I have noted a number of hemp related articles in the Daily since the November elections, when voters in California and Arizona approved hemp for medical purposes.

Although the tone of the articles is generally favorable to the idea of hemp relegalization, the authors are not particularly knowledgeable about chemical substances and their prohibition.

A clarification of some points is in order:

By clinical definition, hemp is not addictive: Although use does build tolerance, withdrawal does not cause craving, and there is no cross-tolerance with truly addictive substances.

Historically, alcohol and nicotine have had medicinal uses, the former in various tinctures, the latter in poultices.

Because hemp is a broncho-dilator, the effects of smoking it are far less harmful than those of smoking a broncho-constrictor, such as tobacco.

Research touting the harmful effects of hemp largely have been politically motivated, with most negative studies not replicable by independent investigators. This effect is a mental illness commonly known as “Reefer Madness.”

Glaucoma is treated with smoked or eaten hemp, not with a hempen salve.

Arrests for hemp are at all time high, over 400,000 people per year, the majority for simple possession.

The estimated lethal dose of hemp as determined by a DEA administrative judge in 1988 is 1500 pounds in 15 minutes. In over 4000 years of recorded use, there are no verified fatalities from hemp.

Paranoia by hemp users is justified. There is a Federal death penalty for possession of large enough quantities of only hemp (major “kingpin” status). This past summer, Speaker Gingrich proposed in the House a mandatory death penalty for smuggling drugs, including hemp.

If enacted, smuggling as little as 2 ounces of hemp (considered a “commercial quantity”) on a second drug offense would get you death.

The War on Drugs is being waged by War Criminals, some of whom if they were not criminally insane, in a harsher time would ultimately learn about hemp on the gallows…

Derrick P. Grimmer, Ph.D.

Ames