May 5th, 2001 at Noon on the West Steps of the State Capitol Building in Des Moines, Iowa For more information contact: Carl Olsen, 515-288-5798 Terry Mitchell, 515-789-4442 Becky Terrill, 515-268-3105 |
CITYVIEW
May 2, 2001
FREE THE WEED
Is the Legislature wrong for repeatedly stopping attempts to reform the state's cannabis laws?
By Tim Schmitt
The fast-growing leafy green
plant usually with five to seven jagged leaves is found around the world.
It grows wild in ditches and fields in almost all climates and all soil
conditions, and is cultivated in gardens, government research fields and
basement grow rooms.
Its scientific name
is cannabis sativa, a species that includes both hemp and marijuana - two
commonly confused plants that are arguably the most controversial and
misunderstood in the world.
Depending on its
form, cannabis can be smoked for pleasure, or made into food, fuel, medicine,
fiber and countless other things. It was once one of the most important and
widely grown crops in the United States, cultivated by George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson and a required crop in 17th-century Connecticut.
Cannabis supporters
claim the plant could single-handedly save the planet by easing man's
afflictions and reducing or eliminating our reliance on environment-damaging
fossil fuels. Opponents consider it the devil's weed, capable of ruining
lives, stealing children's innocence and starting users on a one-way journey to
drug addiction and ultimately, death.
So what is the truth
about this plant? It's hard to say. For every study that shows it to
be dangerous, addictive or otherwise nasty, several others are released which
claim the opposite. For each study that hails marijuana as nature's
perfect medicine or hemp as the planet's savior, there are a dozen people ready
to challenge the results.
Many countries,
Holland, Canada and Australia among them, have eased laws regarding cannabis.
And voters in several states have opted for loosening restrictions for both
marijuana and hemp, a move that put those states at odds with the federal
government.
In Iowa, the plant's
advocates have been trying for years to convince the Legislature to consider its
benefits. This year legislation was once again introduced which would have
allowed the medical use of marijuana and authorized research into the benefits
of growing industrial hemp. And like similar bills, both were dead on
arrival.
Supporters of both
the industrial hemp and medical marijuana initiatives believe that most people
would agree with them if they had all the information. And they believe
the Legislature would pass the bills if this support were demonstrated.
This year, in an
effort that defies the stereotype of the unmotivated, couch-bound stoner,
marijuana and hemp proponents have organized public awareness rallies to take
place in more than 120 cities around the planet on May 5. Among those
cities is Des Moines.
Terry Mitchell, a
disabled man in his late 40s has been organizing the rally in Des Moines, which
will begin at the state Capitol at noon. Participants plan to meet there
and make their case for the reformation of cannabis laws, then walk to Nollen
Plaza, where several bands are set to play until 10 p.m.
Mitchell started
working at 14 years old, pumping gas and changing tires, and continued doing
strenuous physical labor until he was in his mid-40s, when the pain in his back
forced him to quit.
Mitchell rarely
leaves his small Dexter, Iowa, home these days, and leans heavily on a cane
whenever he's on his feet, usually bent at the waist into a near fetal position.
He has been in constant pain for several years from the degenerative disc
disease that put him on permanent disability and is causing his spine to slowly
crumble away. Most days he cannot walk to the end of his street, only a
block and a half away, without stopping several times to rest and allow the pain
to subside.
A slew of prescribed
medicines has failed to provide Mitchell relief, or did so at the expense of
mobility. They either failed to ease the pain or left him a zombie, unable
to move from his bed for more than an hour or two each day.
"I'd been on
pain killers and muscle relaxers for two years," he says. "I was
either asleep 20 hours a day or a walking zombie and I was still in pain."
Terri Valko lives in
Des Moines and suffers from the same disease as Mitchell. Several of her
vertebrae have been replaced with metal plates. After years of yoga and
with quite a bit of effort, Valko can now turn her head almost to her shoulder.
Valko, too, has been
prescribed a lot of drugs. Years of morphine, Vicodin and other drugs have
taken their toll, eating away at her stomach and throat to the point where she
required surgery on her esophagus.
"I've had a lot
of surgeries and a lot of pain," she says. "The medicines are
just eating me up. All I want is to not hurt anymore."
Mitchell and Valko
are two of the thousands of chronically ill people who have found relief by
smoking marijuana. And like all but the eight people in the country who
receive medical marijuana from the federal government, they are breaking the law
every time they light up.
"I don't smoke
to get high," says Mitchell. "I take it like medicine. The
main point behind me smoking is being able to get up and move."
Valko echoes this
statement, saying smoking pot is not about getting a buzz, but about getting
relief.
"I really
started smoking to try to avoid taking all the medications," she says.
"The side effects are killing me."
Valko and Mitchell
have been straightforward with their physicians about their marijuana use, and
both say the doctors have been as supportive as they legally can with their
decision to self-medicate with the drug.
"The only bad
side effect of smoking cannabis is the guy with the bubble gums on the
car," says Mitchell.
MARIJUANA AS MEDICINE
Marijuana is nature's perfect medicine, say those who
use it as such. And prohibiting its use is a crime against those who
suffer without it. Patients with glaucoma, cancer, AIDS, multiple
sclerosis, epilepsy, arthritis and spinal cord injuries have all reported
benefits from smoking or eating the plant.
From 1850 until it
was outlawed in 1937, tincture of cannabis was the primary medicine used to
treat more than 100 illnesses, everything from menstrual cramps to epilepsy, and
the American Medical Association opposed removing marijuana from the
pharmacopoeia.
In 1970, the
Controlled Substance Act turned control of marijuana over to law enforcement and
the Drug Enforcement Agency. It was classified as a schedule 1 narcotic,
meaning it was banned from research and prescription.
"Prohibition
leads to the black market, and the only control available is law
enforcement," says Derrick Grimmer, staff adviser for the ISU chapter of
NORML (The National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws). "That's
consistently shown to be a failure over time.
"Everybody
seems to be leaning that way (toward legalization or decriminalization) except
the United States and places like Saudi Arabia and Singapore. If the
United States wants to be in league with those countries, then that's another
story."
Barbara Douglass has
been smoking pot - nine ounces a month - since 1992 and credits the medicine
with saving her life.
"I think
marijuana should be recognized as the medicine it is," she says.
"The biggest benefit is I'm still alive. It's given me a way and a
reason to carry on."
Unlike Mitchell and
Valko, Douglass takes her medicine legally. In 1992, Douglass, who suffers
from multiple sclerosis, became the last patient approved to receive medical
marijuana under a program run by the federal government.
Douglass is now 47
years old and still lives on her own in a small house on Spirit Lake, and the
progression of her disease has been slower than usual.
"I've been told repeatedly that
I've beaten the odds," she says. "I'm still walking, I'm not in
a wheelchair, or a nursing home, and I know it's the pot. I feel very
sorry for these people that they can't help their diseases with marijuana as I
have."
Grimmer says it
would be better to bring marijuana, and other drugs, into the sphere of
regulation, much like alcohol and tobacco, so they could be taxed and
controlled.
"I think it's
clear that the drug war is a failure and the drug war is basically a war against
marijuana," he says. "Marijuana is not an addictive drug;
alcohol, tobacco and caffeine are. The same rules should be applied to
marijuana as these drugs."
To bolster his
argument, he rattles off the statistics: A half million dead from
tobacco-related illness each year; 150,000 alcohol-related deaths, not including
drunken driving fatalities. Caffeine annually causes about 1,000 deaths a
year, and even aspirin kills more than 100 people annually.
But no death has
ever been attributed to marijuana.
At one time the
DEA's own administrative law judge, Judge Francis Young, said there is
"accepted safety for the use of marijuana under medical supervision and to
deny that would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious."
Mitchell says
keeping cannabis illegal is purely a political move, one meant to protect those
with a financial interest in keeping it illegal at the expense of people who
would benefit from its many uses.
"The only
people opposed to it are those it would affect," he says. "The
cotton industry would suffer, the timber industry would suffer and the prison
industry would suffer."
Mitchell has planned
the rally to start at the Capitol at noon. Protesters will later walk
together to Nollen Plaza, but because of the discs that are crumbling in his
back, it's a walk that Mitchell will likely be unable to complete.
"I'll try like
hell, but I don't think I'll make it."
THE CASE FOR HEMP
Ditchweed, as it's often called, can be found across
the state. Almost everyone's heard a tale from a relative or friend who
dried and smoked an armful of the stuff only to end up with a sore throat and a
headache.
This is hemp.
The leafy green plant that pops up almost everywhere from roadsides to back
yards. It is not marijuana. Smoking it cannot and will not get you
high.
Marijuana contains
the chemical THC, which causes mild euphoria when smoked or eaten. Hemp
has only trace amounts of THC, not nearly enough for even the weakest
lightweight to cop a buzz.
Hemp can save the
planet, claims its proponents. Its seed can be transformed into fuel and
food, the rest of the plant can be turned into an almost endless variety of
products, from clothing to building materials, and hemp can be grown more
sustainably with less damage to the environment than other crops. It could
save farms and boost a slumping economy, provide jobs for thousands and decrease
reliance on imported fossil fuels.
The United States
once relied heavily on hemp for industry before the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937
outlawed the plant. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp
paper, and the sails of ships in the Revolutionary War were made of hemp, George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew the plant, and in 1640 the governor of
Connecticut declared, "Every citizen must grow the plant."
Even after it was
outlawed in 1937, the U.S. government launched a campaign in the '40s to
encourage farmers to grow hemp for the war effort. "Hemp for
Victory," was the call, but after the war, hemp production was again
prohibited.
But the hemp
industry has grown exponentially since then, and the United States has missed
out. Hemp-based products, from beauty supplies to clothing, can be
purchased at many retail outlets, and Adidas, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein all
include hemp products in their clothing lines. Sales of hemp products in
the United States in 1994 were estimated at $25 million, but none of the product
originates within our borders.
France harvests
approximately 10,000 tons of hemp annually. It is cultivated legally
throughout much of Europe and Asia, and test plots have been successfully
cultivated in Canada and Australia.
The fear in the
United States is largely that allowing hemp is the first step on the slippery
slope to marijuana legalization. It has also been suggested that hemp
fields could, and likely would, be used to hide marijuana plants, an impossible
act given that marijuana growing anywhere near the vicinity of hemp would be
rendered impotent by cross-pollination. No country that currently allows
the cultivation of industrial hemp has reported experiencing an increase of
marijuana use.
Though the federal
government and the DEA maintain their opposition to hemp, several states are
looking into the possibility of growing it within their borders. Hawaii,
Kentucky, Vermont, North Dakota and several other states have passed industrial
hemp research legislation and it's been proposed many times in other states.
Several years ago
Roger Gipple went to the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation to get them on board with
the industrial hemp idea. Iowa's farmers are hurting and are always
looking for ways to diversify crops, he figured, so introducing hemp to the
state seemed like a no-brainer. After all, hemp germinates relatively
early in the spring in low soil temperature, grows to cultivation in about 100
days and can grow just about anywhere. It has the potential to be
manufactured into more than 25,000 products, and the market for hemp is booming.
The Farm Bureau was
interested and agreed to support the idea. Legislation was presented which
would have allowed research into hemp production to begin and it appeared as
though it would pass, but a last-minute call from Gov. Terry Branstad to
Republican legislators killed the bill.
"I came to the
realization then that there was a brick wall when it comes to this and that the
work needs to be done on a federal level," says Gipple.
The U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency is the only federal agency that can legally grant permits to
grow hemp, and it is opposed to any revision of existing hemp laws.
"Even states
that have passed industrial hemp initiatives have had the DEA come in and burn
it up," says Gipple.
Henry Ford used
industrial hemp to make plastics, lubricants and fuels and called for a
plant-based economy with a focus on hemp, an idea that still makes sense to
Gipple.
"We would be
raising our own energy and our own fiber, so Iowa would be raising and creating
its own building materials, textiles, fuels and lubricants," he says.
"This is something I'll always be working on, but I know it won't happen
quickly, in a year or two. But it will happen."
"We're looking
for ways to diversify agriculture. And if we weren't such prudes,
industrial hemp would be an answer," says state Rep. Ed Fallon, co-sponsor
of the most recent industrial hemp bill. "It has definite industrial
benefits."
Though nine other
representatives signed on to the bill, there was still not enough support to
have it seriously considered.
In addition to
co-sponsoring the industrial hemp legislation, Fallon introduced the medical
marijuana bill, just like he does every year. Both, he says, are
"deader than a doornail."
"And it's a
shame," he says. "We'd be helping people who have legitimate
needs that would benefit from the drug."
Valko is hopeful
that the laws will change someday and she'll be able to get the medicine that
helps her without risking time in jail. She says the pain from her disease
has been so bad at times that she's considered killing herself just to bring it
to an end.
"If you can
smoke a little pot to keep from blowing your brains out, so be it," she
says.
"Something has
to be done. People go out and drink alcohol and kill people, but I can't
take my medicine. It's got to be legalized. This is ridiculous.
"So many people
smoke pot and complain about it being illegal. But they won't stand up for
their rights, and so nothing will change," she adds. "Things
will only change if enough people stand up and say this isn't right."
Fallon agrees,
saying the only way the state's cannabis laws will change is if enough people
demand it.
"Every year, we
bring up medical marijuana and it gets killed. And every year, someone
brings up industrial hemp and it gets killed," he says. "The
Legislature is not a group of leaders, but followers. These issues are
going to take a lot more public awareness and comfort to get anywhere."
And that, says
Mitchell, is the purpose of the rally this weekend.
"I hope to make
a lot more people ask questions," he says. "I want to know why
it is illegal and I don't want to hear just 'it's against the law,' That's not
good enough. I want to know why. There's a lot more people like me
out there.
"I wrote the
governor, I can give him 1,000 reasons it should be legal, and I want him to
give me just five reasons it shouldn't be. If he can do that, I'll back
off."
The rally this Saturday, May 5th, begins at noon on the Capitol steps and will move to Nollen Plaza around 4 p.m. Several bands will be playing at Nollen Plaza until 10 p.m. as part of the rally. For more information, call Terry Mitchell at (515) 789-4442