The Finest Love and Care

The medications used to relieve spinal injuries in those early years caused loss of both hair and mind. A close friend of mine turned my attentions to grass, and since that time I have used it as required, and I have lived a very productive and normal life with little or no complaints. Aside from my wife, no-one knows that I grow and use this plant for medical purposes.

Over the years I've only managed to grow seven crops that I can honestly say had a good quality stone. This was due to using good seed varieties. I am proud that all plants received the finest love and care possible.

In Solidarity

Freedom to Speak Out

Hemp Hemp Hooray for Umberto Iorfida, President of Canada NORML, for his recent victory over section 462.2 of the Criminal Code (Sept 27, Ô95). He was directly instrumental in challenging this prohibition of freedom of speech and inspirational or artistic expression. We are now free of this human bondage.

I have personally donated $75 to NORML Canada to keep up the fight. I challenge all hemp retailers, wholesalers, importers, and anyone interested in the hemp industry to match this donation. We must continue to support our peers who persevere for the cause. Come on out of the closet, let's show our support.

Say yes to hemp. Save the world.

Grass Roots Too

I am responding to last issue's letter from NORML Canada (Remember your roots). Marijuana also has grass roots, called hemp. We must first get the law on hemp changed in order to prove to this country and all the non-marijuana users that there is a legitimate and very beneficial use for cannabis. Pushing to establish hemp industries and discovering new industrial uses will be far more effective in the long run than promoting the legalization of marijuana.

Cannabis has been used for its fibre far longer than for its flowers. We must create new jobs and new industries with cannabis before "the masses" will accept it as a respectable asset to this country

Benefit Hemp

Last Summer, during one of the Great Canadian Hemporium protests in London, Ontario (now called Hemp Nation) I decided to organize a benefit concert to raise funds for Chris Clay's Constitutional challenge. The Volcano Club in Kitchener agreed with me, and the musicians, Rob Juneau, Scott Deneau, The Rhythm Method and Finnigan's Tongue, all agreed it was the right thing to do. Scheduled for the 19th of January, The Hempfest Benefit (also called Benefit for Freedom & Future) went underway.

Posters were supplied by the club, and many friends helped put them up. Not once did things become a problem, smooth was the order of the month before the gig. Though many of the posters were eventually torn down, especially the one with the huge pot leaf, word of mouth spread fast.

At 9pm the people rolled in. On a wickedly cold Friday night, with all local bands playing, we managed to pull in about 200 people at five to seven dollars each. The music was terrific and the room was alive.

Chris made an appearance on stage, thanking all those involved. Near the end of the night pamphlets where handed out informing people of Bill C-7 and Chris' challenge. Along with raising $868 for the cause, we filled the house and presented one fine evening.

There are several Constitutional challenges underway in Canada right now, and the Hempfest Benefit could be a fabulous way to help end prohibition. Whether you are in a band or not, why not consider holding a Hempfest benefit?

Readers of this magazine know of the existing court challenges, just choose a case and start planning a benefit. I started by finding interested musicians, then presented the club owners with the acts.

The benefit show is legal as long as it doesn't turn into a smoke-in, which was their only concern at our venue. We had no cops and no problems. I found along the way that most people really supported the idea.

Denouncing Disturbing Generalizations

I found Dr Sumach's review of the Cannabis Cup quite amusing. However, there were a few things that disturbed me.

When Sumach described my talk during the hemp seminar, he said that I "coolly denounced wholesale legalization of marijuana. Her reason? A certain reluctance to hand over the reins of power of the 'Hemp Suits'- aka the handful of alternative wannabe pot czars jockeying for position in this multizillion dollar industry."

Denounce is a harsh word, defined by Webster's as "pronouncing publicly as blameworthy or evil." Perhaps Dr Sumach had been taking to much medicine that day because he took what I said completely out of context.

What I did say is that in this election year, people should forget about trying to legalize marijuana because it just isn't going to happen. Industrial and medicinal uses have better chances of acceptance and legalizers should concentrate their energies in those areas so that the hemp movement can score some victories in the short term.

That is called strategy, a term most legalizers have never heard of. Further, my reasons had nothing to do with "handing over the reins of power to the 'Hemp Suits.'"

I bring this to your attention because I am tired of being branded anti-marijuana by the potsters. For the record, I support legalization of cannabis hemp for all uses and feel that prohibition is criminal. But being a pragmatist I tend to favour movements that not only enjoy widespread public support but ones that have a real chance of being embraced by the powers-that-be.

I also resent Sumach's blanket generalizations of Americans. He says that Ed Rosenthal is "Curiously, one of the few Americans who are aware that hemp is being grown in Canada for legitimate industrial purposes." Yeah, right. Ed and twenty thousand other Americans who have been reading HempWorld.

And the quip about Ed being able to "read without the TV on: that's genius material for America" is just plain vicious. It's like saying every Canadian drinks Molson and finishes sentences with the word "eh."

Wake up and come out of the woods, Dr Sumach. You have been smoking too much of that premium BC bud you rave about.

All the best,

Hard Drugs, Off the Cuff

If the main goal of Cannabis Canmada is the legalization of marijuana, then why does Hemp BC advertise and sell books concerning opium and cocaine? Does Cannabis Canada support the legalization of these drugs as well? Personally, I do not, but each person is entitled to their opinion.

The advertisement for "Off the Cuff" is also particularly offensive to me. Is this the kind of message that we, the cannabis educated, want to send out to a cannabis ignorant country?

Self Serving Nonsense

A friend handed me your magazine to peruse, possibly thinking to convert me to their activist position. The effort failed, overall, but succeeded enough that it's worth mentioning what I see to be as problems.

The main problem is, as I see it, a tendency of all activist publications; the conviction that all right-thinking people would agree entirely with you if they only read your propaganda instead of the other guy's.

I don't think marijuana is simply a harmless weed, any more than tobacco, alcohol, coca leaf or ephedra is. I mean, what would be the point if it was simply a pleasant-smelling herb? Nope, it has profound drug effects and can have lasting consequences to its use.

The attitude that marijuana is simply a harmless weed persecuted by unfeeling pigs is, well, stupid, not to mention counterproductive to the medical argument.

Now I want to draw your attention to page 42 of the February/March issue, the ad for "Off The Cuff" of Victoria.

Most of you would be repulsed by a beer ad that showed someone getting stupidly shitfaced and barfing on their shoes. You might want to remember that advertising within a culture tells as much or more as the "respectable" editorializing. For me, this one ad did a lot to undermine the rest of the magazine. Not because of the ad itself, but because you were dumb enough, blind enough or greedy enough to accept the thing.

Consider what it says to Cpl. Anne Drennan or the boys down south in the DEA. Nothing like confirming a bigot's prejudices or reinforcing legitimate reservations to the point that contrary information gets labeled as self-serving nonsense.

Cannabis Canada supports the decriminalization of all drugs. It should not be criminal offence to consume substances which alter your consciousness. The question of whether or not marijuana is harmless is not really important. The question is how we can best minimize those potential harms. Prison and prohibition are clearly not the answers.

-DL

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