Hemp crop 5

FACTORS MINIMIZING ILLICIT DIVERSION

Low Drug Content. Authorities have long held that the greater the
industrial value of a hemp variety, the lower the drug content. (232)
When the first federal anti-marijuana law was proposed in 1937, "these
people in Minnesota did not know until 2 months ago that the hemp which
they grew there contained marihuana. Until this agitation came up they did
not dream of it." (233)

In the 1940's farmers allowed youths to work in fields of leafy,
growing cannabis hemp with no more concern than if the crop were soybeans
or corn.

As early as the 1940's, American research had isolated plant varieties
having one-eighth the amount of drug contained by other varieties, and had
further lowered the content by selective breeding. (234) Of industrial
hemp a USDA agronomist declared in 1944, "We hope anyway to get it
sufficiently low that a boy walking along the road beside a hemp field, if
he reached in and grabbed some leaves and dried them and smoked them, he
would get no effect from the drug." (235) Modern fiber plants from
Turkey, Hungary, Germany, and France contain tiny amounts of THC the
psychoactive marijuana drug. (236) Flowers are one of the most potent
sources of THC, but persons who experimentally smoked French industrial
hemp flowers report no drug effects. (237)

In France a low drug content in hemp crops is required by law.
Cannabis contains many chemicals. As a rule of thumb, the more
nonpsychoactive cannabidiol (CBD) in a cannabis variety, the more useful
it is for fiber crops. (238) The more delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol
(THC), the more useful the variety is for drug purposes. French scientists
also include the nonpsychoactive drug cannabinol (CBN) when measuring
drug content. A formula determines whether fiber crops meet low drug
standards required by French law:

X = % THC + % CBN
% CBD

If X is greater than 1, the cannabis is illegal marijuana. If X is less
than 1, the cannabis is legal hemp. In addition, under French law overall
content of THC cannot exceed 0.50% in hemp regardless of X value. (239)

The 3 drugs in the preceding formula are interrelated. As the growing
season progresses, CBD changes to THC, and THC changes to CBN. Enzymes
seem to control the change. Those enzymes are genetically inherent in any
particular variety of cannabis and cannot be changed by environment.
Although climate, cultivation, and harvest time can promote or retard
production of drug resin, cannabis varieties deficient in enzymes cannot
produce much THC. Industrial crops comprised of such varieties are
guaranteed to have low THC drug content. (240)

Wild marijuana in Missouri has descended from old industrial fiber
crops. The slang that smokers use to describe such wild marijuana ("ditch
weed" and "Missouri Mud") indicates the contempt in which it is held by
users, despite the great interest that law enforcement authorities show in
this variety of cannabis. (241) As in Missouri, wild marijuana in Kansas,
Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and Indiana has descended from old industrial
fiber crops. Scientists have measured the drug content of such plants.
(242) Scientists find the THC content of wild marijuana in Kansas to peak
at 0.06% in flowers, the most potent part of the plant. (243) That level
is far below the amount that French law specifies for fiber crops. THC
content of sample Indiana leaves is 0.10% to 0.50%. (244) Applying the
French formula (noted above) to wild marijuana descended from hemp crops
in Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois yields X values of less than 1.
(Insufficient data was available to compute Indiana value.)


[A graph follows}

A marijuana user has no interest in smoking seeds; they are discarded.
Legal restrictions on seeds relate to their possible use to grow plants,
not to drug content, which was found to be nil when the first federal
anti-marijuana law was passed, (245) a finding confirmed by subsequent
research. The hemp seed industry did not even realize that the law
affected it. An astonished spokesman for one company told Congress,
"Hempseed is a harmless ingredient used for many years in the seed trade.
They say that hemp and marihuana are one and the same thing, but it was not
until Monday that we knew they were." (246)

Climate. Drug resin is affected by climate. Hot dry regions of high
altitude promote drug production; temperate moist regions of lower altitude
retard it. (247) Missouri's climate would retard drug content in crops.

Cultivation. Cultivation techniques can promote or retard production
of drug resin. Techniques for industrial cultivation reduce the drug.
Fiber cultivation minimizes leaves and flowers, the parts of the plant used
in marijuana cigarettes. Stalks grow tall and spindly, and lower leaves
drop off as the growing season progresses. (248) Fallen leaves are
quickly ruined by weather. Field retting ruins any leaves that remain on
stalks. Seed cultivation promotes leaves and flowers, but apparently the
low drug content of commercial hemp deters persons who might otherwise be
inclined to strip plants. In France seed crops have barely any drug
content. At Congressional hearings in the 1930's and 1940's hemp industry
spokesmen could recall no instances of field stripping, and federal
officials knew of only one. (249) In 1991 an official in France (a
country about the size of Missouri) reported one or two field stripping
incidents occur per year. In such cases [ ] notifies law enforcement
and industry authorities. French authorities voice small concern about
field stripping, both because of its infrequency and because industrial
hemp has insignificant drug content. Thieves who seek marijuana from hemp
fields are described as "incompetent." (250)

The next two views illustrate field conditions at harvest time. Both
photographs show mature hemp fiber crops undergoing harvest. The first
photograph shows a Wisconsin harvest around 1920. Few leaves remain; most
dropped from stalks during the growing season and were ruined by weather.
The second photograph shows plants in a similar condition as harvest
progresses in France during 1980.

THE MACHINE THAT SAVED THE LIFE OF THE AMERICAN HEMP INDUSTRY

The competition of cheap foreign labor was putting our hemp raisers out of
business when the hemp harvester was devised in Wisconsin to take the place
of expensive hand-power methods.

Although wild cannabis is common and apparently comprises most of the
marijuana "confiscated" by Missouri law enforcement authorities,
cultivated hemp is unlikely to "escape" and produce more stands of wild
cannabis. Hemp is an annual plant, and to take root its seed requires
disturbed soil. Apparently this is why wild stands are typically found
along watercourses; the water flow disturbs the soil enough for seeds to
take root. For the same reason, wild stands rarely increase in size; they
soon fill the area where disturbed soil exists and can go no farther. Seed
dropped by birds is unlikely to take root where a wild stand doesn' t
already exist. (In contrast, seed in fecal deposits of large farm animals
such as cows may well take root; the size of deposit is large enough to
allow seedlings to grow until they are able to penetrate undisturbed soil.
Such isolated plants in a pasture are easy to spot and eradicate.) After 2
or 3 years on the ground wild seed no longer germinates. (251)

Harvest Time. Fiber harvest occurs when pollen shedding begins and
before seeds form. Authorities used to believe that such harvest preceded
the maximum development of drug content. Modern research finds the drug
content to peak when flowers first appear and then fluctuate and decline.
(252) Regardless of whether one accepts the traditional or modern view,
when industrial crops are harvested their already low drug content is
becoming even less significant. THC drug content of crops harvested for
seed should be no more significant than in crops harvested for fiber. When
crops are harvested, they are unlikely candidates for illicit diversion.
(This harvest time assumes crops are field retted. Water retted crops
might be harvested later, (253) but field retting has been almost
universal in the United States.)

Retting. "Heat, light, and especially air are the enemies of THC
[the psychoactive marijuana drug], and sophisticated users try to minimize
marijuana's contact with all three." (254) Any drug-containing resin
disappears from retted stalks. (255) This is one reason why "mature
stalks" are excluded from the legal definition of marijuana. (256)
Leaves and flowers are quickly ruined after dropping to the ground. The
few remaining on stalks are ruined by field retting. (257)

Manufacturing. "The paper manufacturer, when he gets the plant,
simply blows these leaves away. They disappear when dried. They are
gone." (258)

LAW

UNITED STATES---EVOLUTION OF PRESENT LAW

From a biological production agriculture standpoint, hemp and
marijuana come from the same plant, Cannabis sativa L. But, as will be
detailed below, the law distinguishes between hemp and marijuana, in order
to permit hemp commerce while forbidding marijuana commerce. For many
years the federal government maintained a registration system that promoted
hemp commerce even though marijuana was illegal. After hemp farming
disappeared in the 1950's, the federal government dismantled its system and
allowed each individual state to establish its own system if desired.
Missouri can establish a system to encourage hemp commerce while
suppressing marijuana, a system modeled on the successful federal one.

Recognizing hemp growing as a legitimate agricultural pursuit,
Congress exempted mature stalks from the original version of the first
federal law to regulate cannabis (H. R. 6385). The original bill,
however, defined seeds and oil as marijuana. The seed and oil seed
industries immediately objected. National Institute of Oilseed Products
spokesman Ralph F. Lozier ( a former judge and U. S. Congressman from
Carrollton, Missouri) protested, "No crusher, up to this good day, ever
knew or even dreamed or suspicioned that in crushed hemp seed, he was
dealing with a narcotic or habit forming commodity, nor is that now
evident." (259) He told a House committee, "Never until the last 3 weeks
was any suggestion made that they were handling a commodity that was
carrying a deleterious principle that was contributing to the delinquency
of the people of the United States." (260)

Lobbying by the seed and seed oil industries exempted those parts and
products of the cannabis plant from the legal definition of marihuana. H.
R. 6385 was replaced by H. R. 6906 which excluded "oil or cake made from
the seeds...., oil, or cake, or the sterilized seed of such plant which is
incapable of germination." Moreover, commerce in viable seed was legal if
persons involved paid a $ 24 annual registration fee and used the seed for
"manufacture of birdseed or for the manufacture of seed oil, seed cake, or
any compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of
such oil or cake." (261) No government order forms were required for such
seed sales. (262)

Clinton M. Hester, assistant general counsel of the Treasury
Department, who played a large role in drafting and passing the bill,
assured Congress that:

production and sale of hemp and its products for industrial purposes will
not be adversely affected by this bill....The hemp producer will pay a
small occupational tax [$ 5 a year] but his fiber products will be
entirely exempt from the provisions of this bill...
Similarly, the manufacturers of oil and the byproducts of seed, such as
hemp seed cake and meal, will pay an occupational tax, but their purchases
of seed and sales of such oil, cake, and meal will be entirely exempt from
the provisions of the bill except that purchases of such seed will be
subject to regulations designed to prevent diversion [for planting illicit
marihuana].
Manufacturers of birdseed will also pay an occupational tax, but...under
the definition of marihuana, the bill will not apply to their sales of
birdseed, if the hemp seed contained therein is sterilized so as to be
incapable of germination. (263)
Hester urged Congress to regulate trade in cannabis, not outlaw it
entirely. Otherwise:
you would put all of these legitimate industries out of business...We
have tried throughout this measure not to interfere materially with the
production...but to permit it. (264)
Federal Bureau of Narcotic Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger confirmed that
the proposed legislation bore no threat to hemp growers: "They are not
only amply protected under this act, but they can go ahead and raise hemp
just as they have always done it." (265) He pledged that a farmer need
not worry about government agents snooping around farm property. The
Bureau was "not going to supervise his crop. It would not be
possible....We would certainly know the sheep from the goats without any
close general supervision." (266)

Anslinger emphasized that the nominal tax to be paid by hemp growers
would simply be a means for the government to know who was raising hemp:
"It is just an information return. That is all we would be interested in."
(267) Hester agreed:
The farmer here will not even have to go to the Collector's office.
All he will have to do will be merely to mail in his $ 5....
When he wants to sell his crop of seeds all he will have to do....will
be to obtain some evidence from the person to whom he sells it, that that
person is entitled to the exemption.
That is the situation with respect to the seed....Of course the fiber
products are entirely out of the bill. (268)

Although substantial criminal penalties would apply to anyone who
raised commercial hemp without registering with the Treasury Department,
the registration was not technically a license. A license can be refused
by an issuing agency. Registration by the Treasury Department was
automatic for anyone who sent in the fee. Anslinger noted that even known
illicit drug dealers would be registered, although their cannabis crops
would be closely watched. (269) The point here is that federal
registration was automatic upon receipt of the fee; no criteria existed by
which anyone could be denied registration.

Congress passed the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act with the understanding that
it would not interfere with the hemp industry. (270) Production
statistics given earlier in this report demonstrate no damage to the
industry after the law went into effect.

Marijuana was just as illegal in the 1940's as in the 1990's, yet
large industrial hemp crops were grown. During the 1940's farmers
participating in the government-sponsored hemp program had to buy seed from
a government agent, specify what part of their land would be used for hemp,
and deliver all stalks to an approved breaking mill. Farmers had to
register under the 1937 federal Marihuana Tax Act, obtain any necessary
state license, and pledge to obey malrijuana laws. (271) War Hemp
Industries, a private corporation owned in trust by the U. S. Agriculture
Department's Commodity Credit Corporation, supervised hemp crops on behalf
of the Federal Narcotics Bureau. (272) Agriculture agents, rather than
drug control agents, were responsible for marijuana law enforcement. War
Hemp Industries agreed to cooperate with federal and local law enforcement
authorities (273) and to absorb any penalty applied to Commodity Credit
for a marijuana violation. (274) War Hemp thus had financial incentive
for strict enforcement of marijuana laws.

The Commodity Cooperative Association of Lexington, Kentucky, operated
as the federal government agent in all transactions, purchasing seed from
cleaning mills and selling it to farmers for sowing. The Association had
to keep strict records of all transactions in seed to assure that none was
diverted for illicit planting of marijuana. (275) Before being able to
sell to a cleaning mill (which in turn sold to the Association) seed
producers had to present their federal tax stamp or registration,
demonstrating their compliance with federal marijuana law. Cleaning mills,
in turn, had to post substantial bonds to guarantee compliance with
contractual regulations supporting marijuana laws. (276)


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