Pubdate: Mon, 21 Jun 1999
Date: 06/21/1999
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Author: Donna C. Lee

Kentucky Hemp Beer president Mike Hart and Joe Hickey, executive
director of the Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperatives are nothing but
hypocrites. Their condemnation of “marijuana” is absolutely absurd;
marijuana is hemp.

The term marijuana was only introduced into our language as a means to
the end of ridding this country's economy of hemp. William Randolph
Hearst coined the term back in the 1930s as part of his yellow
journalism tactics to get rid of hemp as a viable source of paper,
which threatened his millions of dollars of timberland. He and others
created the scare surrounding hemp, thus causing the federal
government to ban its growth.

No one in the hemp industry, growers or manufacturers, took a stand
against this propaganda at that time so laws were enacted that have
banned the plant in this country for more than 60 years.

Now, all of a sudden, as Hart, Hickey and others see what the
marijuana movement has accomplished in changing drug policy and the
increasing acceptance of hemp’s benefits, they want to alienate
themselves from the entire movement.

The growing acceptance worldwide of industrial hemp has only come
about because of organizations like NORML, which fought for all uses
of the plant.

Hemp is marijuana and vice versa, and the sooner you wake up to this
fact and stop trying to develop “us and them” factions, the sooner we
can get this entire “ban” on the plant repealed.

Hart and Hickey apparently think that adamantly coming out against
“marijuana” will give them a one up in the marketplace for their
product, but it won’t. All they will succeed in doing is weakening the
entire cause, playing right into the hands of federal legislators who
will maintain the ban forever.

Just think what this will do to your profits -- and to our
planet.

If Hart and Hickey are so concerned with separating themselves from
any references to marijuana hemp, then why call their product Kentucky
Hemp Beer? They named it so as to capitalize on the growing acceptance
of marijuana in the hopes that people would buy. They are hypocrites,
and their hypocrisy will spell doom to the entire movement to
re-legalize hemp.

Donna C. Lee

Donna C. Lee is founder of the Cannabis Freedom Coalition in San
Diego, California.