This commonsense crop should become
commonplace in the United States again.
Four
years ago, Michelle Obama picked up a shovel to make a powerful symbolic
statement about America’s food and farm future: She turned a patch of White
House lawn into a working organic garden.
I’m
guessing that now, as she begins another four years in the people’s mansion,
the First Lady is asking herself: “What’s next? What can I do this time around
to plant a crop of common sense in our country’s political soil that will link
America’s farmers, consumers, environment, and grassroots economy into one big
harvest of common good?”
Yes,
hemp is a distant cousin of marijuana. But the industrial variety of cannabis
lacks pot’s psychoactive punch. Industrial hemp won’t make anyone high, but it
certainly can make us happy — because it would deliver a new economic and
environmental high for America.
Our
nation is the world’s biggest consumer of hemp products (from rope to shampoo,
building materials to food), yet the mad masters of our insane and protracted
Drug War have lumped hemp and marijuana together as “Schedule 1 controlled
substances.” Our Land of the Free is the world’s only industrialized country
that bans farmers from growing this benign, profitable, job-creating, and
environmentally beneficial plant.
As
Michael Bowman, a Colorado farmer, so aptly asks: “Can we just stop being
stupid?” He’s one of the leaders of a national, bipartisan
movement to legalize hemp production. As one small step, he’s seeking 100,000 signatures on a White House
petition that simply asks
President Barack Obama to honor the legalization of industrial hemp as a states
rights issue, and to end its classification as a controlled substance.
To sign,
go to this website: petitions.whitehouse.gov.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio
commentator, writer, and public speaker. He's also editor of the populist
newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org
