Pubdate: 21 June 1999
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Copyright: 1999 Lexington Herald-Leader
Contact:  606-255-7236
Website: http://www.kentuckyconnect.com/heraldleader/
Forum: http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?lexingtn
Author: Donna C. Lee
Note: Donna C. Lee is founder of the Cannabis Freedom Coalition in San
Diego, California.

DON'T TRY TO SEPARATE HEMP AND MARIJUANA

Kentucky Hemp Beer president Mike Hart and Joe Hickey, executive director
of the Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperatives are nothing but hypocrites. Their
condemnation of “marijuana” is absolutely absurd; marijuana is hemp.

The term marijuana was only introduced into our language as a means to the
end of ridding this country's economy of hemp. William Randolph Hearst
coined the term back in the 1930s as part of his yellow journalism tactics
to get rid of hemp as a viable source of paper, which threatened his
millions of dollars of timberland. He and others created the scare
surrounding hemp, thus causing the federal government to ban its growth. No
one in the hemp industry, growers or manufacturers, took a stand against
this propaganda at that time so laws were enacted that have banned the
plant in this country for more than 60 years.

Now, all of a sudden, as Hart, Hickey and others see what the marijuana
movement has accomplished in changing drug policy and the increasing
acceptance of hemp’s benefits, they want to alienate themselves from the
entire movement. The growing acceptance worldwide of industrial hemp has
only come about because of organizations like NORML, which fought for all
uses of the plant. Hemp is marijuana and vice versa, and the sooner you
wake up to this fact and stop trying to develop “us and them” factions, the
sooner we can get this entire “ban” on the plant repealed. Hart and Hickey
apparently think that adamantly coming out against “marijuana” will give
them a one up in the marketplace for their product, but it won’t. All they
will succeed in doing is weakening the entire cause, playing right into the
hands of federal legislators who will maintain the ban forever. Just think
what this will do to your profits -- and to our planet.

If Hart and Hickey are so concerned with separating themselves from any
references to marijuana hemp, then why call their product Kentucky Hemp
Beer? They named it so as to capitalize on the growing acceptance of
marijuana in the hopes that people would buy. They are hypocrites, and
their hypocrisy will spell doom to the entire movement to re-legalize hemp. 

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