French Police
Seize Body Shop Hemp Products and Promotional Material;
Claim They "Encourage Drug Use."- 2 Articles
Their
actions are in keeping with the UN narks’ call for censoring any references to hemp
or medical marijuana.
See
UN
Prohibitionists Demand Censorship Of Anti-Prohibitionists, Even Medical Marijuana and Hemp
Info
and
Body Shop Founder Anita Roddick
Ridicules Prohibitionists Attacks On Her
For Giving Away Hemp Seeds
In the meantime, The Body Shop gets millions in free publicity.)
From the Scotsman
Letters_ts@scotsman.com
August 28, 1998
POLICE SEIZE BODY SHOP HEMP PRODUCTS
FRENCH police seized lip conditioner, hand oil and elbow grease containing hemp seed oil from a Body Shop store - because they claim the products encourage drug use.
Body Shop founder Anita Roddick yesterday said she was "amazed" by the action
of gendarmes who entered her shop in Aix-en-Provence and took products from the Hemp
range, as well as promotional material.
(Ed. note: In the UK they use the word "range" to mean a
product "line." I do wish they would learn proper English!)
Ms Roddick said: "You’d have to smoke a hemp joint the size of a telephone pole to get the least buzz and you’d die from carbon monoxide first.
"France is in the forefront of the hemp revolution, in fact the hemp seed oil in The Body Shop range comes from France.
"However, we are being restricted in Aix-en-Provence from promoting our Hemp range.
"I know the French perfected the art of irony in the past, but right now I’d like to see them get a better grip on the future."
The Body Shop said it had launched the Hemp range in the UK, the US and other markets over the past few months with tremendous success.
From The London Times
letters@the-times.co.uk
http://www.the-times.co.uk/
August 28, 1998
By Susan Bell
BODY SHOP’S HEMP PRODUCTS BLOW UP A STORM IN FRANCE
THE Body Shop may be prosecuted for promoting drug use after French police raided a branch of the ecologically friendly retail group in Aix-en-Provence. They seized stocks of hand lotion, lip conditioner and body oil from the company’s new hemp product range, claiming that they encouraged the use of cannabis. The Body Shop products are made with industrial-grade hemp seed oil extracted from the hemp plant, which is part of the cannabis family. The oil does contain THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the compound that provides the "high" from marijuana, but only in negligible quantities.
"You’d have to smoke a hemp joint the size of a telephone pole to get the least buzz and you’d die from carbon monoxide first," Anita Roddick, the founder of The Body Shop, said yesterday. She expressed "amazement" at the action of the gendarmes, who also seized all promotional material on the products during the raid on Wednesday.
The seized items were returned, but a report was submitted to the public prosecutor in Aix-en-Provence.
A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said yesterday that any legal action would probably focus on the packaging rather than the products.
Posters advertising the range show the hemp leaf.
A Body Shop spokesman denied that the range encouraged drug use and said the company’s aim was to distance industrial hemp from marijuana by educating people on the ecological benefits of cultivating hemp and the uses to which it could be put. There are more than 25,000 known uses for hemp, including fuel, textiles, building materials and fabrics.
The hemp seed oil used to make the Body Shop products comes from France, which Ms Roddick described as "being in the forefront of the hemp revolution".
The Body Shop launched the hemp products in its 22 shops in France on Monday. The range has already enjoyed huge success in Britain and America.
In Britain, it accounted for 5 per cent of total sales in April, a month after it was introduced.
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