Tuesday, January 8, 2013

It’s Like the Pot Chamber of Commerce….

Hemp grower "inspects" the product.
(c) 2013 by Tom King
Okay, I just don't get it. I have got so many people who have my email or are friends on Facebook, Linked-In and other places that keep sending me stuff about what a great plant cannabis is and 1000 reasons it should be legal…….and how it could restore our faltering economy, cure mental diseases, heart conditions, liver ailments and hemorrhoids not to mention solve the housing crisis, end hunger and bring on world peace. Oddly enough most of these guys used to send me stuff about how I just had to vote for Ron Paul in the last election.
What I don’t get is why these dear people are so worried about why I don’t support the legalization of marijuana.  What’s their interest in promoting marijuana agriculture?  Are these guys frustrated Ag school graduates with degrees in agriculture who can’t make a living farming soybeans and corn and who envision starting a commercial pot farm and making a ton of money?  They tell me legalizing hemp would end the economic crisis almost overnight.
Let me see if I’ve got this right.  Marijuana (or hemp – that seems to be the term they prefer in this context) is capable of being used for all sorts of wonderful products like:
1.      Rope
2.      Paper
3.      Textiles
4.      Engine grease
5.      Building materials
6.      Paints resins and shellac
7.      Cures mental illness, heart disease, ringworm, gout, pleurisy and hemorrhoids
8.      Fuel for cars
9.      High fiber food products
10.   And 25,000 other products
Industrial hemp is bred for oil and fiber content, unlike marijuana which is bred for high THC content, so industrial hemp won’t make you high unless you smoke six joints or so or refine the THC out of the industrial hemp and concentrate it which, who’s going to do that since hemp is so useful for other things.
So what I want to know is why all these people are promoting the legalization of industrial hemp. They assure me it has nothing to do with its smoke-ability or that it is virtually identical to the kind that makes you high so that you can’t tell a few pot plants from the hemp ones if you salted the high THC variety around the industrial hemp fields.  Besides, pot, they tell me, isn’t a hallucinogen and doesn’t impair your ability to drive, work at your job or get your butt off your Mom’s sofa and find a job.  The police and all those government scientists are just making that stuff up because they are protecting the evil corporations.
So these guys, many of whom who used to be serious slackers back when we went to school together, have, for the good of society and our economy, decided to devote their free time (when they are not drinking Red Bull and playing Nintendo or Xbox) to community economic development by sending out links to youtube videos about what a great thing it would be if we could grow lots and lots of hemp and even better if we could grow regular pot because psychology is wrong about what causes mental illness and if we'd just legalize pot and we could put evil Big Pharma out of business.
What unselfish civic-minded citizens they all are.  Really.  Like a little Pot Chamber of Commerce.
I know!  I could grow a couple of hundred plants in my backyard and make all the rope I need! 
How cool would that be?
Tom

2 comments:

Unknown said...

how to grow cannabisin indoor. But cannabis growing is illegal in some countries but I think It should not be illegal in those countries because If their are any negative points by growing this then on the other hand there are also some positive points.

Anonymous said...

Rather than focusing on why many believe it should be legal perhaps you could spend some time explaining why it is illegal in the first place? Why our government has devoted so much time, money and resources on a losing proposition such as prohibition? What good has come from prohibition? You see for me it isn't JUST the fact that cannabis in all it's forms is useful but the fact that it IS and those that use it anyway are considered criminals. Do yourself a favor and research the how and why of cannabis prohibition. You will find out what the rest of us already know, marijuana prohibition never had anything to do with public safety, there was no scientific reason behind it. It comes back to corporate lobbyists and racism, nothing more. Maybe you could do a piece on how much good prohibition has done. I would love to see it.