Letter from the Publisher
Dear Readers,
My letters to you and to the USDA last month, written with regard to the DEA’s update to the ‘85/‘86 Environmental Impact Statement on Cannabis Eradication, elicited two responses. The USDA sent a copy of the draft EIS which spells out the risks our Earth’s fragile environment will be subjected to over the next decade of war against the cannabis plant.
Who, with a lick of common sense, would support dropping large amounts of poison out of airplanes? You folks at the USDA need to delve into your archives and pull out the Hemp For Victory film that your predecessors produced in the ‘30s, when some apparent degree of common sense existed in our government and the value of hemp was touted. Would you please air this film on Prime Time TV back to back with a report from an author of the draft EIS summarizing all the risks involved in the DEA’s plan and see what kind of public response you get?
I also received a letter from one of our readers telling us that she too wrote the USDA. She ended on this note: “Hemp is going to be the big issue of the new millennium—as peace in Vietnam was in the ‘60s. I can feel the first rumblings of a real upheaval!” I coudn’t agree more!
The cannabis issue crosses many boundaries: our environment, the politics of corporate greed and the consistent thrashing of our Bill of Rights in the form of property seizures and the gulaging of nearly one million Americans on drug related charges. Over $30 billion of our taxes will go to fighting the War on Drugs this year. Yes, this tremendous waste of money and senseless endangerment to our natural and human resources is a huge issue. It is time to bring all the truth into the light!
Beth Myrle Rice
cc: Mr. Jack Edmundson, USDA