|
Organic Bath and Body Products
Hemp Salves
Information contained here is designed to assist
you with questions
you may have regarding the quality of our products and how they are
made.
Hemp Myths and Realities
No one can get high from using hemp seed oil !
Organic Hemp Products:
Hemp Oil has proven to have healing properties and is useful for
saving trees by reproducing paper products. Hemp is also used for
clothing fabrics, yarns etc., none of which are dangerous to anyone
wearing these fabrics.
Hemp products carried by Pioneer Heritage Shoppe are certified
100% pure organically grown. Click
HERE for our Healing
Hemp Products and HERE for
our Hemp Fabrics.
Hemp Myths and Realities - Hemp and Marijuana - Myths & Realities
by David P. West, Ph.D.
http://www.gametec.com/hemp/archives.html
Surely no member of the vegetable kingdom has ever been more
misunderstood than hemp. For too many years, emotion-not reason-has
guided our policy toward this crop. And nowhere have emotions run
hotter than in the debate over the distinction between industrial
hemp and marijuana. This paper is intended to inform that debate by
offering scientific evidence, so that farmers, policy makers,
manufacturers, and the general public can distinguish between myth
and reality.
Botanically, the genus Cannabis is composed of several variants.
Although there has been a long-standing debate among taxonomists
about how to classify these variants into species, applied plant
breeders generally embrace a biochemical method to classify variants
along utilitarian lines. Cannabis is the only plant genus that
contains the unique class of molecular compounds called cannabinoids.
Many cannabinoids have been identified, but two preponderate: THC,
which is the psychoactive ingredient of Cannabis, and CBD, which is
an antipsychoactive ingredient. One type of Cannabis is high in the
psychoactive cannabinoid, THC, and low in the antipsychoactive
cannabinoid, CBD. This type is popularly known as marijuana. Another
type is high in CBD and low in THC. Variants of this type are called
industrial hemp.
In the United States, the debate about the relationship between hemp
and marijuana has been diminished by the dissemination of many
statements that have little scientific support. This report examines
in detail ten of the most pervasive and pernicious of these myths.
Myth: United States law has always treated hemp and marijuana
the same.
Reality: The history of federal drug laws clearly
shows that at one time the U.S. government understood and accepted
the distinction between hemp and marijuana.
Myth: Smoking industrial hemp gets a person high.
Reality: The THC levels in industrial hemp are so low
that no one could get high from smoking it. Moreover, hemp contains
a relatively high percentage of another cannabinoid, CBD, that
actually blocks the marijuana high. Hemp, it turns out, is not only
not marijuana; it could be called "antimarijuana."
Myth: Even though THC levels are low in hemp, the THC can be
extracted and concentrated to produce a powerful drug.
Reality: Extracting THC from industrial hemp and
further refining it to eliminate the preponderance of CBD would
require such an expensive, hazardous, and time-consuming process
that it is extremely unlikely anyone would ever attempt it, rather
than simply obtaining high-THC marijuana instead.
Myth: Hemp fields would be used to hide marijuana plants.
Reality: Hemp is grown quite differently from
marijuana. Moreover, it is harvested at a different time than
marijuana. Finally, cross-pollination between hemp plants and
marijuana plants would significantly reduce the potency of the
marijuana plant.
Myth: Legalizing hemp while continuing the prohibition on
marijuana would burden local police forces.
Reality: In countries where hemp is grown as an
agricultural crop, the police have experienced no such burdens.
Myth: Feral hemp must be eradicated because it can be sold as
marijuana.
Reality: Feral hemp, or ditchweed, is a remnant of the
hemp once grown on more than 400,000 acres by U.S. farmers. It
contains extremely low levels of THC, as low as .05 percent. It has
no drug value, but does offer important environmental benefits as a
nesting habitat for birds. About 99 percent of the "marijuana" being
eradicated by the federal government-at great public expense-is this
harmless ditchweed. Might it be that the drug enforcement agencies
want to convince us that ditchweed is hemp in order to protect their
large eradication budgets?
Myth: Those who want to legalize hemp are actually seeking a
backdoor way to legalize marijuana.
Reality: It is true that many of the first hemp stores
were started by industrial-hemp advocates who were also in favor of
legalizing marijuana. However, as the hemp industry has matured, it
has come to be dominated by those who see hemp as the agricultural
and industrial crop that it is, and see hemp legalization as a
different issue than marijuana legalization. In any case, should we
oppose a very good idea simply because some of those who support it
also support other ideas with which we disagree?
Myth: Hemp oil is a source of THC.
Reality: Hemp oil is an increasingly popular product,
used for an expanding variety of purposes. The washed hemp seed
contains no THC at all. The tiny amounts of THC contained in
industrial hemp are in the glands of the plant itself. Sometimes, in
the manufacturing process, some THC- and CBD-containing resin sticks
to the seed, resulting in traces of THC in the oil that is produced.
The concentration of these cannabinoids in the oil is infinitesimal.
No one can get high from using hemp oil.
Myth: Legalizing hemp would send the wrong message to
children.
Reality: It is the current refusal of the drug
enforcement agencies to distinguish between an agricultural crop and
a drug crop that is sending the wrong message to children.
Myth: Hemp is not economically viable, and should therefore
be outlawed.
Reality: The market for hemp products is growing
rapidly. But even if it were not, when has a crop ever been outlawed
simply because government agencies thought it would be unprofitable
to grow?
More Resources on Hemp below.
Hemp is used in a variety of consumable products. Eg., Food,
Vitamins, Body Care, preventive heath care, lamp lighting, printing
detergents, clothing fibre etc.
Please visit additional informative websites below on this subject.
http://hemporganic.com/whyhemp.html
http://www.thehia.org/faqs/faq7.htm
http://www.hemptons.co.za/Uses/HempUses.htm
http://www.hemptons.co.za/Uses/Nutraceutical/OilandAtopy.pdf
Return to our Bath and Body Gallery and Place Your Order
HERE
|