Federal: Lawmakers to Vote on Industrial Hemp Amendment to Farm Bill

[Vicki]

Federal: Lawmakers to Vote on Industrial Hemp Amendment to Farm Bill

http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51046//p/dia/action3/common/public/index.sjs?action_KEY=9865

Senator Ron Wyden has introduced an amendment to Senate Bill 3240, the Senate version of this year's federal farm bill, that requires the federal government to respect state laws allowing the cultivation of industrial hemp. Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa that contains only trace (less than one percent) amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis.

The amendment language mimics the "Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013," which remains pending as stand-alone legislation in both the House and Senate but has yet to receive a legislative hearing. Senator Wyden’s provision to the Senate's Farm Bill amends the Controlled Substances Act to exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana. The measure grants state legislatures the authority to license and regulate the commercial production of hemp as an industrial and agricultural commodity.

"For me, what's important is that people see, particularly in our state, there's someone buying it at Costco in Oregon," Senator Wyden previously stated in support of this Act, "I adopted what I think is a modest position, which is if you can buy it at a store in Oregon, our farmers ought to be able to make some money growing it."

Eight states – Colorado, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia – have enacted statutory changes defining industrial hemp as distinct agricultural product and allowing for its regulated commercial production. Passage of this amendment would remove existing federal barriers and allow these states and others the authority to do so without running afoul of federal anti-drug laws.

Senator Wyden's amendment is co-sponsored by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has also expressed his support for this proposal.

According to a Congressional Research Service report, "The United States is the only developed nation in which industrial hemp is not an established crop."

To contact your Senator in support of industrial hemp, please use the pre-written letter below.

In order to address your message to the appropriate recipient, we need to identify where you are.
Please look up and use your full nine-digit zip for the best results.

 

[max]

"The United States is the only developed nation in which industrial hemp is not an established crop."

Banning hemp crops is one of the dumbest things the feds have ever done. It'll be interesting to see if the stupidity continues.

"In January, however, Leahy sent a strongly worded letter to the DEA asking why it had not been granting permits in recent years to hemp producers, and citing increased state support for domestically grown hemp. The DEA, in its reply, pointedly refused to refer to the plant as hemp, preferring cannabis or marijuana instead."

Why not call it cocaine or heroin? That's just as accurate.

 

[bassvape]

Banning hemp crops is one of the dumbest things the feds have ever done. It'll be interesting to see if the stupidity continues.

"In January, however, Leahy sent a strongly worded letter to the DEA asking why it had not been granting permits in recent years to hemp producers, and citing increased state support for domestically grown hemp. The DEA, in its reply, pointedly refused to refer to the plant as hemp, preferring cannabis or marijuana instead."

Why not call it cocaine or heroin? That's just as accurate.

Like anything else the government's message is all about presentation.

Hash= drug
Oxy contin= medication


Semi automatic rifle owned by a citizen= assault rifle
Fully automatic rifle owned by the government= personal defense weapon.

 

[Vaponly]

Like anything else the government's message is all about presentation.

I think the biggest factor in the governments ability to limit our rights is a complicit media that is all to willing to help sell seemingly "common sense" proposals via sensationalistic headlines to a fearful public that lacks any critical thinking skills.

Keep asking for a reasonable inch and before you know it you will have an unreasonable mile.

 

[bassvape]

There are several other key factors.

1. no term limits on congress

2. when congress voted on a new bill, it's usually over 1000 pages, those who we elect to vote on them don't read them, and more often than not they contain new laws that are unrelated to the title and general concept of the bill.

3. People don't care when it's their side doing the power grab ( this has been really clear in the last few years)

4. People don't pay attention, they vote on sound bites, and they won't spend an hour a day learning about what happened around them in the world. Hardly anyone in my generation pays attention to current events, sadly most of them consider the daily show a reliable unbiased source of information.

 

[goatgobaahh]

Dear god

This is the only place in the world where the majority of posters have the SAME EXACT point of view as I do. (with vapes, and real life)

I think its because most members on this forum have a brain!! I'm very proud to be a FC member. Every post in this thread I agree whole-heartedly with.

I wont even discuss these issues anymore unless I discuss them with VERY CLOSE friends.

Basically I have come to realize things aren't going to get better. No matter the amount of people that have brains and CAN think for themselves (like us FCers). This country was founded on the principal that the minority will always be protected and be allowed to voice their opinions on the same stage(i.e. the media) as the majority. Instead we have folks who just read headlines, have a microwave mentality (instant this! automatic that!) and are always "outraged" or "offended". God forbid you challenge people to THINK for THEMSELVES!!

People cant even act neighborly anymore. (which would solve MOST social issues)

I plan on leaving the country...just after im done making as much money as I can here and seeing some of the beautiful geography America has to offer. I would stay because I love my country, but we have reached the point of no return.

Unless rebellion (violent or peaceful) takes place. And the people decide that they will no longer tolerate the government intruding on people's everyday lives; or the majority pulls their heads out of their asses opens their eyes and realizes our lives are nothing more than glorified indentured servitude.

This bill wont pass because Rand Paul is involved. The media machine will slap his name all over it and no one will want to vote for it. Even if it does pass this still has no real effect on our culture.

Wars are won by series of small victories, so if this does pass. I hope its a step towards legalization.

 

[Vaponly]

There are several other key factors.

1. no term limits on congress

2. when congress voted on a new bill, it's usually over 1000 pages, those who we elect to vote on them don't read them, and more often than not they contain new laws that are unrelated to the title and general concept of the bill.

3. People don't care when it's their side doing the power grab ( this has been really clear in the last few years)

4. People don't pay attention, they vote on sound bites, and they won't spend an hour a day learning about what happened around them in the world. Hardly anyone in my generation pays attention to current events, sadly most of them consider the daily show a reliable unbiased source of information.

I could not agree more...

3. People don't care when it's their side doing the power grab ( this has been really clear in the last few years)

This is the part that saddens me the most and has somewhat soured me on counter-culture in general. It has put a strain on my relationship with several long-time friends.

 

[clouded vision]

http://norml.org/news/2006/09/07/98...-eradicated-marijuana-is-ditchweed-dea-admits
This has been posted here before but this is why the DEA is vehemently opposed to this measure. All of a sudden they go from 223 million eradicated plants to 4 million

 

[Vicki]

http://norml.org/news/2006/09/07/98...-eradicated-marijuana-is-ditchweed-dea-admits
This has been posted here before but this is why the DEA is vehemently opposed to this measure. All of a sudden they go from 223 million eradicated plants to 4 million

That's actually a different article.

 

[bassvape]

Wars are won by series of small victories, so if this does pass. I hope its a step towards legalization.

I can foresee the trend of states voting to legalize, but I wouldn't count on the fed doing so. They have way, way to much to gain in the use of dollars to ever consider legalizing it, If they ever do, look out because you can be damn sure there is some slight of hand tricks going on ( like what happened in Co.).

 

[clouded vision]

That's actually a different article.

yes I know I was referring to max's post about the DEA's response

 

[bassvape]

This is the part that saddens me the most and has somewhat soured me on counter-culture in general. It has put a strain on my relationship with several long-time friends.

It's really bad with the youth. I love how the longest time frame they talk is about 10 years, so many will claim they never saw it coming

 

[t-dub]

If the weaponization of the IRS isn't enough to frighten you, how about the fact that come January they will be in charge of your health care. What happens if you disagree with the government now? Oh, you need a kidney . . . sorry. Even if it is sorted out 3 years later, you are already dead.

 

[bassvape]

If the weaponization of the IRS isn't enough to frighten you, how about the fact that come January they will be in charge of your health care. What happens if you disagree with the government now? Oh, you need a kidney . . . sorry. Even if it is sorted out 3 years later, you are already dead.

People are going to look back on the corporate healthcare days as the "good old days" of healthcare in this country.

 

[Vicki]

yes I know I was referring to max's post about the DEA's response

I misunderstood, my apologies.

 

[t-dub]

People are going to look back on the corporate healthcare days as the "good old days" of healthcare in this country.

Most people do not even realize that the government created this problem in the first place. The only reason companies started offering "benefits" is because the government hiked the income tax rate to 94% during WWII.

 

[Vaponly]

It's really bad with the youth. I love how the longest time frame they talk is about 10 years, so many will claim they never saw it coming

Too true, nowadays they go out and protest FOR more government involvement in their lives.
More laws will set us free.

If the weaponization of the IRS isn't enough to frighten you, how about the fact that come January they will be in charge of your health care. What happens if you disagree with the government now? Oh, you need a kidney . . . sorry. Even if it is sorted out 3 years later, you are already dead.

Yup, the same people that run the DMV will now be in charge of our healthcare...
Don't worry though! They will provide affordable end of life care just to show they care.

People are going to look back on the corporate healthcare days as the "good old days" of healthcare in this country.

Well the ones paying the higher premiums for less care will anyway. I'm sure the media will smooth things over with most folks using op ed pieces outlining all the positive aspects of the legislation while demonizing the opposition.

Most people do not even realize that the government created this problem in the first place. The only reason companies started offering "benefits" is because the government hiked the income tax rate to 94% during WWII.

Why would they. Doing your own research and learning to think objectively is hard work! So much easier to be spoon fed propaganda with a nice and easy to digest Hollywood "documentary".

Why for the low low price of a theater ticket you too can be armed with lots of great talking points and convenient scapegoats that will enable you to dazzle everyone at your office/campus/friends party with your profound knowledge and deep insight of all things political.

 

[Gunky]

Some of you go a bit far for me. I am very much looking forward to the health care law going fully into effect. Have you ever tried to buy health insurance on your own after your COBRA coverage expired? Next year I may actually be able to get health insurance again.

Some of you need to get out a little more and don't just read right wing conspiracy claptrap. This new health law, far from being exotic or socialist is based upon a system pioneered in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney. It tries to rein in a for-profit healthcare industry which has been raping our country for some time and is starting to have very serious deleterious effects on the competitiveness of our economy on the world stage, not to mention the health of our people. It's easy for our competitors to beat us if our healthcare system costs double but doesn't cover everyone. A single-payer system would have been better, but we got what was possible given the fact that a lot of politicians are owned by the healthcare industry.

 

[goatgobaahh]

Some of you need to get out a little more and don't just read right wing conspiracy claptrap.

I'm glad your going to finally get coverage!!! Being without healthcare blows!

However

This post doesn't encourage a rational discussion.

Excuse me but who are YOU to tell ME I need to get out a little more?

I could go on and say "This is the problem with the left side. They feel the inherit need to tell others what to do from their high horses. Not only do they feel the need to, but they also think its perfectly fine to so".

But im not going to do that.

People opinions are usually formed over a long period of time based of THEIR life experience. If we as people are participating in this thread's discussion I imagine respecting people's ENTIRE LIVES and the opinions they have formed during that time would promote the FC culture AND rational discussion.

PS: AKA Being polite.
Just my

 

[Gunky]

I'm glad your going to finally get coverage!!! Being without healthcare blows!

However

This post doesn't encourage a rational discussion.

Excuse me but who are YOU to tell ME I need to get out a little more?

I could go on and say "This is the problem with the left side. They feel the inherit need to tell others what to do from their high horses. Not only do they feel the need to, but they also think its perfectly fine to so".

But im not going to do that.

People opinions are usually formed over a long period of time based of THEIR life experience. If we as people are participating in this thread's discussion I imagine respecting people's ENTIRE LIVES and the opinions they have formed during that time would promote the FC culture AND rational discussion.

PS: AKA Being polite.
Just my

Wait a minute. You just got on your big fat high horse and ranted a lot of right wing claptrap about government 'takeover' of health care. Did you listen to what I just said? The health care situation in this country is dire for a lot of people. I'm one of them. Seriously fucked up to the point where people die quite unnecessarily. This new law is going to take some major steps in the right direction. I am here to testify how right that direction is. I may actually get access to affordable health care. This is the real thing, here, buddy, life and death important. You seem to think you have a right to make your ignorant rant but anybody says anything different is some kinda communist. Like I said, you need to get out a little bit.

 

[goatgobaahh]

Wait a minute. You just got on your big fat high horse and ranted a lot of right wing claptrap about government 'takeover' of health care. Did you listen to what I just said? The health care situation in this country is dire for a lot of people. I'm one of them. Seriously fucked up to the point where people die quite unnecessarily. This new law is going to take some major steps in the right direction. I am here to testify how right that direction is. I may actually get access to affordable health care. This is the real thing, here, buddy, life and death important. You seem to think you have a right to make your ignorant rant but anybody says anything different is some kinda communist. Like I said, you need to get out a little bit.

My friend,

I think you have either misread my posts or think I'm someone else. If you look back in this thread and look at MY posts (or every post I made). I haven't mentioned the word "health care" or made any reference towards ANYTHING health care related AT ALL. (even up to my first post in this thread healthcare wasn't even mentioned.)

For a simple reason. I dont know enough about the issue to talk about it. I dont talk about things I dont know about.

As for my personal experience with healthcare I just got my wisdom teeth taken out. Before that, I discovered I dont have dental insurance. Luckily for me all of my teeth were impacted which is covered under medical not dental. However, I was experiencing EXCRUCIATING pain to the point where I couldn't talk or even eat. I cant imagine going a day longer than I did without having them removed. I do know that if my health insurance didn't cover it that is exactly what I would've had to do. And it would've cost me an arm and a leg (and my happiness too). Personally do I think I would've been ok with that? Hell no!! I would've been very upset and in ALOT of pain. Do I think people should be upset and in excruciating pain? No because I dont think thats right.

However, I haven't read the healthcare bill; that has already been approved. So personally I haven't formed an opinion on it. I cant say I disagree with you (because I never said that) and mainly because I dont know enough about the issue to form an opinion.

I hope we can get back on topic and have a better understand of where we are coming from, for a more informative thread.

 

[Gunky]

My friend,

I think you have either misread my posts or think I'm someone else. If you look back in this thread and look at MY posts (or every post I made). I haven't mentioned the word "health care" or made any reference towards ANYTHING health care related AT ALL. (even up to my first post in this thread healthcare wasn't even mentioned.)

For a simple reason. I dont know enough about the issue to talk about it. I dont talk about things I dont know about.

As for my personal experience with healthcare I just got my wisdom teeth taken out. Before that, I discovered I dont have dental insurance. Luckily for me all of my teeth were impacted which is covered under medical not dental. However, I was experiencing EXCRUCIATING pain to the point where I couldn't talk or even eat. I cant imagine going a day longer than I did without having them removed. I do know that if my health insurance didn't cover it that is exactly what I would've had to do. And it would've cost me an arm and a leg (and my happiness too). Personally do I think I would've been ok with that? Hell no!! I would've been very upset and in ALOT of pain. Do I think people should be upset and in excruciating pain? No because I dont think thats right.

However, I haven't read the healthcare bill; that has already been approved. So personally I haven't formed an opinion on it. I cant say I disagree with you (because I never said that) and mainly because I dont know enough about the issue to form an opinion.

I hope we can get back on topic and have a better understand of where we are coming from, for a more informative thread.

Well, you read the following post and liked it, so unless your finger slipped yeah, you are one of these folks parroting crap from right wing radio and tv, which by the way is sponsored by rich people who have an interest in keeping things the way they are, no matter how dysfunctional and even disastrous.

If the weaponization of the IRS isn't enough to frighten you, how about the fact that come January they will be in charge of your health care. What happens if you disagree with the government now? Oh, you need a kidney . . . sorry. Even if it is sorted out 3 years later, you are already dead.

 

[Frederick McGuire]

So...
About that hemp bill...

I'm not entirely up on my hemp facts, but isn't it essentially a 0% (or as low % as is practical) THC strain?

Don't get me wrong, MJ is supposed to be illegal since its a "drug", and hemp doesn't have that "drug" part In it, but I can see the stupid logic behind the govt only referring to it as cannabis or marijuana.

Why not call it cocaine or heroin? That's just as accurate.

Well, hemp isn't coke or heroin, but it is marijuana, no?

Like, if "beer" was banned, and then everyone started calling non-alcoholic beer "swizzle swash", and getting pissed off that the govt wouldn't legalize swizzle swash...
From their (utterly retarded) point of view, beer is beer...

Or is hemp more distant from MJ than I'm thinking?

Perhaps the healthcare discussions can go into their own dedicated thread?

 

[Gunky]

Sorry for the digression. There are moments when I find it hard to let pass all this extremism and talk of 'rebellion' (which was still treason, by the way, last time I checked). To goatgobaah guy: I applaud your decision to leave the country.

On the hemp/marijuana thing, they are the same species, just different varieties, and will interbreed if allowed to.

 

[bassvape]

Well, you read the following post and liked it, so unless your finger slipped yeah, you are one of these folks parroting crap from right wing radio and tv, which by the way is sponsored by rich people who have an interest in keeping things the way they are, no matter how dysfunctional and even disastrous.

If you don't think the democrats are also a party of the rich or well connected you are either misinformed or lying to yourself.

Sorry for the digression. There are moments when I find it hard to let pass all this extremism and talk of 'rebellion' (which was still treason, by the way, last time I checked). To goatgobaah guy: I applaud your decision to leave the country.

early in this decade I saw many people speaking out against the government and the action it was taking. Those people have no said a word in the last 5 years when the team they supported is doing the same things they disapproved of just a few years prior.



Sure you may be able to purchase "affordable" insurance next year but that does not necessarily mean you'll see any kind of respectable quality care. Many young people are going to realize that they have been duped into this healthcare idea. The main reason being is that this power grab by the government is going to do nothing about decreasing the costs of administering healthcare, all this bill does is shift who will pay for it. Young people are going to be shouldering the cost of healthcare for the baby boomers in a way they could never have possibly imagined.

Just this week, there was a new story about a little girl that needed a lung transplant. People close to her got her story out and a federal judge ordered her to be advanced up the list of people in line for an organ transplant, even though those people had waited longer than her. Kathleen Sebelius, who oversaw the IRS amid their blatant abuse of power for political gain now is in charge of administering government healthcare. When she was asked how does the organization decide to move someone up the list for a transplant she was quoted as saying " someone lives and someone dies". To think that since the government is taking over the entire healthcare industry that things will be hunky dory now is laughable.