Pubdate: Mon,  3 Dec 2001
Source: Athens News, The (OH)
Copyright: 2001, Athens News
Contact:  http://www.athensnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1603
Author: Ivars Balkits
Cited: www.votehemp.com
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hemp.htm (Hemp)

QUERY YOUR LAWMAKERS ABOUT WHY DEA IS OUTLAWING HEMP FOOD

Hemp food is about to be outlawed. Did you know that? Did your newspaper 
carry the story? Did you learn about it on the web, as I did at 
www.votehemp.com/action.html?

The DEA on Oct. 9 passed a ruling that had no public input, was not 
disseminated widely, and had no congressional oversight. If Congress had 
had oversight, my representatives would have voted the ruling out of 
existence because it's apparent to any rational being that hemp as a food 
causes no one damage.

It may be about to be outlawed because... who knows? The DEA doesn't 
explain itself in this instance (or in this existence), but you have only 
until Dec.10 to let the DEA know that you don't approve. (Go to the website.)

Though hemp has small amounts of THC, it is in so minute a concentration 
you couldn't fail a urine test even if you ingested it every day in amounts 
that would bust a gut vessel. But they're outlawing it. Why?

Possibly because it competes with products on the market: hemp oil as fuel 
or body lotion, hempseed in bread and as medicine, etc. Or is it because 
law agencies, such as the DEA, which are subsidized by forfeiture, would 
stand to gain? Is there any defensible argument for this "transgression" 
(to use a word that's been floating around town lately) against Reason?

Well, you now have the website address. Get informed. Let your U.S. 
representatives and senators and the DEA know you know about this ruling. 
Ask them, as it was asked of Joe McCarthy in 1954 by attorney Joseph Welch, 
"At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Ivars Balkits

Glouster
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