CBS Eye On America
Let’s Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey
Make a Fool Of Himself About Hemp Cultivation
This story was basically a follow up on the lawsuit
filed by Kentucky farmers demanding that they be allowed to grow hemp. See
New York Times and
Lexington-Herald Leader Report on Farmers’ New Lawsuit Against the DEA
and
Kentucky Farmers’ Suit
Against DEA -- BACKGROUND MEMORANDUM
From Michael Kennedy, Esq.
and
Hemp Issue Now Ready
for the Big Time; New Law Suits and Political Support;
The DEA Is In a No-Win Position
Of course, they did not seem to see the irony in the fact that these guys currently are
growing tobacco. They just said that there is no future in it, and the farmers are looking
for an alternative.
Showing excerpts from the WW II film Hemp For Victory and interviewing British and American farmers, CBS made hemp a suitable subject for mainstream television journalism. (It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the other networks to report on hemp.)
As if this weren’t bad enough for the prohibitionists, they caught Drug Czar Barry
McCaffrey off guard, and he followed the party line at the wrong time.
See
Drug Czar Barry
McCaffrey VS Hemp In Kentucky; An Interview and A Response From A Kentucky Farmer
and
The Drug Czar’s Position On
Industrial Hemp – It’s Just Marijuana and Besides The Farmers Don’t Need It
He claimed that marijuana is just a "subterfuge" to legalize marijuana. CBS used
this in the middle of an interview with a Kentucky farmer. Then they cut back to the
farmer and asked him if that was true. He replied, "Do I look like the sort of person
who is trying to legalize marijuana?" He doesn’t. His father even showed
pictures of himself as a boy in the hemp fields on the same farm.
CBS indicated the direction of the story with its promo. On its web site – which
is really disappointing – it says,
"Tonight, we look at the controversy over hemp. In other countries, it is a popular
and widely used non-narcotic fiber used in cosmetics, clothing, and even car parts. U.S.
farmers say they have found a new cash crop to replace tobacco, but the government will
not let them grow or sell it. We will tell you why on our "Eye on America."
report."
Altogether, it was a bad night for the narks.
The Hemp Page of Marijuananews.com is edited by John E. Dvorak, Hempologist & Managing Editor, Hemp Magazine.
John was born in Fort Worth, Texas, but is an eight year resident
of Allston/Brighton, MA, where he is the proprietor of the Boston Hemp Co-op and Managing
Editor of Hemp Magazine. He is a member of the Hemp Industries Association, the
International Hemp Association, and Mass/Cann NORML.
=-=-=-=-=-
Hemp Magazine
Advertising & subscription info:
Richard Tomcala, Publisher
hempmag@lconn.com
713-523-3199
Hemp news & writers wanted!
Contact John E. Dvorak, Managing Editor
boston.hemp@pobox.com
617-254-HEMP