U.S. NEEDS TO EXAMINE BENEFITS OF HEMP USE

When we have uninformed police officers teaching that cannabis use is
against the law no matter what -- students are told anyone regardless
of age using cannabis is a criminal and must be turned in.

More than 750,000 Americans were arrested for cannabis use last year,
3 million since President Bush has been in office. Michigan's prisons
are overflowing -- we spend more on them than on education.

The 70-year-old cannabis prohibition has dimmed the thinking ability
of our elected leaders, our highest educators, our most revered
spiritual healers.

Why won't Kalamazoo look at Ann Arbor's law decriminalizing small
amounts of cannabis use by adults? Why no talk of regulating and
taxing and stopping the black market?

On Jan. 23, on C-SPAN Washington Journal, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley,
R-Iowa, was asked if he supported allowing American farmers the right
to grow industrial hemp for a feed stock for the new cellulose
ethanol. Grassley replied, "No, I will not because we can not
separate the hemp from the marijuana." Sen. Grassley did say "that
in Iowa during World War II hemp mills were all over the state
producing for the war effort."

Almost all of the eradicated cannabis in the United States was hemp
last year. We are killing off our natural seed. Canada has been
growing and will grow 50,000 acres this year. And China is growing
more than a million. How will we compete?

On Jan. 24, on the History Channel, there was a show that explained
that at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo., cellulose
ethanol made from switch grass will yield 1,150 gallons of ethanol per
acre. Hemp is 77 percent cellulose.

Sen. Grassley never said he would look at the issue and see how the
Canadians have separated hemp from the marijuana. He just took
cannabis prohibition as law.

Canada was the first country to allow the growing of medical cannabis
for its sick -- and has proved that, if you mix the two, the marijuana
will be far weaker when cross-pollinated and will lose THC and
cannabinoids.

We have watched as the Apjohn Co. here has been chosen to head the
clinical trials of the whole cannabis spray Sativex, made by GW
Pharmaceuticals based in Salisbury, England, for use in treating
multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and much more.

We have stood by, once again, watching as our children's futures
vanish before our eyes as our scientists leave by the hundreds. But we
will front for a British company as they grow and produce a cannabis
medicine and sell it to us.

In Kalamazoo, we have sat by and watched paper mill after paper mill
die a slow and painful death along with the loss of thousands of
good-paying jobs for needy families as paper feed stock grew too
expensive. We teach paper-making at Western Michigan University. Why
not one develop a research program to look into cannabis as a fast
renewable feedstock?

What happened to the understanding that it's not what we put into our
mouths, it's what comes out that counts?

For information on all of the above see www.cannabisnews.com.

Mike Dooley is a resident of Delton.