Ben

November 2nd was a historic day in which more incumbents were voted out of office than, maybe ever.  This was due entirely to Public frustration and awareness of a Congress that is ineffective, wasteful, and dare I say moronic, idiotic, Expletive expletive, etc…..  People got together and, whether intelligently or belligerently, protested their government, demanding change or reform.

I have held this view of Congress for quite some time now.  The single solidifying factor, that convinced me of our Governments utter stupidity, was when I got involved with Hemp advocacy.  After just a few minutes of research it was clear that something was fishy…. either stoner blogs were blatantly lying about the history of hemp farming, or Congress must be absolutely retarded.

My high levels of skepticism usually lead me in the right path, hours of research turned into dozens of hours.  But the more research I did, the more confused I got.  My early conclusions were reiterated time and time again, that our American Government had made a fatal error in the criminalizing of industrial hemp.  Whether this was a symptom of a larger problem, or the root of the problem itself, I could not decide.  But Something was terribly wrong.

It took the public this long to catch up, and, the Tea Party movement emerged.   The Tea Party movement is based on a few basic tenets: 1. Congress wastes lots of money 2. Congress doesn’t get things done 3>>> Let’s get rid of all these Jackasses!! (Congress members, aka, village idiots)

In all due respect, there are many honorable Congressmen in modern times that do not deserve to be lumped together as useless.  Unfortunately, the Tea Party made no such distinctions and, voted out some of these members and replaced them with candidates that will most likely be much less effective.  For better or for worse, this experiment in social change sent a clear message- that the people no longer will tolerate ridiculous, useless, and expensive policies.

Imagine if Congress were to change just one, simple policy.  Is that so much to ask?  Im not asking for $$100 billion dollars here.  Im not asking to (miraculously) cut taxes, slash spending, reduce deficit, improve education, healthcare, and social security, SIMULTANEOUSLY.  Im just asking for one, simple, policy change.

CONGRESS: Is that so much to ask?

Readers:   Would this solve our problems, or would we still need to do all this other stuff?

The Industrial Hemp Farming Act, H.R. 1866 received it’s newest cosponsor last week!  Congresswoman Chellie Pingree of Maine signed on, becoming our 25th Cosponsor!

Ms. Pingree is a liberal member from Maine and a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.  We have been trying to attract her attention ever since Maine passed their farm bill, LD 1159.  Finally, thanks to the help of Vote Hemp Outreach Director Tom Murphy, we gained her as a cosponsor.

And what did Tom do?  Something you can do too!  He called her office and asked when there would be an opportunity to see her.  They told him about an upcoming fundraiser, open to the public.  He attended, and saw her mingling.  He approached her, and waited his turn.  Then, like any other constituent, he had two minutes to thank her for all she’s doing, and tell her about other issues important to Maine.  Sometimes you win, sometime you lose, BUT YO HAVE TO PLAY IN ORDER TO WIN!!  This time, He won.

We won.

It this part of the Hemp and Japan series, we will look at an ancient artisan technique for decorative as well as functional crafts.  The Technique is called Kanshitsu.

According to Britannica:

Kanshitsu (Japanese: “dry lacquer”), technique of Japanese sculpture and decorative arts in which a figure or vessel is fashioned with many layers of hemp cloth soaked with lacquer, the surface details being subsequently modelled with a mixture of lacquer, sawdust, powdered clay stone, and other materials. The technique has two varieties: hollow kanshitsu (called dakkatsu), made by preparing the rough shape with clay and covering the surface with lacquered hemp cloth, the clay being subsequently removed to leave the inside hollow; and wood-core kanshitsu (mokushin), in which a hemp-cloth coating is applied over a core carved of wood. Vessels are made by the hollow kanshitsu method, sculpture by either method.

Kanshitsu was imported to Japan from T’ang China in the Nara period (645–794). Some bowls dating from this period are in the Tokyo National Museum, but because kanshitsu was employed at that time chiefly for Buddhist sculpture, extant statues are far more numerous than examples of decorative art. Among the former are Hachi-bu-shū (Eight Supernatural Guardians of the Buddha) and six surviving Jū Dai Deshi (Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha) at the Kōfuku temple in Nara. In the 20th century the hollow kanshitsu technique is still used to create fine lacquer ware such as vases, plates, and bowls.

This technique is not unlike the way that modern biocomposite materials are made.  The difference?  Modern hemp biocomposite interior automobile door panels, such as those made by Flex Form Technologies are made with hundreds of tons of pressure and a complex mold system.  They are stronger and lighter than fiberglass, not to mention the health and environmental hazards that are avoided by using hemp.

Once again, the Japanese are ahead of their time and using hemp for thousands of unique uses.

Body care is a huge money making industry, consisting of everything from hand soap to shampoo to lipstick to hand lotion. Usage of these products varies greatly from person to person, some women spend hundreds of dollars on these products while some guys tout that all they have is a bar of soap.  Wherever you might fit in, you will inevitable use some of these products.

When you go to buy something like soap, shampoo, lotion, conditioner, cosmetics, etc…, there is apparently a huge selection of different brands and products to choose from.  You will compare dozen of products based on how they smell, how you like the label or design of the bottle, whether or not the product is on sale, how recently you saw a commercial for the product, etc.  There is a marketing term called “Skin-Cream marketing” which refers to the diversity and price ranges that lead to a $$70 skin cream product that is found in a high end boutique. However, despite all of these apparent differences, the vast majority of these products are actually the exact same thing, and often even made by the same company (ie. Unilever or Proctor and Gamble).

What should really get your attention is what’s in the bottle: more literally, the ingredients.  Most body care products, in fact are made with toxic chemicals that are not actually good for your skin or body.  One look at the ingredients on a bottle of shampoo or body wash and you’ll see what I mean.  Does a bath in cocamidopropyl betaine really sound like a good idea?

In fact, most soaps aren’t soaps at all.  Technically, soap is made from a natural oils, such as almond, coconut, olive, or hemp oil, that undergoes a chemical reaction process called saponification that has been used for thousands of years.  However, since the early 1900’s, soap has become something entirely different; and is now made from petroleum byproducts and a cocktail of toxic chemicals.  None of these are actually good for the skin, but they do happen to mimic the effects of soap to such a degree that the average consumer cannot tell the difference.  But don’t be fooled, THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE!!  Olive oil castile soap is actually good for your skin, it has natural vitamins and it gently cleans dirt as it naturally moisturizes.  Detergents, on the other hand, can only mimic the effects to get rid of dirt.  They don’t do a great job, they don’t moisturize, they’re not natural, and they contaminate the water.  Let alone everything that went into manufacturing the chemicals!

To add to the confusion, companies add “natural essential oils” or “infuse” the products with things like vitamin E, antioxidants, etc.  This makes it seems as though the products are good for you.  To make matters worse, upon adding these extracts, they will call their product “herbal”, “natural”, or even “organic”.  But this is not the case!  It’s still the same a cocktail of petroleum derived chemicals, just with a splash of something else!  Would you drink motor oil if it had a dash of all natural lime??

Dr. Bronners Magic Hemp Soaps is working to change these practices and bring back true soap.  They use hemp in almost all of their products and it’s really the best soap on the market.

To learn more about this issue, the Dr. Bronner’s is working with the Organic Consumers Association to make sure that cosmetic companies “Come Clean” about the truth.

You can also watch this video, from the makers of the Story of Stuff, comes the Story of Cosmetics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfq000AF1i8&feature=player_embedded

Next time you wash your face, read the ingredients first!!

Yesterday proved that sometimes, Congress can do something good.

Rep. Bobby Scott brought the Criminal Justice Commission Act to the floor with an opening and powerful speech in support of the bill.  The bi-partisan legislation had already passed in the Senate and was now referred to the Judiciary subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

I searched through the C-SPAN database to find exactly what happened, so for your convenience, I have bookmarked it exactly where you need to be.  Congressman Scott does a great job at putting the right light on this issue.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/ID/229319&start=30724&end=31953

(I can’t get Wordpress to embed… any tips?)

PS- Congressman Scott should do the same thing with the Industrial Hemp Farming Act HR 1866

President Obama has kept Michele Leonhart as the DEA administrator for far too long.  A Hold over from the Bush Administration, Leonhart is our worst nightmare.  She’s been working for the DEA as long as you’ve been alive, and she is a driving force behind the Hemp ban.  She was the boss that tried to ban hemp foods.  She’s declined applications from hemp farmers.  And now, she’s getting hired again.

Vote Hemp joined several other groups in Opposing her nomination. in a letter you can read hear. You can even oppose it yourself with NORML’s action alert.

Cmon, Obama.  How can we expect change if your going to nominate Leonhart to manage the DEA??

Poppyseed is highly nutritious seed (and oil) that has been used for thousands of years in international cuisine.  It is used in hundreds of different dishes, from main course to dessert, and is most commonly found in pastries or bakeries, and then there’s the American favorite- the Poppyseed bagel.  Poppyseed is high value- it costs nearly 3x the cost of hempseed per pound, and 60,000 tons are produced annually, globally.

Perhaps the only food product besides hempseed that is also regulated under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is Poppyseeds.  Believe it or not, edible poppyseed comes from Papaver somniferum, commonly known as the Opium Poppy.  There are hundreds of varieties of Poppy, many are ornamental flowers, others can be noxious weeds (the State of West Virginia classifies Poppy as such).  However, it is Opium Poppy that poppyseed comes from.  So…… WTF??!!  HOW in the world does that work?!?!

The CSA classifies Opium and Opium derivatives as a Schedule II narcotic, which means that, unlike Medical Marijuana, the Government actually produces opium in quantities to supply doctors and hospitals for Morphine and Heroin.  However, I think that most opiates these days are synthetic, and Opium production is generally banned throughout the world.  Afghanistan produces the over 90% of the world’s opium, although just a few years ago, there was a very strict ban, under the taliBAN. 

The Czech Republic is listed as producing the most Poppyseed of any other country, but this does not seem to correlate to Opium Production.  Most medicines are now made, not with the latex sap from the Opium Poppy, but from “Poppy Straw”, the stalks of the plant, from which morphine can be extracted.  This is a by-product of seed production.  Imagine if there was a hemp field, and after the seed was harvested, you could smoke the stalk!  The fact is, this is NOT the case, but with Poppy, this is EXACTLY the case.

The main thing that turns a legal Poppy field into an illicit Poppy field, is whether or not the budding flowers are “Scored”.  To make Opium, a farmer will use a knife to create a cut in the bud.  From this cut will ooze or bleed, a white latex sap that is the Opium.  If these scores are not made, Opium is not collected.  However, like I said, Poppystraw, a controlled substance, can be used to manufacture opioids.

So, producing Poppyseed DOES actually produce opiates: they are the same genus and species and variety and cultivar, it is called the opium poppy.  If you ate enough poppy seeds, you could hypothetically get a buzz, and you would definitely fail a drug test.  IRONICALLY, producing hempseed does NOT produce marijuana as a byproduct, will not make you fail a drug test, the genetics are very different, as well as farming methods and even physical appearance.

It is ridiculous that the DEA tried to enforce a “Zero-Tolerance” Ban on Hemp Foods , yet at the same time, actually changed the tolerance of standardized drug testing procedures — because what wacko would try to impose a zero tolerance on Opium Poppyseed??  Hopefully someone will have this realization one day and say about hemp,

“if we don’t enforce laws against Poppyseed production, why would we enforce laws against hempseed production??”

One of the many uses of hemp is as insulation for the construction industry.

Currently, insulation is often made of fiberglass, it might look like a cotton mattress, but you don’t actually want to touch it.  Or get near it, you might get micro-glass splinters.  Or if breathe too much, then you might get the micro-glass particles in your lungs.

But not all building insulation is made out of fiberglass.

In fact, there are dozens of other synthetic materials that claim to have higher performance; I’m really not sure why there are so many.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_insulation_materials

Here’s a brief list:

Material

The vast majority of these are some type of foam plastic, which are far from healthy.  They are produced using petroleum byproducts, using lots of toxic chemicals in some complicated chemistry process that I know nothing about, probably releasing all types of fumes in a large factory, made by a company that we don’t like but have no choice but to consume from (ie, DuPont).

Here is yet another example of where hemp can be used to create a higher quality product, that is better for the environment, and overall, much healthier for us to use.  Hemp is all natural, all the way.  Inexpensively renewable, no harsh chemicals, and it’s completely biodegradable!

Did I mention that it’s actually a higher quality product?  Hemp “Breathes”, which means that it can absorb and release moisture.  This makes a room feel much more comfortable- it will naturally minimize the excessive humidity or dryness in the air.  And of course, the actual amount of  insulation that it provides is comparable to anything else on the market.

Here is yet another industrial use of hemp.  Imagine a day when construction workers are hauling loads of hemp insulation to a building site.

Look at how focused he is, on the hemp he is about to install….

To learn more about Hemp insulation, visit the Hemcore website

Hemp has been used for thousands of years in different cultures around the world, but maybe no culture has deeper hemp roots than Japan.  In this several part blog series, we will look at how the history of Japan is intertwined with hemp, going back thousands of years.

The first era of Japan is known at the Jomon period, which goes back to before 14,000 BC (WOW!!).  This was the early plantings of the seeds that would grow into modern civilization, before the written word.  This time is and is known for the birth of major accomplishments, like the development of agriculture and ceramics.

Jomon actually translates roughly to “pattern of cords”, referring to a specific type of ceramic decoration technique.  Jomon style ceramics are characterized by a texture made by impressing a cord into the clay while it is soft.

Not only were the Japanese developing agriculture techniques for Hemp, but they used hemp cord to permanently make a mark on one of their major cultural accomplishments- ceramics.  Hemp cord cannot last for 10,000 years (it’s strong, but not THAT strong!).  However, ceramic evidence shows that twine, rope, and cords, were very important to this culture, long before the invention of ducktape.    It a generally accepted fact that most of these cords, if not all of them, were made of hemp.

As a ceramic artist as well as hemp advocate, I have been influenced by Jomon ceramics.  I began experimenting, using hemp cord to make a “Jomon” pattern in my own pottery.  I decided that the hemp influence wasn’t clear enough.  So I took it a step further, making deeper indentations and then actually incorporating hemp.    Let me know if you like it!! (with a comment, duh)