Time to Lift Hemp Ban

Say No to GMO HEMP!!!

       

Say No to GMO HEMP!!! Once again they try to control Mother Nature! They try change the DNA of a plant and than say its Ok? It is not ok....

No to GMO In any type of plant.
Even though the concept may seem neat, it is NOT!!!
Please just leave the Plant alone!

Industrial Hemp Farming Legislation Reintroduced In Congress

Thursday, 14 February 2013

Washington, DC: United States Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and 28 co-sponsors, including House Agriculture Committee ranking member Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), have reintroduced legislation in Congress that requires the federal government to respect state laws allowing for the cultivation of industrial hemp. Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa that contains only trace (less than one percent) amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis.
House Bill 525, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013, amends the federal Controlled Substances Act to exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana. The measure grants state legislatures the authority to license and regulate the commercial production of hemp as an industrial and agricultural commodity.
Eight states - Colorado, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia - have enacted statutory changes defining industrial hemp as a distinct agricultural product and allowing for its regulated commercial production. Passage of HR 525 would remove existing federal barriers and would permit these states and others the authority to do so without running afoul of federal anti-drug laws.
"Industrial hemp is a sustainable crop and could be a great economic opportunity for Kentucky farmers," Rep. Massie stated in a press release. "Industrial hemp will give small farmers another opportunity to succeed."
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are supporting the introduction of a companion bill in the US Senate.
According to a Congressional Research Service report, "The United States is the only developed nation in which industrial hemp is not an established crop."
Previous versions of the Industrial Hemp Farming Act have stalled in Congress. The issue has never before been debated in the Senate.
For more information, please visit: http://www.votehemp.com. To support HR 525, please visit NORML's 'Take Action Center' at: http://www.capwiz.com/norml2/issues/.
Info from: NORML

South African Hemp.mp4

Congress takes a big hit of hemp-farm legalization

By Susie Cagle

MisterQuill

Good news for troubled farmers and stoney bros who like hemp beanies: Yesterday, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013 was introduced into the U.S. House by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.). A companion bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate later this month.
Let’s be honest here: A Democrat from Oregon seems like an obvious pick to back a hemp bill. But Kentucky’s Massie is bucking the pervasive American right-wing perception of hemp as a smokable, dangerous narcotic and not a sustainable industrial material.
“Industrial hemp is a sustainable crop and could be a great economic opportunity for Kentucky farmers,” Massie said in a statement. “My wife and I are raising our children on the tobacco and cattle farm where my wife grew up. Tobacco is no longer a viable crop for many of us in Kentucky, and we understand how hard it is for a family farm to turn a profit these days. Industrial hemp will give small farmers another opportunity to succeed.”

This is the fifth time a federal hemp bill has been introduced since 2005, which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in its chances of success. However: The first four times, it was mainly sponsored by Ron Paul. This time the bill has 30 cosponsors, eight of whom are Republicans.
Already 19 individual states have legalized industrial hemp farming. If change is ever going to reach the federal level, it’ll likely have to come from conservatives who can make a strong economic argument and trot out some nice beer-drinking Southern Joe Farmers wearing hemp overalls. To convince scared conservatives of the difference between “marihuana” and hemp, some anti-drug scaremongering is probably on the horizon, too.
Maybe the U.N. was wrong. Maybe 2013 shouldn’t be the Year of Quinoa — it should be the Year of Hemp.

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Medicinal Cannabis: The Gateway to Pain Relief for Patients With Neurological Disorders?

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Filed under: Future of Health Care | Treatments & Techniques | Neurology | Pain Management

As states across the nation continue to legalize marijuana for medicinal use — and some for recreational use — the conversation about the drug’s benefits begins to heat up. Although marijuana is considered a Schedule I substance — a drug with “no currently accepted medical use” — recent studies have demonstrated empirical evidence that the plant does indeed provide therapeutic relief for chronic pain associated with neurological deficits. But are cannabis’ psychoactive side effects a fair price to pay for relief?

In addition to use for alleviating chronic pain, the effects of cannabis and specific isolated compounds found within cannabis have been studied to determine if the plant may provide a viable treatment option to manage symptoms in patients with neurological disorders, such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease).
Sativex, an oral spray absorbed by the mucosal lining in the mouth, is a new medicine derived from an isolated cannabinoid found in marijuana developed to help with the management of spasticity related to MS. The drug is currently approved in the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain and New Zealand for treating MS-related spasticity but is not currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

States and Districts Where Medicinal Cannabis Is Legal

Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Washington, D.C.

Spasticity, painful contractions of muscles in the arms and legs, has not been well controlled up to this point, and a study from the Center for Medical Cannabis Research indicates cannabis helps patients with MS control their cramping and ease the pain associated with it. The problem, according to the study’s authors, is patients may not like the fatigue and dizziness caused by smoking cannabis. Additionally, cognitive effects from smoking cannabis make the drug problematic for those suffering from MS, which already causes cognitive deterioration.
Opponents of medicinal marijuana also raise objections to the drug because it has not undergone extensive safety and dosing measures that other drugs must pass under the purview of the FDA. Proponents feel that because marijuana overdose is all but impossible, stringent guidelines do not necessarily matter. Instead, they say, physicians need to wisely recommend the drug to only patients who may benefit from it.

The Question of Dosing

Because trials have not been extensive and no uniform dosing measures have been established, opponents of medical marijuana feel as though patients are being presented with a drug that represents more of a variable than an established curative. Eric Voth, M.D., internal medicine, pain medicine and addiction medicine specialist, and Chair of the Institute on Global Drug Policy, notes that all other medications must go through a rigorous process of safety and efficacy testing before becoming accepted for use. Through this process, dosages may be specified.
“On one hand, maybe patients will benefit, but not clearly. On the other, there are negative cognitive effects,” notes Dr. Voth. “As a pain specialist, I’m wondering, ‘Why would I have a patient smoke a substance that I can’t control, can’t dose correctly, have no clear picture as to where it falls on the spectrum, and give patients cannabis with the hope that it makes them feel better?’ I think that’s irresponsible.”
While physicians on both sides of the debate agree that more work needs to be done to establish precise dosing measures, studies have been conducted to measure the efficacy and safety of specific amounts of the most identified cannabinoid (an active component of cannabis plants), delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (9-THC), used by patients suffering from chronic pain.
Through his work on medicinal marijuana, Barth Wilsey, M.D., associate physician, Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, University of California Davis Medical Center, has shown that patients who do not respond to or cannot tolerate other medications can ameliorate neuropathic pain by smoking cannabis cigarettes or inhaling vaporized cannabis with low percentages of THC.
“My work has shown that low doses of cannabis alleviate pain,” says Dr. Wilsey. “Why take higher doses? Why not tell people to take lower doses to see if it alleviates pain? The medical profession needs to teach [medical] students how to handle questions about 
marijuana dosing.”
In his 2008 study published in the Journal of Pain, Dr. Wilsey wrote that patients with central and peripheral neuropathic pain were divided into groups that were provided cigarettes containing different levels of 9-THC — 7% 9-THC and 3% 9-THC — and both groups achieved analgesia.

“One of the fundamental flaws of the voting issue, whether it’s by ballot initiatives or legislative vote, is that it bypasses the FDA. This creates a consumer protection nightmare: medicine by popular vote.”
— Eric Voth, M.D., internal medicine, pain medicine and addiction medicine specialist, Chair of the Institute on Global Drug Policy

While the study successfully demonstrated that there may likely be a therapeutic window physicians can use for clinical purposes, objections may be made that smoking a medicine can lead to adverse side effects. Alan Shackelford, M.D., principal physician of Amarimed of Colorado, Intermedical Consulting and Harvard Park Health, recommends cannabis for patients who have reached the end of their treatment options for pain without relief. When smoked, cannabis is absorbed by mucosal linings in the mouth, which allows effects to present quickly in a stronger manner than if absorbed by the stomach via candies or food, which Dr. Wilsey notes is problematic because the liver removes most of cannabis’ active compounds, weakening its effect. Alternative delivery methods, such as vaporization, may eliminate the need for smoking, thus negating the need to light up and inhale harmful carcinogens such as tar.
“I strongly encourage patients for whom I recommend the use of medical cannabis not to smoke it,” says 
Dr. Shackelford. “In addition to the fact that you’re inhaling carbon monoxide and tar and a number of other problematic substances, the temperature of burning marijuana destroys many of the 108 compounds that have been shown to have significant physiological benefit.”
Addressing that concern, Dr. Wilsey and his colleagues conducted a second study, which has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Pain, examining the effects of cannabis heated to the point of forming active cannabinoid vapors, but not enough to combust, thus avoiding respiratory toxin. Importantly, for this study, Dr. Wilsey requested cannabis that contained less concentration of 9-THC, this time examining analgesic efficacy of cannabis engineered to contain different levels of 9-THC — 3.53% 9-THC and 1.29% 9-THC. The study’s results further showed evidence for a potentially useful therapeutic window. Patients achieved analgesia with both dose levels of cannabis, and in both studies, psychoactive side effects — the “high” feeling — dissipated in fewer than four hours, suggesting that physicians might easily recommend patients use the drug before going to bed, just as instructions read for other medications that affect motor skills.

Pain Relief or Just Getting High?

One question any researcher must answer when studying cannabis use for pain relief is whether patients truly achieve pain relief or are simply too intoxicated to care about the pain. This concern is addressed in Dr. Wilsey’s second Journal of Pain study, regarding the efficacy of vaporized cannabis. Upon examination, the analgesic effects of cannabis “maintained significance above and beyond any influence of the 15 side effects and, therefore, an independent effect on study medication was evident.”

Dangerous Medicine

Although cannabis has demonstrated benefits in alleviating neuropathic pain resulting from various conditions — among them cancer, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and spasticity caused by MS — it has been shown to cause negative side effects as well.
“I don’t want young people to think that cannabis is harmless,” says 
Dr. Wilsey. “European studies have shown that cannabis may induce schizophrenia in those susceptible to it. I want all the safeguards that have been brought to bear to keep young people off cannabis.”
Additionally, Dr. Wilsey notes that cannabis may also induce paranoia, respiratory depression and loss of motivation. For this reason, Dr. Wilsey recommends that physicians use caution and conduct thorough patient histories before recommending cannabis to patients.

An Alternative to Opioids

All but lost in the debate over cannabis’ medical benefits is how its use compares with the danger of opioid pain relievers and the epidemic in the United States of prescription pill abuse. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics from 2012 show that sales of prescription pain killers have risen 300% since 1999, and in 2008, these drugs contributed to 14,800 overdose deaths — more than cocaine and heroin combined. Dr. Voth notes that, as a pain medicine specialist, he deals with opioids a lot, and physicians must be very careful when prescribing these narcotics.
“You can’t overdose from cannabis unless you take extraordinary amounts, unlike opioids,” explains Dr. Wilsey. “That’s why people are allowed to take cannabis without a prescription where it is legal. They can take enough to alleviate the pain immediately — another benefit of smoked or vaporized cannabis. You don’t have to take it repeatedly if pain goes away.”
In his practice, Dr. Shackelford has seen patients benefit from cannabis regimens, including a 103-year-old woman who uses cannabis as an adjuvant treatment to lower the dose of narcotic pain medicine because cannabis increases the analgesic effect of her medicine.
“The more I researched, the more information I uncovered, and the more reasonable it seemed to consider cannabis as a medical option for patients with those conditions for which marijuana can be recommended based on Colorado law,” explains Dr. Shackelford. “Ultimately, it’s based on outcomes and safety. I found that not to consider it when appropriate was to ignore a treatment option that could have significant benefits for a great many people.”
Source: MDNews.Com

HEMP FUEL | WELCOME TO HEMP

Hemp fuel is a way out of oil! Planting only 6 percent of the continental United States with biomass crops such as hemp would supply all current domestic demands for oil and gas. Hemp fuel is a real alternative.

Did you know the average American spends 33 of 40 working hours to support their need for energy? It's true; 80 percent of the total monetary living expense for everything we do is ultimately wrapped up in energy costs; from the energy it takes to make the food we eat, to fuel for the cars we drive, to the manufacturing, storage and transportation of the products we buy. And 80 percent of solid and airborne pollution in our environment can be blamed on fossil energy sources. It is estimated that America has already exhausted 80 percent of its fossil fuel reserves. Isnt this a recipe for disaster? Hemp fuel is needed.

Industrial hemp is the number one biomass producer on earth, meaning an actual contender for an economically competitive, clean burning hemp fuel. Hemp has four times the biomass and cellulose potential and eight times the methanol potential of its closest competing crop - corn. Burning coal and oil are the greatest sources of acid rain; biomass fuels burn clean and contain no sulphur and produce no ash during combustion. The cycle of growing and burning biomass crops keeps the worlds carbon dioxide level at perfect equilibrium, which means that we are less likely to experience the global climactic changes (greenhouse effect). Hemp oil is the source for hemp fuel.

Hemp Seed Oil for Bio-Diesel

Hemp Seed Oil for Bio-Diesel
Production of Oil
Grown for oilseed, Canadian grower's yields average 1 tonne/hectare, or about 400 lbs. per acre. Cannabis seed contains about 28% oil (112 lbs.), or about 15 gallons per acre. Production costs using these figures would be about $35 per gallon. Some varieties are reported[iv] to yield as much as 38% oil, and a record 2,000 lbs. per acre was recorded in 1999. At this rate, 760 lbs.of oil per acre would result in about 100 gallons of oil, with production costs totaling about $5.20 gallon. This oil could be used as-is in modified diesel engines, or be converted toBio-Diesel using a relatively simple, automated process. Several systems are under development worldwide designed to produce Bio-Diesel on a small scale, such as on farms using "homegrown" oil crops.
Production of Bio-Diesel
Basically methyl esters, or Bio-Diesel, as it is commonly called, can be made from any oil or fat, including hemp seed oil. The reaction requires only hemp seed oil, an alcohol (usually methanol) and a catalyst (usually sodium hydroxide [NaOH]). The reaction produces Bio-Diesel and a small amount of glycerol or glycerin.

The costs of materials needed for the reaction are the costs associated with production of hemp seed oil, the cost of methanol and the NaOH. In the instances where waste vegetable oil, or WVO, is used, the cost for oil is of course, free. Typically methanol costs about $2 per gallon and NaOH costs about $5 per 500g or about $0.01 per gram. For a typical 17 gallon batch of Bio-Diesel start with 14 gallons of hemp seed oil; add to that 15% by volume of alcohol (or 2.1 gallons) and about 500g of NaOH. The process takes about 2 hours to complete and requires about 2000 watts of energy. That works out to about 2kw/hr or about $0.10 of energy (assuming $0.05 per kw/hr). So the total cost per gallon of Bio-Diesel is $? (oil) + 2.1 x $2 (methanol) + $5 (NaOH) + $0.10 (energy) / 14 gallons = $0.66 per gallon, plus the cost of the oil.[v] Other costs may include sales, transportation, maintenance, depreciation, insurance and labor.

New Study Shows Cannabis May Reverse Symptoms of Dementia

SYDNEY –

Australian scientists have discovered that cannabis could help reverse dementia.


Researchers from Neuroscience Research Australia (NRA) believe one of the main active ingredients in cannabis – cannabidiol – could reverse some of the symptoms of memory loss, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.


Tim Karl, a senior NRA researcher says that cannabidiol has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and other effects that could be beneficial for the brain.

According to Karl, “Back in the day cannabis was used for medical purposes, I'm talking 200 years, 100 years back, then at some point people discovered it had other effects and, as quite often happens in our society, people decided it was a bad drug.”


He told the Sydney Morning Herald that even though “most of the components [of marijuana] are detrimental – they worsen your cognitive performance and have psychoactive effects – cannabidiol seems to not have any of these negative effects.”


The researchers injected cannabidiol into mice that had been bred with Alzheimer’s-like symptoms.

They found that the mice showed drastic improvements during tests where they had to remember objects and other mice.

The research will be presented at the annual meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society this week.

Cannabis reduces brain inflammation and slows the aging process

Hemp Healthy Cooking

http://www.bakespace.com/cookbooks/detail/Hemp-Healthy-Cooking%3A-Hemp-for-Lunch/553/.