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Wisconsin marijuana activists prompt more letters to the editors supporting hemp cannabis.
A brief and effective letter is keeping hemp cannabis in front of the eyes of readers of local newspapers in Wisconsin. It is the hope of Northern Wisconsin NORML and other marijuana activists hope that this type of activity spawns need citizens to get active with their community leaders and elected officials representing our interests.
It appears a recent editorial in the postcrescent.com entitled Help Support Hemp Production was spurred in part by another editorial by frequent writer and activist, Jeffrey Smith. The original article my Jeffrey Smith spawned blog reports with the headings “Appleton Post Crescent reader demands Doyle calls lame duck session on jobs and finish Wisconsin’s Industrial Hemp Bill” among others. With a lame duck session pending, will more readers respond and become active?
Thanks to Jeffrey Smith for his letter to the editor about the Industrial Hemp Farming Act being considered as state legislation. This bill would ultimately help our diminishing farmsteads again thrive in Wisconsin. Your letter helps to raise awareness, and hopefully will get people involved to call their representatives to pass this bill.
The hemp plant can be grown in Wisconsin and is harvested in 120 days. Hemp is a non-drug cannabis that has low THC content. It’s naturally resistant to most pests. It can reduce soil erosion, and water and air pollution.
One acre of hemp will produce as much fiber as two to three acres of cotton. Hemp has many uses, including durable fabric and textiles. These clothes last twice as long as cotton-made clothes.
In addition, hemp health foods are a great source of vegetable protein and vitamins. Hemp seeds can be made into many of the same products as soybeans.
Hemp paper products last longer, don’t discolor as quickly and can be recycled more times than paper from trees. One acre of hemp can produce as much paper as two to four acres of trees.
Hemp can be used in fossil fuels such as ethanol and diesel and in products such as paint, varnish, ink, detergent, beauty items, lotions, candles, jewelry, plastics and more.
Let’s keep the people of Wisconsin employed by using this fine product. It’s a great resource because of its countless uses.
Kellie Van Asten, Clintonville
We’ll drink to that – Article by Steve Prestegard
Archived for Posterity:
We’ll drink to that
by Steve Prestegard
Originally published in Marketplace Magazine on 7-16-2010
Washington Post columnist George F. Will recalls Prohibition, and not fondly (nor should he):
Daniel Okrent’s darkly hilarious Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition recounts how Americans abolished a widely exercised private right — and condemned the nation’s fifth-largest industry — in order to make the nation more heavenly. Then all hell broke loose. Now that ambitious government is again hell-bent on improving Americans — from how they use salt to what light bulbs they use — Okrent’s book is a timely tutorial on the law of unintended consequences. …
Women campaigning for sobriety did not intend to give rise to the income tax, plea bargaining, a nationwide crime syndicate, Las Vegas, NASCAR (country boys outrunning government agents), a redefined role for the federal government and a privacy right — the “right to be let alone” — that eventually was extended to abortion rights. But they did. …
Before the 18th Amendment could make drink illegal, the 16th Amendment had to make the income tax legal. It was needed because by 1910 alcohol taxes were 30 percent of federal revenue. …
After 13 years, Prohibition, by then reduced to an alliance between evangelical Christians and criminals, was washed away by “social nullification” — a tide of alcohol — and by the exertions of wealthy people, such as Pierre S. du Pont, who hoped that the return of liquor taxes would be accompanied by lower income taxes. (They were.) …
The many lessons of Okrent’s story include: In the fight between law and appetite, bet on appetite. And: Americans then were, and let us hope still are, magnificently ungovernable by elected nuisances.
The local parallel of sorts is in the 41st Assembly District, where independent candidate Jay Selthofner of Green Lake is running on a platform of legalizing hemp cannabis, which you know as marijuana, for various uses, not all of them recreational.
The Ripon Commonwealth Press isn’t a fan:
He argues that pot growers could help the state economically while reducing reliance on fossil fuels, comforting patients with medical marijuana and “provid[ing] a safer choice than alcohol.”
On that last argument Selthofner appears most vulnerable.
One could reasonably ask him: “What are you smoking?”
The last thing this country needs is another mind-altering drug injested for recreational purposes. …
This is no time to get high or get drunk.
It’s time to get serious. …
The last thing Wisconsin residents need to do in the face of growing concerns is to escape by themselves in a cloud of marijuana smoke.
Is it too unreasonable to suggest that we owe it to ourselves, if not our children, to act in ways that are more, not less, mature, responsible and sober?
To that, Selthofner’s campaign treasurer retorts:
… I do not believe that fear gives us the right to take rights away from people who have not personally done anything harmful to our society, to other citizens, or to themselves.
It is possible for a recreational or medical marijuana smoker to be a productive and hard working member of society. Just like all drinkers are not drunk drivers, all cannabis users are not lazy people.
I think it’s quite unfair to paint all marijuana users with the same brush.
The letter goes on to make arguments without any proof (more of which can be read here) that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco and “has caused zero deaths, ever.” That part of the letter should have been deleted before it was sent; the better arguments for legalization are based on individual personal freedom, not alleged benefits. Those arguments were expressed in another letter to the editor from a “former drug and homicide prosecutor” in Chicago:
Drug prohibition is the most effective means to put more drugs everywhere — stronger drugs, dangerous, uncontrolled and unregulated drugs. The irony of prohibition is that it makes drugs more valuable, more available, less controlled, stronger and more harmful. …
How’s prohibition helping the sober among us? With prohibition, we seize drugs by the ton and prosecute drugs by the gram. Fool-hearty and bankrupting.
… Counter-intuitive as it may seem, Wisconsinites must legalize drugs to fight drugs, gangs, cartels, crime, prisons, taxes, deficits, corruption, trade imbalance and the funding of terrorism. …
Well, the ex-prosecutor is right in that his argument does seem counterintuitive. I’ve read numerous arguments for legalizing and taxing drugs that presently are illegal. You’ll note that organized crime still exists today, nearly 80 years after the end of Prohibition. The counterargument to the tax argument is that, as we are seeing with tobacco taxes, taxes that are too high encourage smuggling and other ways to avoid said high taxes. (See Will’s NASCAR reference.)
Having never inhaled, I have no dog in the marijuana legalization hunt. (There’s a mixed metaphor for you.) I know people who use the devil weed, and I can’t say I’ve ever been interested in partaking. But one need not be a fan of recreational drugs to notice similarities between the drug war of today and Prohibition 90 years ago. Dude.
==
We’ll drink to that
by Steve Prestegard
Originally published in Marketplace Magazine on 7-16-2010
Unignorable benefits
As published in the Berlin Journal Newspapers and affiliates on Thursday, October 7th, 2010. Issue Number 40
The need for change in our world is becoming more and more evident with each passing day. Issues such as unemployment, poverty, and disease plague our community; and these issues seem to becoming increasingly worse. At a time when greed has corrupted both industry and government the need for truth, integrity, and compassion in a leader is now more vital than ever before. We need someone whose interest lies in the people’s welfare, in addition to the health of our community, and the quest for sustainability. We need someone who understands the desperate need to nurture our environment; taking care of the earth that God gave us so our children have a future. We need someone like Jay Selthofner.
Jay recognizes that many of the problems we face in our community would be solved by legalization of hemp for industrial use. Hemp is superior to cotton, paper, fuel and plastics in that is sustainable, offers better quality of product, and is not damaging to the environment. Hemp also offers many health benefit to our bodies and our local economy. There are 25,000+ earth friendly products that can be made from hemp! More jobs anyone? Vote for Selthofner on November 2 for 41st Assembly.
Jennifer Hogenson, Wautoma
Farmers deserve more credit, Nelson says
As printed in the Waushara Arugs Newspapers, Published by Wautoma Newspapers, Inc. Wautoma Wisconsin.
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010. Volume 151 No 40
Link to Waushara Argus Website: http://www.wausharaargus.com/
It’s fall out and I just wanted to take a second out to mention my heros – the farmers of not only Waushara County, but everywhere. As far as useful talents for little praise, my hat is off to them.
Here’s to you, oh driver of shoulder monster. After a flood, a drought and a $25,000 part for the combine, there you are, at it still – five miles an hour in a downpour, bringing food for our tables. People curse you alongside the road and don’t say “thanks” when the sweet corn hits the grocery stores….Buy you continue along. /s/ Dave Nelson, Wautoma
Wisconsin woman wiser about pot
Nurse, mother, daughter, sister, grandmother, aunt and Wisconsinite are all terms easily attached to me. As I read this blog and learn more about Northern Wisconsin NORML, hemp, cannabis, medical marijuana I joined your organization am now proud to attach additional “labels” to myself, your “newest member” is one of them.
I am proud of those who are also supporting this issue and glad to report as a nurse, that I found out the Wisconsin Nurses Association was in full support of medical marijuana and the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act during the last legislation session.
As you read those other “terms” I used, mother, daughter, sister, grandmother, Wisconsinite; remember these are terms easily attached to someone we love. Medical marijuana supporter is another term that is easily attached to all of us once YOU understand the facts. Anyone could become ill and anyone could be helped by cannabis, that is not a choice just a reality.
Imagine, as a non-marijuana user, being faced with an illness and being told “informally” by your doctor that “marijuana helps and if you can safely get some, to use it”.
It is time Wisconsin to protect patients and doctors. It is time Wisconsin once again became a leader and live up to the state motto of “Forward”. Help Wisconsin move forward with the reform of marijuana laws by joining Northern Wisconsin NORML today.
Thank you,
A now Wiser Wisconsin Woman
Spend resources with wisdom
Our nation and state budgets are busting, and Occupy Wall Street Protests bring to light the Democratic and Republican support for Wall Street Banks. The banks get bailed out and the 99% of people get sold out.
In 2010 our Minnesota law enforcement arrested 11,361 people for marijuana possession, that is about 65% of MN drug arrests. At what cost to local and state budgets do we make people criminals for use of a plant with legitimate medical uses, and used for adult recreation can not kill you with any size overdose? Last year over 900,000 Americans had a marijuana arrest, so our failed trillion dollar war on drugs should get re-examined, right? Cannabis prohibition has failed, more funding of it is just nuts!
Follow the money and you often find big problems, with Wall Street Banks as well as our War On Drugs. Cannabis prohibition supports organized crime costing over 40,000 dead in Mexico in past 7 years and over 500 of those were police.
A medical marijuana law was passed in Minnesota and Tim Pawlenty did a veto. He had support of MN Police Unions. I recall when same Police Unions said if MN passed a “Shall Issue” gun permit law that MN would become the wild west! I agree with past Republican House Speaker Steve Sviggum who supported and said about medical marijuana; “… keep government’s nose out from between a doctor and patient…”
I worked as a RN, and support an end to cannabis prohibition and replacing the drug war criminal system in place now with a public heath model and tax/regulate cannabis as we do more deadly cigs and alcohol. Now in Washington a bill (HB 2306) to end federal cannabis prohibition is having all hearings blocked by “less regulation” Republicans and our local Congressman Peterson. What are they afraid of by holding hearings – the truth?
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