Hemp
has numerous uses and could replace many crops that require heavy
irrigation and pesticides, but the most interesting fact about hemp is
that it “eats” radiation.
Activists have been shouting they want an end to GMO foods for more than a decade now, and Cannabis Sattiva L.
supporters have been at it for even longer, so why has the US
government finally given farmers the right to legally grow industrial
hemp, the non-hallucinatory, sister plant of medical marijuana?
It
is safe to say that industrialized hemp should have been legalized
years ago. With THC levels so low, you would have to smoke more of it
than Snoop Dogg to get ‘high’ – and that’s a lot of Cannabis,
it is ridiculous that it was classified as a drug at all. It has
numerous uses and could replace many crops that require heavy irrigation
and pesticides, like cotton, for example. Here’s the most interesting
fact though – hemp plants ‘eat’ radiation.
When
the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Reactor 4 accident caused severe
radioactive contamination in 1986, families within a 30-kilometer area
of the site had to be evacuated. Radioactive contamination was later found at 100 kilometers from the accident site, and Fukushima radiation levels are still to be determined, with the Japanese government planning on dumping their overflowing radiated water tanks into the Pacific as we speak.
Governor Andrew Cuomo at the inauguration of
New York City's Mayor Bill de Blasio on January 1, who has set a
liberal agenda. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
New York is poised to become the latest US state to relax its laws
covering marijuana. Governor Andrew Cuomo will make a surprise
turnaround in policy later this week, to allow limited use of the drug
for medical purposes.
As Colorado residents continue to flock to their local pot shops, after their state became from 1 January the first to allow the sale and possession of cannabis for recreational purposes,
signs have emerged that New York will now make a small but important
amendment to some of the strictest laws on the drug in the US. Cuomo is
expected to announce an executive action in his annual state of the
state address on 8 January, to permit a small number of hospitals to
prescribe marijuana for medical use in the treatment of serious
illnesses including cancer and glaucoma, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
Cuomo, a Democrat, has always been staunchly against legalising
cannabis, including for medical use. Even though the likely announcement
would only loosen restrictions on the drug very slightly, it will be
seen as a significant move at a time when a number of states are
liberalising their laws in ways ranging from the use of medical
marijuana to decriminalising basic possession of the drug, up to full
recreational use. Voters in Washington state have also voted to allow
recreational marijuana and it is expected to follow Colorado later this
year and become the second state to implement such laws.
More than 20 states currently have laws allowing a variety of medical uses of marijuana.
Cuomo is expected to emphasise that medical marijuana will only be
allowed for a tightly circumscribed list of illnesses, to be drawn up by
the state Department of Health.
By announcing a unilateral executive action, the governor will
sidestep the legislative process in the state capital, Albany, where the
senate has repeatedly struck down bills passed in the lower assembly to
permit medical marijuana.
Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance,
told the New York Times Cuomo’s move was “bold and innovative”.
Even limited medical marijuana use is banned under federal law but
the Obama administration has signalled that it is not interested in
actively pursuing prosecution in states that have relaxed their laws
around the drug. Whether there will be any clash between federal law enforcement and state authorities in Colorado and Washington state remains to be seen.
