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Tag: Cannabis

From Facebook To The DEA, Industrial Hemp Industry Growth Stumped By War on Drugs

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

America’s burgeoning hemp industry faces significant barriers that can only be torn down by the full legalization of this potentially lucrative crop.

Hemp was once one of America’s essential crops, grown by presidents and cash croppers alike, and wars were fought over access to this valuable commodity. It became illegal to grow hemp in the United States with the passage of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. The federal law bans all forms of the cannabis plant, even though industrial hemp has very low levels of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis that’s grown for recreational or medicinal use.

The 2014 Farm Bill reopened the door to legal hemp cultivation by allowing states which had legalized industrial hemp to license farmers to grow the plant for research purposes, including market research. But many aspects of federal regulation and law surrounding hemp remain “opaque” and confusing, according to John Ryan, founder and director of Ananda Hemp. A subsidiary of the Australian hemp company EcoFibre Industries, Ananda Hemp is growing hundreds of acres of hemp in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Why Veterans With PTSD Are Turning To Cannabis

Posted in Journalism, and The Establishment

When Dr. Sue Sisley, a lifelong Republican, was just beginning her residency at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Phoenix, she refused to believe her patients when they told her about the healing potential of cannabis.

“I’ve always been interested in cannabis as a social justice issue and a matter of public policy, but I was never able to embrace it as medicine until these veterans really taught me how,” Sisley told me.

Sisley was “highly dismissive and judgmental” of marijuana at first but, over time, as more and more veterans shared their experiences, she started to accept its therapeutic potential.

Now, not only does she regularly treat multiple conditions by prescribing legal medical cannabis as an Arizona-based family physician, she’s part of a team involved in the first government-funded study to examine the effectiveness of cannabis in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in vets.

American Legion Asks Congress To Reschedule Cannabis As Vets Continue To Suffer Under War On Drugs

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

The American Legion has called on the U.S. government to reconsider its stance on medical cannabis in order to benefit some of the millions of veterans the organization represents.

With a membership of about 2.4 million veterans, the Legion’s become a powerful voice in the growing debate over the potential benefits of the plant to victims of post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries, and a host of other conditions that veterans frequently face.

The Legion passed a resolution at its annual convention, which ran from Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 in Cincinnati, Ohio, urging Congress to reschedule marijuana. The resolution reads, in part:

Interview with Black Tower Radio: Lauri Love, Green Party & The War On Drugs

Posted in Journalism, MintPress News, The Establishment, and Truthout

Lauri Love is facing extradition, and potentially torture in U.S. prisons, if he is extradited from the U.K. for allegedly taking part in an Anonymous hacking operation in retaliation for the death of Aaron Swartz. On Wednesday, I appeared on Black Tower Radio to discuss the Love case, along with my coverage of the Green Party Convention and the need for electoral reform. I also briefly discussed an upcoming article for The Establishment about how veterans treat themselves with cannabis.

From ABCs To CBD: New Jersey, Colorado Allow Students Medical Marijuana At School

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

As more families press for their children to be allowed to consume medical cannabis at school, more states are moving toward allowing students access to the substance that remains banned at the federal level.

Last week, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed “Jack’s Law,” which will allow students with a prescription to receive non-inhaled medical marijuana during the school day. The law is named for a young student who couldn’t access his prescribed medical cannabis at school. CBS Denver reported on June 7.

“We absolutely need to allow children to have access to medicine in schools. Why wouldn’t we?” said Kyle Sherman, the founder and CEO of Flowhub, in an interview with MintPress News. Flowhub is a Denver-based software company that helps growers and dispensaries maintain their supply chains and follow local laws.

Map Of Cannabis Genome Could Keep Greedy Corporations From Patenting Pot DNA

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

An innovative digital map of the cannabis genome could help deepen scientific understanding of the plant, and it may also protect it from greedy corporations.

That’s the hope of Phylos Bioscience, a Portland-based company which recently launched The Phylos Galaxy. The app offers a 3D visualization of the relationship of hundreds of strains of cannabis, from the popular varieties sold in Oregon’s legal dispensaries to indigenous varieties found globally known as “landrace strains.”

Types are linked by their hereditary sequences to ancestor strains and visually grouped into “tribes” by their chemical and genetic similarities.

On April 23, Carolyn White, sales and marketing manager at Phylos, told the Willamette Week that her organization “set out to bring more knowledge and transparency to the industry” with the Galaxy and other efforts to document the diversity of the cannabis genome.