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Dear Reader,
Some weeks are like roller coasters. Last
week was one of them. I started off by
presenting testimony
for Vote Hemp for HB
424 before the Senate
Commerce, Labor and Consumer Protection
Committee in New
Hampshire on Tuesday. I have been to
better, more positive hearings. The hearing
for the hemp farming bill came just before
lunch and committee members seemed hungry to
get out of there. It followed a lengthy
hearing for a health insurance bill. The room
was way too warm. I had decided after the
hearing in the House that I would try to
speak after law enforcement if possible. I
was successful, but the Committee did not
take the opportunity to ask me more than one
question.
Major Susan Forey of the New Hampshire State
Police and Associate Attorney General Ann
Rice presented what I would generously call
misinformation. Unfortunately I have heard
the talking points that they were using in
testimony in other states. These talking
points are from a very old playbook, which we
countered years ago in the Vote
Hemp Treatise. Supporters of hemp farming
in New Hampshire did not present their best
testimony in favor of the bill. I would hope
that the Committee can see through this and
send HB 424 to the floor of the Senate for a
vote before the end of the session.
Things went much better in Vermont
on Thursday and Friday. I presented testimony
for Vote Hemp for H
267 before the House
Committee on Agriculture. I was a few
minutes late for my hearing time, but I was
in contact with Amy Shollenberger of Rural
Vermont who informed the Committee Chair
of my arrival time. When I did arrive I knew
I was in friendlier territory by the Hemp
for Victory poster on the Committee's
wall! North Dakota House Assistant Majority
Leader David Monson was there, too, having
already arrived in preparation for his
testimony the next morning. My testimony went
well and the Committee asked questions for
well over an hour.
The next day Rep. Monson was able to talk
with Governor Jim Douglas and Lt. Governor
Brian Dubie in person. Later that morning
Rep. Monson, his wife, and I were introduced
on the floor of the House of Representatives
by Representative David Zuckerman of
Burlington. Quite an honor. Mid-morning North
Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger
Johnson presented testimony to the
Committee on Agriculture via telephone and
North Dakota Representative David
Monson presented his testimony in person.
Being a farmer as well, Rep. Monson was able
to give the Committee some better insight
into agricultural hemp from their
perspective. John Dillon or Vermont Public
Radio covered the hearing in his story "Hemp
legislation receives endorsement from Midwest
officials" and you can also listed to the
MP3.
Later that evening I was a guest panelist at
a Rural
Vermont Event and fundraiser "Hemp 101"
along with Rep. Monson and one of the
sponsors of the hemp farming bill, H 267. The
food at the dinner beforehand was wonderful.
I presented an overview
on hemp as a lead in to some wonderful
stories on the history of hemp bills in North
Dakota told by Rep. Monson. We then went over
the hemp bill section by section. Eileen
McKusick of Cosmic Confections even brought
some yummy toasted hemp seed nonpareils for
dessert. A truly wonderful end to the week.
Please become
a member of Rural Vermont to help them
with their important work on farm issues in
Vermont.
Please make a contribution
to Vote Hemp today to help us fix the
situation here in the U.S.
We need and truly appreciate your support!
Best Regards,
Tom Murphy
Weekly News Update Editor
| Hemp Backer Extols The Crop |
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By Louis Porter, Vermont Press
Bureau
The Times Argus
April 30,
2007
MONTPELIER — It would be difficult to
picture someone who would seem less likely to
be a leading advocate for legalizing hemp
than North Dakota state Rep. David Monson.
Wearing a suit and with the hair on top of
his head lying over like wheat in the high
wind of his home state, Monson looks exactly
like what he is — a family farmer,
school administrator, leader in his church
and assistant majority leader in a state
legislature dominated by Republican lawmakers.
But those very facts are also the reasons
Monson, who testified last week on the issue
of legalizing industrial hemp production in
Vermont, has become an important supporter of
the crop, which also has backers in Vermont.
He has been working for years to be allowed
to grow hemp as a cash crop that can break
the cycle of wheat disease and help him keep
his family farm. Add to that a healthy dose
of disgust at the idea of the federal
government telling him what plants he can and
can't grow, and an understanding of prairie
politics, and it's easy to see how Monson
became a force behind North Dakota's
legalization of hemp grown for use as in
livestock feed and to make fiber for rope or
cloth.
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| Hemp Milk? It's Healthy And Legal As Hemp Cereal |
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By Bob Batz Jr.
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
May 3, 2007
Got milk?
Oh, we got milk all right.
In addition to whole, two-percent and
one-percent fat, skim and super skim, we now
also can choose to have organic milk,
hormone-free milk, lactose-free milk, soy
milks in a rainbow of flavors, rice milk,
even almond milk.
Add to the list of nondairy alternatives,
with an emphasis on alternative, "hemp milk."
The "milk," which just began to be sold this
year, is made from the "nuts" or seeds of the
industrial hemp plant, which is illegal for
U.S. farmers to grow.
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| Industrial Hemp Was Topic At Capitol Hearing Last Week |
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By Joan Sanstadt
Iowa Farmer
Today
April 25, 2007
It wasn't anything really new - although to
some the idea of growing industrial hemp
might seem pretty far-fetched.
But anyone who remembers WWII probably
remembers that the U.S. government asked
farmers to grow hemp as a replacement for the
hemp crop that was lost when the Philippines
fell. Rope and binder twine were major uses
for hemp.
Yet many remember the '60s - and they equate
industrial hemp with the marijuana plant. In
fact, that's the view of the Drug Enforcement
Agency (DEA) that has placed industrial hemp
in the same category of drugs as heroin.
Back somewhere in the mid-'90s the NFO's Ron
Statz arranged a meeting with some
Waupun-area farmers who remembered when the
crop was being grown in Wisconsin back in the
1930s and '40s. They spoke of how
labor-intensive the harvest was and because
of its weight many small hemp mills were
scattered across the countryside. In fact we
visited one just outside of Waupun that is
still standing today. I'm told there are
several others.
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Hemp Farmer Sitting On Possibilities |
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By Samantha Craggs
The
Intelligencer
May 4, 2007
Grant Moorcraft can only hope, with cautious
optimism, that he is farming the crop of the
future.
The area farmer grows 30 acres of hemp, a
hard-to-harvest crop with numerous
applications for which he is helping develop
a technology that separates the hurd from the
fibre. He recently received a regional
Premier's agricultural innovation award worth
$5,000.
"(Hemp) is really tough stuff," he said.
Currently, the possibilities of hemp are
greater than the technology and marketing
available for it. It can be used to make
everything from milk to clothing. Moorcraft's
crop is used exclusively for a new
environmental wave; the tightly-packed bales
are stacked and covered in mortar to form the
walls of straw bale houses.
[More...]
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