Contributor's note: The following is reprinted from the Thursday,
May 2, 1991 issue of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. It is a front page
article by Sonia L. Nazario, Staff Reporter of The Wall St.
Journal.
-=[*]=-
WHAT IS AS VERSATILE AS THE SOYBEAN BUT ILLEGAL ANYWAY?
Hemp Plants Yield Marijuana But Guru Jack Herer Sees Lots of Commercial Uses.
Marijuana isn't just for smoking anymore. The hemp plant has
about as many uses as the soybean.
It can be made into a food something like tofu, or into a
fabric not unlike linen. It can fire the pistons in your Ford. It
can be made into plumbing and paper. It has medicinal properties.
Indeed, the many real and conceivable uses of hemp strike some
people as new and sufficient grounds to legalize marijuana. More
than 20 years of failed efforts to legalize the drug call for new
tactics, enthusiasts say.
Time has pretty much passed the legalize-pot movement by.
Alaska, which decriminalized the possession for personal use of
small amounts of marijuana in 1975, decided last fall to
recriminalize. As of March 3, possession isn't legal any longer in
the 49th state; it's a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in
jail and a $1,000 fine.
BUDDING RENAISSANCE
But Jack Herer, leaning back in his Venice, Calif. bungalow to
light his marijuana pipe, continues to believe in hemp. He as much
as anyone else is responsible for its budding renaissance. Mr.
Herer, 51, has inspired more than 20 grass roots across the country
that proselytize hemp. Cannabis Sativa, hempsters say, can "save
the world" and thus should be legalized. The flowering tops and
leaves are the parts of the hemp plant people smoke.
Mr. Herer spent 17 years researching the uses of the fibrous
stalks and oily seeds of the plant native to Asia, which
historically has been used to produce fiber and pulp for cordage,
canvas and paper. It still is cultivated legally in such countries
as Italy and Yugoslavia. Mr. Herer has documents purporting to
prove that the real reason the U.S. outlawed marijuana in 1937 was
that a new hemp-harvesting machine had so enhanced the plant's
commercial possibilities that it threatened the politically
powerful producers of wood pulp.
During one of his eight stays in jail (a two-week sojourn in
1983 on a civil-disobedience charge), Mr. Herer turned his body of
hemp lore into a 181-page manifesto, "THE EMPEROR WEARS NO
CLOTHES," which since its 1990 reprinting has sold 35,000 copies at
$12.95. He also has filed 36,000 signatures on petitions to get a
hemp initiative on the California ballot next year. (Needed:
385,000 signatures by July 20.)
2nd part of front page article...POT GURU JACK HERER HAS NEW
REASONS TO PROMOTE THE HEMP PLANT: FOOD, FUEL AND FASHIONABLE ATTIRE
In recent months hemp groups inspired by Mr. Herer have begun
turning up on college campuses, trying to rework hemp's image.
"We realized that smoking pot [while] dressed in tie-dies in
front of the White House wasn't getting us anywhere," concedes
Chris Conrad, founder of the Business Alliance for Commerce in
Hemp.
Believers in San Francisco scrawl "burn pot, not oil"
graffiti, even though the line has a whiff of the '60s about it.
And from Washington to Los Angels, activists hoist "Hemp for Fuel"
signs at rallies. Kentucky lawyer Gatewood Galbraith, a professed
prolific pot smoker, hopes to ride his Hempmobile, a 1980 Mercedes-
Benz that runs on hemp seed oil, to victory in this month's
Kentucky Democratic gubernatorial primary. He isn't expected to
win.
Country star Willie Nelson, before his recent "HempAid"
concert for Mr. Gailbraith in Louisville, remarked:"It's a shame
farmers can't grow hemp." He says he's concerned about the family
farm.
The hemp lobby reveres history. Columbus trusted hempen sails.
The founding fathers did their rough drafts of the Declaration of
Independence on hemp paper. Hemp "is as much a part of the human
condition as walking upright," insists Ronald Miller, a tool
grinder in the aerospace industry who greases his long gray hair
with oil pressed from hemp seeds.
Advocates calculate that by planting 6% of the U.S. in hemp,
enough oil could be produced to meet the country's energy needs.
Hemp "tofu" ["hempfu"] and hemp gruel could help end world hunger.
Hemp-based paper could save entire forests. (The argument here is
that hemp plants yield four times the pulp of forested acreage.)
Kimberly-Clark Corp. confirms that its French unit harvest hemp to
make paper for Bibles and cigarettes.
Experts in fuel and fiber (unlike enthusiasts) aren't all that
high on hemp, however; they say it costs too much to use. Fiber
importer says that hemp costs three times as much as wood pulp for
paper production.
But Mr. Herer, calling himself a "hemp savant," in his book
offers $10,000 to anyone who can prove him wrong about Cannabis.
SOURCE OF FINANCING
In the 1970s Mr. Herer sold his Los Angeles sign-lighting
maintenance business and opened and acquired two head shops, stores
that sell drug paraphernalia. He used some of his profits to
finance never successful attempts in California and Oregon to
legalize marijuana.
Mr. Herer, who says he smokes four joints a day, has protested
marijuana laws by smoking grass outside the Los Angeles offices of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement
Administration. He and fellow advocates march in parades wearing
tri-cornered hats and playing fife and drum to recall Colonial days
when hemp was freely grown.
Some of Mr. Herer's friends defected along the way, but he has
remained true to his cause. Take, for instance, the matter of "Hemp
for Victory," a 1942 film produced by the Agriculture Department
that urged patriotic farmers to cultivate hemp for wartime
(nonsmoking) uses. When the USDA a few years back denied that any
such film existed, Mr. Herer journeyed to Washington and found an
uncataloged copy at the Library of Congress.
READING MATTER
"This is a bigger cover-up than Iran-Contra," growls artist
Genie Brittingham-Erstad, a husky-voiced San Gabriel, Calif.,
hempster sitting outside the main federal building in downtown Los
Angeles at a table heaped high with Hungarian hemp twine and copies
of Mr. Herer's book.
Mr. Herer has some authoritative backing when he talks up the
medicinal benefits of marijuana, which have nothing to do with drug
abuse. Cancer specialists say that tetrahydrocannabinol, the active
ingredient in marijuana, can be helpful in treating nausea and in
stimulating patients' appetites. According to a survey reported
this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, nearly half of
doctors polled said they prescribe marijuana if it were legal.
(There are rare legal exceptions.)
HEMP SHIRTS
Hemp has so many commercial possibilities. Sativa Creations
Inc., of Vancouver, sells Stoned Wear shorts and shirts, in the
popular 45% cotton, 55% imported hemp blend. They come with or
without the marijuana leaf logo prominently displayed, for
customers who do or don't wear their sentiments on their sleeves.
"Wrap yourself up in marijuana legally," the company advertises.
Theodora Kerry, a California masseuse who says she has smoked
bud and leaf for 25 years, is another die-hard, still optimistic
about legalization. Her town, Santa Cruz, was once "hemp ignorant,"
she says. So she helped found Cannabis Conversations and the Holy
Hemp Sisters, which sponsored the recent Great Santa Cruz Hemp
Revival and Community Extrava-Ganja.
Hundreds of locals gathered in the town community center,
forming a sacred circle as the Holy Hemp Sisters, beat drums and
recited the virtues of hemp in producing food, fuel and clothing
for a cold and hungry world.
-=[*]=-
END
Contributor's Note: The detractors in the above article claiming
that hemp is not an economical alternative to wood pulp are basing
their claim on the price of IMPORTED hemp-hurds, not U.S. grown
hemp!