Hemp Oil - The Natural Cure-All

[bigrebnc1775]

Discuss.

 

[The Infidel]

 

[waltky]

DEA fights hemp growing efforts in Kentucky...

Hemp in Kentucky Creates Latest Drug War Battleground
May 27, 2014 — Two brothers in Kentucky, both military veterans, are fighting to grow industrial hemp in the country they served. But Mike Lewis, 40, who in December 2012 founded Growing Warriors, an agricultural non-profit for vets, and Fred-Curtis Lewis, 36, are facing opposition from an adversary they're not trained to fight: the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

They do have momentum behind them: even in conservative Rockcastle County, where the predominantly Southern Baptist electorate has outlawed the sale of alcohol, locals and their representatives want to revive the economy by bringing grass to the Bluegrass State. The hemp provision of the Farm Bill passed by Congress in February – co-authored by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and endorsed by the state's Republican Senators Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell – permits colleges, universities and state agriculture agencies to grow and experiment on industrial hemp in Kentucky and 13 other states. But on May 13, the DEA obstructed Kentucky's hemp research program by putting a hold on 250 pounds of legal industrial hemp seed imported from Italy once it arrived at a UPS facility in Louisville International Airport. The DEA told the Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA) it would have to apply for a seed import license. The KDA, in turn, filed a lawsuit the next day to stop the DEA's seizure.

That snafu put a damper on plans here for Friday, May 16, when Growing Warriors in conjunction with Vote Hemp, the national advocacy group for re-commercializing industrial hemp, had organized a planting of the crop at Wilson Farm. The organizations intended to use the certified industrial hemp seed provided by the KDA as part of a research and development program with Kentucky State University – marking the crop's momentous return to Kentucky after decades of federal prohibition. To add a patriotic flourish, given that the first American flags are said to have been made of hemp, Growing Warriors has plans to produce a run of Old Glory from its breed of industrial hemp.

Mike Lewis of Growing Warriors described the DEA's actions as "a direct assault to the family farm" and said the government agency "needs to wake up." Eric Steenstra, president of Vote Hemp, called the intrusion a "fool's errand." Patrick Goggin, Vote Hemp's California legal counsel, said the DEA's grouping of industrial hemp and marijuana was like comparing "a St. Bernard and a Chihuahua." And yet, despite state authorization to grow hemp, federal agents can conduct these raids if the crops are outside the parameters of Section 7606 of the recent Farm Bill, because federal policy fails to distinguish oilseed and fiber varieties of cannabis (industrial hemp) from psychoactive varieties (marijuana). That makes importing even certified hemp seed difficult, despite the fact that industrial hemp has only a modest amount of the psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) found in marijuana.

The Department of Justice, which is handling industrial hemp inquiries for the DEA, believes the DEA acted properly. "The issue at hand has been the importation of hemp seeds which the law/Farm Bill as written does not explicitly authorize," Ellen Canale, DOJ public affairs specialist, told MainStreet in an email. "The DEA has been in constant communication with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture and has worked with the state at every step so the state could lawfully obtain the seeds." In a meeting on May 15 with DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, Sen. McConnell lashed out. "I again expressed my frustration that the DEA is using its finite resources to stymie plainly lawful hemp pilot projects," he said. Instead of an inaugural industrial hemp seed planting at Wilson Farm that Friday, the veterans who gathered for Growing Warriors ceremonially planted toasted hemp seed, a snack food product.

Homegrown By Heroes

 

[Katzndogz]

No one can get high on industrial hemp. It's THC levels are too low. The only reason why industrial hemp was banned was because it looks just like recreational marijuana. There's no reason why we can't grow industrial hemp with the same kind of testing and controls that we use for any other kind of factory farming.

 

[Political Junky]

Hemp was a profitable crop in the days of our country's founding, used for all kinds of good things ..paper, rope, fabric.

 

[whitehall]

Hemp was a profitable crop in the days of our country's founding, used for all kinds of good things ..paper, rope, fabric.

True enough but in case you have been in a coma for a hundred and fifty years we don't pound pulp to make paper or twist rope out of natural fibers. We all know what the issue is about and it ain't about making shirts out of plant fiber.

 

[DriftingSand]

Hemp was a profitable crop in the days of our country's founding, used for all kinds of good things ..paper, rope, fabric.

... rollin', smokin', partyin', etc. Only now it's called "bud."

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right (puff) it's good fer what ails ya...

Growing Hemp in the Bluegrass State to Treat PTSD
May 29, 2014 — Sonia Kendrick was just 25 in 2003 when she went on an eight-month military tour of Afghanistan, but her Post Traumatic Stress Disorder didn't hit until four years after her return, a delayed onset of panic attacks and insomnia.

"I thought that I could just come off the battlefield, re-enter public life and be fine," she said. "But the reality of it is, I'm not ever going to be able to enter into the public forum." She had two children with her husband shortly following her return, but after 15 years, her marriage couldn't withstand the toll the war had taken on her as she struggled with alcoholism and PTSD. Farming, and hemp cultivation in particular, may provide solace. Earlier in May, the 37-year-old, who runs an agricultural organization called Feed Iowa First and serves as an advocate for the expansion of industrial hemp, attended a pro-hemp event in Mt. Vernon, Ky., put on by Vote Hemp and Growing Warriors, an agricultural organization for veterans. "This hemp is no new crop -- our Founding Fathers grew this stuff," she said. "I think that as a veteran with the education that I have been allowed to receive that I have a responsibility to my community to try to change the paradigm."

Hemp advocacy and this therapeutic bent to agriculture both come to a head in Healing Grounds, an organization started this year by Fred-Curtis Lewis, a 36-year-old vet whose brother, Mike, founded Growing warriors in 2012. Lewis was shot in the helmet in Afghanistan in 2008 while serving as a Special Forces medical sergeant, but he believes CBD, the cannabidiol found in both marijuana and industrial hemp, can help with his own PTSD. He discovered the power of cannabis while in Washington state, where medical marijuana is legal. "My VA doc said, 'You're having migraines, you're having seizures, you've got PTSD—you've got pain, you need to smoke marijuana,'" said Lewis. "And the first time I had a migraine, I smoked – the migraine was gone...That day I decided legal or not, I'm going to do it, because it makes me part of society again... whereas before I was shoving a needle in my leg full of medicine to make me sleep."

Lewis started Healing Grounds to take away veterans' pain through the therapeutic act farming, but he also endeavors to treat them with what's grown – whether nutritious vegetables or medicinal applications of hemp. He's found that his desire help vets on the farm dovetails with his medic role in the military, where he was affectionately called the "team mom." His crusade arrives at an opportune time: the first federal study on marijuana's efficacy in treating PTSD got approval in March from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and has progressed to the next level – consideration of approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The FDA green-lighted the study proposal from the University of Arizona last year, but progress was stifled by lack of access to the only federally legal marijuana source in the continental U.S.– a grow farm at the University of Mississippi. About one-fifth of veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, like Kendrick and Lewis, are thought to be affected by PTSD, and more than 7.7 million Americans currently suffer the burdensome condition that lacks fully effective relief. Cannabinoids can reduce anxiety and depression, and the medicinal effect of CBD could be accessed from industrial hemp, which - because of the Farm Bill passed by Congress in February - can be grown by colleges, universities and state agriculture agencies in Kentucky and 13 other states.

Herban Renewal