was in the previous century, when a brownie at a party nearly sent me into a psychotic episode. Convinced that everyone there could tell I was changing shape and my clothes were evaporating, I ran out of the building. On my way home in the cab I became aware that the meter was the read-out on a time machine, speeding me headlong into the future at the rate of 20 cents every fifth of a mile. When the fare hit $38.50 I started screaming at the driver "Slow down, I'm almost forty and I don't even have a girlfriend!" So, in short, no more ganja for me. Just plenty of good old anti-depressants, anxiety meds, pain-killers, rhodiola rosea and yummy yummy booze.)

Comments

[MrSparky]

Actually, I think the DEA opposition to hemp is pretty simple: they'd have to account for spending 98% of their "marijuana eradication" time pulling up ditchweed.

http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t4382005.pdf

Getting paid good money to fly around in helicopters looking for harmless weeds to kill must be an awful lot of fun!

[LateDave]

No trolls. Interesting. I have good third-hand info that the high-fiber/low-effect variety is all over Northern Virginia as well, such as along the banks of the creeks feeding into the Potomac. Naive canoeists reportedly go ape every harvest season...to no good effect.

I concur that the species is the same.

40 years ago Stewart Brand taught sensemilla and polyploidy techniques. Recently, some law-enforcement advocate has asserted that modern herb is "not your father's boo" but strong enough to cause actual harm. Considering that hashish may be older than homo sapiens (figure it out) and "hash oil" is probably at least as old as brandy, one doubts very strongly that any new-fangled varient is credibly dangerous.

One of the uncountably many CSI shows recently portrayed a crazed random murderer as being "o.d.'d" on some "new" ganja product. My hat is off to the intellectual heirs of Henry J. Anslinger for managing to finagle arrant manure into a plot line destined to be viewed by millions of gullible violence junkies.

[WilliePilgrim]

All the reason in the world wont change the minds of those who already are on message from their religious leaders who maintain the position that all euphoria not attributable to their mythical immaginary friend is the work of their immaginary friend's enemy. Our president believes it..and the rest of the numb-nuts do too...or so they say publicly.
And not a single person at any of the debates has really addressed this in a serious manner. I am still gonna vote but this will be a significant issue for me which is why so many voters feel disenfrancised and/or marginalized.

[TREDHEK]

Back in the early 1800's it was compulsory for British farmers to grow a little hemp on their farms - because rope and canvas were made from hemp. The Royal Navy needed quite a lot of both.

[Listen2me]

OK, HuffPost accepts erroneous stuff like "The US Constitution is written on hemp" but suppressed my earlier post in reply to this article.

My point: Marijuana is indeed hemp. The word "marijuana" is merely a slang neologism popularized by narcotics commissioner Anslinger in the '30's to make hemp seem sinister and Mexican. Then as now, scapegoating Mexicans (and blacks) was a successful political tactic.

Fiber varieties of hemp have a very low percentage of psychoactive compounds, mainly THC. Smokable strains of hemp are cultivated to have higher (can't avoid the pun) contents of THC. But they can all interbreed; are all one species--Cannabis.

ALL contemporary information about hemp originates from Jack Herer's rediscovery of industrial uses of hemp, as publicized in his book The Emperor Wears No Clothes.

Those seeking to divorce fiber hemp from smokable hemp don't have my sympathy. Their problem could be easily solved if the prohibition laws against smokable hemp were repealed, and that's what they should advocate.

The "it's not marijuana" crowd would be happy to have hemp plantations worked by chain-gangs of prisoners jailed for cannabis crimes. That's not progress.

In World War II, the government made a movie to encourage hemp cultivation for fiber for war needs. In one scene of "Hemp for Victory," the movie shows the permit needed for farmers to legally grow hemp. It reads: "Producer of marihuana." [Anslinger's favored spelling used an "h."]

Marihuana = hemp. It was always hemp that they intended to outlaw, "marihuana" was the pretext. To say now that hemp and marijuana are "not the same" is to misread history, to misunderstand botany, and to mislead the public in the needed effort to repeal cannabis prohibition entirely.

Incidentally, no matter how disoriented or even paranoid the author of this article became from eating too much hemp-laced brownie, he was not in danger of death from overdosing---you can't fatally o.d. on cannabis.
But you can, and people do, die directly from the effects of alcohol and some of the other substances he continues to use or abuse.

[maca]

Mr. Goldreyer: Agreement on the subject of hemp, but why the need for the last paragraph, in which you claim you used to smoke pot, then proceed to make it sound like LSD or something? You've never smoked pot or you'd know better. Just admit it and stop playing into the "Reefer Madness" myths.

[Listen2me]

what's the problem with my previous post? A couple of others have been posted since mine, which is held up---why? You post all kinds of trash from trolls on HuffPost---what's the matter with an informed albeit passionate response to the present topic? Young people, respect your elders.

[Hiphopcrates]

What is realy mind boggling is how the government has been able to suppress evidence that marajuana prevents Alzheimers Disease.

[dcpoff]

What about erosion?

[Fintoozler]

Honestly, with the amount of money that could be generated with more ganja-friendly policies (Make industrial hemp farming legal, legalize marijuana, make the legal age to purchase it 21, and give it a nice hefty tax), it would seem it only remains illegal because of an infuriatingly frustrating combination of irrational fear and shady, back-room dealings by those with the power to change policy. Oh, and did I mention...legalizing marijuana would make it so the "terrorists" couldn't profit from it anymore--only Uhmare'kuh.

[SamThornton]

Here in Nebraska, hemp is also known as ditch weed. It's now an extremely common natural cultivar which was planted widely up to and including WWII.

Each Fall calls out desperate weed-heads parked on country roads and harvesting the plant.

The State Patrol routinely interdicts the miscreants.

I've always suspected the weed contains some stupidity-inducing constituent far in excess of THC.

Have to leave now. Going to the store for nutmeg.

[hellinabucket]

I say we all become a new age "Johnny Appleseed" but instead of appleseeds......

[vietveter]

I grew up in Iowa. After returning from V N in 1966 a (friend?) gave me some ditch weed to smoke. I did not get High in V N and wanted to find out what the big deal was. Needless to say the only thing I got was some throat lozenges. Trust me, hemp is just hemp.

[StevanHauck]

They lied for so many years trying to convince everyone the lie was the truth. They can't tell the truth now for a "Loss of credability."

Now doesn't that make a person wonder. Maybe thats why, once a lier always a lier.

[RickO]

Don't forget, anyone with a valid ID can walk into almost any store and for the price of a pack of cigarettes, purchase enough of a legal drug, mass-marketed specifically for its mind altering properties, and kill a family of 4 in an on-coming SUV and have no recollection of it in the morning. The same judge who gives you a prison sentence for having a roach in your ashtray probably stops on his way home to purchase himself a quantity of this legal substance suitable for a good wife-beating evening followed by a nap in a puddle of vomit.

The disingenuousness of the marijuana laws are dumbfounding.