Pubdate: Sun, 20 Sep 1998
Source: MSNBC WTVJ-Miami FL
Contact:  http://www.msnbc.com/local/WTVJ/

HEMP HAPPENING IN COCONUT GROVE

Sunday, September 20 - Although marijuana is legal in some states - at
least for medical purposes - it is not legal in Florida.

That means it's parent plant, hemp, can not be grown here either. But
Saturday statewide groups were in Coconut Grove pushing for the use of
pot in specific ways.

Hemp can be used for many things besides smoking. You can use it to
make clothes, paper and even automobile oil. But since its most famous
produce is marijuana, hemp advocates get little respect.

Kevin Aplin, of the Cannabis Action Network, explains that hemp can
grow in 120 days and uses no chemicals to process the fiber. So, we
think it's an environmentally responsible way of erasing our paper and
textile needs in this state.

But the government, our politicians, are entrenched against it. So,
statewide groups have started a petition to legalize hemp and
medicinal marijuana.

Pot is Elvy Musikka's panacea. She was one of the first Americans
legally allowed to smoke joints - in her case, to keep the glaucoma
that's blinded her right eye from stealing her sight from the left
eye. Musikka says that smoking pot isn't just medicine...it's the
most efficient, the most reliable and the safest part of our
treatment.

Just last week an overwhelming majority of legislators in the U.S.
Congress voted against marijuana as medicine on the grounds that it's
addictive, and dangerous.

To Elvy Musikka this is ignorance. This s stupidity to maintain
these laws. For her, legalizing pot use has become a personal
crusade: Marijuana, I thank God for its every day of my life.

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Checked-by: Patrick Henry