HEMP-A-NOMICS
Inyo Supes relax hemp grow requirements
If Inyo County’s Supervisors’ meeting on Tuesday, December 4 proved anything, it is that cannabis sativa is a very versatile and useful plant.
Agriculture Commissioner Nate Reade, with an assist from Jeff Griffiths, First District Supervisor (who seems especially knowledgeable and well-informed on “The Weed”), coupled with public comments from hemp growers with the support of cannabis growers, gave a pretty good overview of the economics and cultivation techniques of growing hemp for making a large variety of products, including cannabidiol (CBD) ,compared to the profitability of cannabis grown for recreational and medical use with high concentrations of tetrahydrocannabinol
Turns out that the same plant, cannabis sativa, with modifications, can just as easily be used to make soap on a rope (available at Amazon.com and other fine retailers).
Hemp products, made from the cannabis plant, has been used throughout humankind’s history to make rope, sails and clothing. It is also used in making paper, food, and biofuel. And that’s just a partial list which also includes bird seed. Yes, bird seed. Now you know why some birds sing a lot more than others, especially in Europe where it has long been legal to have cannabis seeds in bird food.
Part of the problem in overcoming resistance to legalized cannabis has always been a misunderstanding, and, in some cases, outright falsehoods, surrounding its use.
What cannabis grown for hemp (which is the “woody” part of the plant, i.e., not the leaves or flowers) is not good for is getting “high.” Cannabis grown for hemp has very little of the active ingredient, THC, the stuff that gets users “high.” Hemp must have a content of less than .3 percent
Think of hemp as Near Beer, a malt beverage that doesn’t contain enough alcohol to be considered a true beer. It was created during the great failed social experiment known as Prohibition from 1920 to 1933 through the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which made the sale of alcohol illegal. It was believed that it would protect families, women and children from the effects of abuse of alcohol. Guess what? It didn’t work!
The lessons learned from Prohibition were completely ignored by our government in its policies toward cannabis, which Congress outlawed in 1937, just a few years before the start of World War II, a time when many Americans could well have used a little pot to tamp down the anxiety, hysteria and fear.
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