by Doug Oakley /MediaNews Group [http://www.timesheraldonline.com/news/ci_22089425/banned-berkeley-medical-marijuana-collective-may-move-vallejo]:
BERKELEY -- The owner of a medical marijuana collective whose operation was declared a nuisance and ordered to close by the City Council on Tuesday night said he will take his business to Vallejo.
Without comment, the council unanimously declared Perfect Plants Patients Group a nuisance after a Nov. 11 hearing in which it said the collective was operating illegally.
Eric Thomas, president of Perfect Plants Patients Group at 2840 Sacramento Ave., said he already runs one collective in Vallejo and will try to open a second one there because the rules governing medical marijuana are easier.
Vallejo, which housed at best count a couple dozen store-front dispensaries by early this year, has no medical marijuana sales permitting process, nor a specific ban on it. Since February, several dispensaries have been shut down -- some repeatedly -- through police raids, even as the city has begun taxing medical marijuana sales. A city effort in recent years to begin regulating and permitting the industry foundered over legal concerns.
A Vallejo police spokesman had no specific response to Thomas' stated plan, saying only that the department plans to "continue to investigate illegal storefront dispensaries that are open in Vallejo, as time permits."
"It looks like it will be a losing battle for us to stay open in Berkeley unless they are willing to rewrite the rules concerning collectives," Thomas said Wednesday.
But a member of the Sacramento Street Improvement Association who lives around the corner and who threatened to sue the group over allegations it brought crime, trash and street drug sales is dubious. He said he won't be convinced Thomas is gone until he sees the space empty.
"The sign is still up, everything is still in the office," Ryan Kerian said. "To me, they are still operating. We want the city to get a legal order telling them to vacate."
A number of issues contributed to the City Council action including the fact that Perfect Plants was a collective operating in a commercial area, where only licensed dispensaries are permitted to sell medical marijuana in Berkeley. The three licenses in Berkeley are already taken. Medical marijuana collectives, generally smaller, are allowed in residential areas in Berkeley.
In addition, the city contended the collective was violating a rule that medical marijuana outlets need to be more than 600 feet from any school. Longfellow Middle School is nearby.
Thomas said in the 15 months he was in business in Berkeley he had 4,000 members and was selling about $15,000 to $20,000 worth of marijuana every two months. A robbery in April cut revenues, he said.
Thomas said he has paid only $2,000 out of $25,000 in fines levied against him by the city over the last year. He said he is disappointed over the City Council action.
"Berkeley had a chance to step up and be leaders in medical marijuana," Thomas said, "but they've fallen behind over politics and money."
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Monday, November 26, 2012
Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants
[http://www.google.com/patents/US6630507]:
Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants
Aidan J. Hampson et al
Patent number: 6630507
Filing date: Feb 2, 2001
Issue date: Oct 7, 2003
Application number: 09/674,028
Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia. Nonpsychoactive cannabinoids, such as cannabidoil, are particularly advantageous to use because they avoid toxicity that is encountered with psychoactive cannabinoids at high doses useful in the method of the present invention. A particular disclosed class of cannabinoids useful as neuroprotective antioxidants is formula (I) wherein the R group is independently selected from the group consisting...
Inventors: Aidan J. Hampson, Julius Axelrod, Maurizio Grimaldi
Original Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services
Primary Examiner: Kevin E. Weddington
Attorney: Klarquist Sparkman, LLP
Current U.S. Classification: 514/454
International Classification: A61K/3135
Cited Patent Filing date Issue date Original Assignee Title
US2304669 Aug 16, 1940 Dec 8, 1942 ISOLATION OF CANNABIDIOL
US4876276 Oct 26, 1987 Oct 24, 1989 Yissum Research Development Co. of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (3S-4S)-7-hydroxy-.DELTA..sup.6 -tetrahydrocannabinols
US5227537 Jan 8, 1992 Jul 13, 1993 Heinrich Mack Nachf. Method for the production of 6,12-dihydro-6-hydroxy-cannabidiol and the use thereof for the production of trans-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol
US5284867 Apr 8, 1992 Feb 8, 1994 Yissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
Ramot University, Authority for Applied Research and Industrial Development Ltd. NMDA-blocking pharmaceutical compositions
US5434295 Feb 7, 1994 Jul 18, 1995 Yissum Research Development Company
Pharmos Corp. Neuroprotective pharmaceutical compositions of 4-phenylpinene derivatives and certain novel 4-phenylpinene compounds
US5462946 Mar 20, 1992 Oct 31, 1995 The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services Nitroxides as protectors against oxidative stress
US5512270 Aug 31, 1994 Apr 30, 1996 Duke University Method of inhibiting oxidants using alkylaryl polyether alcohol polymers
US5521215 Feb 7, 1994 May 28, 1996 Ramot University Authority for Applied Research and Industrial Development Ltd.
Yissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
Pharmos Corp. NMDA-blocking pharmaceuticals
US5538993 Feb 7, 1994 Jul 23, 1996 Yissum Research Development Company Certain tetrahydrocannabinol-7-oic acid derivatives
US5635530 May 24, 1994 Jun 3, 1997 Yissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (3S,4S)-delta-6-tetrahydrocannabinol-7-oic acids and derivatives thereof, processors for their preparation and pharmaceutical compositions containing them
US5696109 Jun 7, 1995 Dec 9, 1997 Eukarion, Inc. Synthetic catalytic free radical scavengers useful as antioxidants for prevention and therapy of disease
US6410588 Mar 6, 2001 Jun 25, 2002 The Mathilda and Terence Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology
Yissum Research and Development Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Use of cannabinoids as anti-inflammatory agents
Referenced byCiting Patent Filing date Issue date Original Assignee Title
US7179800 Apr 15, 2003 Feb 20, 2007 Virginia Commonwealth University Cannabinoids
US7184198 Mar 8, 2005 Feb 27, 2007 Konica Minolta Holdings, Inc. Display element
US7285687 Jun 20, 2002 Oct 23, 2007 Virginia Commonwealth University
Organix Inc. Cannabinoids
US7597910 Aug 20, 2005 Oct 6, 2009 SLGM Medical Research Institute Compositions and methods for treating prostate disorders
US7674922 Sep 28, 2006 Mar 9, 2010 Albany Molecular Research, Inc. Process for production of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol
US7884133 Sep 8, 2004 Feb 8, 2011 Yissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Ariel Ltd. Pharmaceutical compositions containing (+) cannabidioil and derivatives thereof and some such novel derivatives
US8106244 May 16, 2011 Jan 31, 2012 Albany Molecular Research, Inc. Process for production of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol
Claims
1. A method of treating diseases caused by oxidative stress, comprising administering a therapeutically effective amount of a cannabinoid that has substantially no binding to the NMDA receptor to a subject who has a disease caused by oxidative stress.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the cannabinoid is nonpsychoactive.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the cannabinoid has a volume of distribution of 10 L/kg or more.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the cannabinoid is not an antagonist at the NMDA receptor.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the cannabinoid is:
where R is H, substituted or unsubstituted alkyl, carboxyl, alkoxy, aryl, aryloxy, arylalkyl, halo or amino.
6. The method of claim 5, wherein R is H, substituted or unsubstituted alkyl, carboxyl or alkoxy.
7. The method of claim 2, wherein the cannabinoid is:
where
A is cyclohexyl, substituted or unsubstituted aryl, or
but not a pinene;
R1 is H, substituted or unsubstituted alkyl, or substituted or unsubstituted carboxyl;
R2 is H, lower substituted or unsubstituted alkyl, or alkoxy;
R3 is of H, lower substituted or unsubstituted alkyl, or substituted or unsubstituted carboxyl;
R4 is H, hydroxyl, or lower substituted or unsubstituted alkyl; and
R5 is H, hydroxyl, or lower substituted or unsubstituted alkyl.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein
R1 is lower alkyl, COOH or COCH3;
R2 is unsubstituted C1-C5 alkyl, hydroxyl, methoxy or ethoxy;
R3 is H, unsubstituted C1-C3 alkyl, or COCH3;
R4 is hydroxyl, pentyl, heptyl, or diemthylheptyl; and
R5 is hydroxyl or methyl.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the cannabinoid is:
where R1, R2 and R3 are independently H, CH3, or COCH3.
10. The method of claim 9, wherein the cannabinoid is:
where:
a) R1R2R3H;
b) R1R3H, R2CH3;
c) R1R2CH3, R3H;
d) R1R2COCH3, R3H; or
e) R1H, R2R3COCH3.
11. The method of claim 2, wherein the cannabinoid is:
where R19 is H, lower alkyl, lower alcohol, or carboxyl; R20 is H or OH; and R21-R25 are independently H or OH.
12. The method of claim 11, wherein R19 is H, CH3, CH2OH, or COOH, and R20-R24 are independently H or OH.
13. The method of claim 2, wherein the cannabinoid is:
where R19 and R20 are H, and R26 is alkyl.
14. The method of claim 10, wherein the cannabinoid is cannabidiol.
15. A method of treating an ischemic or neurodegenerative disease in the central nervous system of a subject, comprising administering to the subject a therapeutically effective amount of a cannabinoid, where the cannabinoid is
where R is H, substituted or unsubstituted alkyl, carboxyl, alkoxy, aryl, aryloxy, arylalkyl, halo or amino.
16. The method of claim 15, wherein the cannabinoid is not a psychoactive cannabinoid.
17. The method of claim 15 where the ischemic or neurodegenerative disease is an ischemic infarct, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and human immunodeficiency virus dementia, Down's syndrome, or heart disease.
18. A method of treating a disease with a cannabinoid that has substantially no binding to the NMDA receptor, comprising determining whether the disease is caused by oxidative stress, and if the disease is caused by oxidative stress, administering the cannabinoid in a therapeutically effective antioxidant amount.
19. The method of claim 18, wherein the cannabinoid has a volume of distribution of at least 1.5 L/kg and substantially no activity at the cannabinoid receptor.
20. The method of claim 19, wherein the cannabinoid has a volume of distribution of at least 10 L/kg.
21. The method of claim 1, wherein the cannabinoid selectively inhibits an enzyme activity of 5- and 15-lipoxygenase more than an enzyme activity of 12-lipoxygenase.
22. A method of treating a neurodegenerative or ischemic disease in the central nervous system of a subject, comprising administering to the subject a therapeutically effective amount of a compound selected from any of the compounds of claims 9 through 13.
23. The method of claim 22 where the compound is cannabidiol.
24. The method of claim 22, wherein the ischemic or neurodegenerative disease is an ischemic infarct, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and human immunodeficiency virus dementia, Down's syndrome, or heart disease.
25. The method of claim 24 wherein the disease is an ischemic infarct.
26. The method of claim 1, wherein the cannabinoid is not an antagonist at the AMPA receptor.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Wal*Mart attacks cannabis patient
2012-11-13 message from "Cannabis Nation Radio"
[http://cannabisnationradio.com/] [http://facebook.com/reformwarrior]:
It is rare that such a hardworking, dedicated employee comes along. Walmart may have won in court, but they lost one of their best employees, who could have provided them immense insight, and worked with them to improve not only the bottom line, but employee relations as well, which are apparently at an all time low. Walmart proved what many say about multinational corporations.... they are cold, calculating, lack compassion, have no human insight, and the human factor has been completely removed from their human relations.
[http://cannabisnationradio.com/] [http://facebook.com/reformwarrior]:
It is rare that such a hardworking, dedicated employee comes along. Walmart may have won in court, but they lost one of their best employees, who could have provided them immense insight, and worked with them to improve not only the bottom line, but employee relations as well, which are apparently at an all time low. Walmart proved what many say about multinational corporations.... they are cold, calculating, lack compassion, have no human insight, and the human factor has been completely removed from their human relations.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Cannabis Freedom
"The Truth About Hemp: Part I" by Kyle Peterson from "NOO Journal" Issue [six] 2007
[http://www.noojournal.com/view.php?mode=1&issue=six&id=105]:
WHICH SINGLE PLANT is found growing naturally in all 50 U.S. states and has over 25,000 possible uses, including paper, clothing, food, and fuel? The answer: hemp, a variety of the plant cannabis sativa L, often mistaken for marijuana. It’s been used for centuries in almost every civilization, including the United States. So, why it is illegal today?
Regardless of its possibilities as a source of food, fuel, and industrial materials, for many Americans, cannabis carries with it the stigma of a drug culture that developed in the U.S. during the 20th century. Viewed as a “gateway” into a forbidden and dangerous world, cannabis has become a scapegoat for the ills of society. But the fact of the matter is that prior to its prohibition in the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, hemp was a legal cash crop, grown by our Founding Fathers, and for many years was even an acceptable form of payment for taxes.
Despite its current status as a Schedule One narcotic, before 1937, the U.S. government recognized the differences between the varieties of the plant used for industrial hemp and those cultivated for the flowers, or buds. What happened to change that is a story of narrow, self-interests that would lead our nation down an unsustainable path, a story all too common in the United States history.
In the early part of the 20th century, incredible discoveries and innovations in the uses of agricultural products inspired a new field of science, called “chemurgy.” Defined by the Columbia Encyclopedia as a “branch of applied chemistry concerned with preparing industrial products from agricultural raw materials,” chemurgy was an agrarian response to an increasingly manufactured world and as such, we shall see, was diametrically opposed to the interests of the major petroleum and chemical corporations of the day.
Perhaps some of the most famous discoveries in the field of chemurgy were those made by the scientist George Washington Carver. While working at the Tuskegee Institute, Carver discovered literally hundreds of uses for various foodstuffs such as potatoes, soy beans, pecans, and peanuts, uses including adhesives, axle grease, bleach, shaving cream, and synthetic rubber (Bellis). But Carver was not the only one making such discoveries.
Always searching for ways to improve his original design of the automobile, Henry Ford looked to nature for answers. Ford built the body of a model car entirely from hemp and other fibers by binding them together with a resin and molding it into the desired shape. Today, this material is known as a biocomposite, and car manufacturers such as Ford, BMW, Daimler-Chrysler, and GM are experimenting with biocomposites to make door panels, head liners, and other parts. The Ford Motor Corporation alone used more than 5,000,000 pounds of hemp between 1999 and 2000 (Rothenberg 20).
But Mr. Ford wasn’t alone in his innovations with hemp, nor in his desire for ethanol, which he called “the fuel of the future," to fuel the automobiles of America. He originally intended to power automobiles with ethanol, known then as ethyl alcohol, so that Americans could make use of the vast number of materials available for conversion into cellulosic and starch-based ethanols.
Another advocate for ethanol was scientist Harold Hibbert. In 1920 at Yale University, Hibbert was experimenting with the chemical decomposition, or hydrolysis, of cellulose, an organic compound found in cell walls of all green plants, including hemp. But because cellulose is a complex polysaccharide and requires enzymes or acids that to this day are expensive to manufacture, cellulosic ethanol was not yet commercially viable (Kovarik).
Almost one hundred years later, several biotech companies, including Arkenol Fuels and Iogen, have begun marketing their patented hydrolysis processes that can convert anything from paper waste to farm and forest residues into cellulosic ethanol. The Energy Information Administration estimates that by 2015 improvements in the hydrolysis process will lower production costs by as much as 60 cents per gallon, allowing cellulosic ethanol to compete with gasoline. One such improvement is the use of genetically engineered enzymes to turn feedstocks into ethanol, technology unavailable to Hibbert in the 1920s.
Undoubtedly, the scientists working on ethanol from cellulose faced challenges, but probably none as daunting as opposition from the alliance between the Standard Oil, Ethyl, DuPont, and GM corporations. In his essay “Henry Ford, Charles Kettering, and The Fuel of the Future,” Professor Bill Kovarik details how the executives of these corporations feared competition from ethanol and so not only spread propaganda and lobbied ferociously against subsidies, but privately investigated politicians and advocates who supported the renewable fuel. In addition, the corporation Ethyl, which marketed leaded gasoline, even went so far as to refuse the sale of its products if a wholesaler also sold ethanol. Although the Supreme Court upheld an anti-trust lawsuit against Ethyl in 1940, as a result of such pressure, according to Kovarik, the once broad-based support for ethanol evaporated.
The cannabis plant, which can be converted into cellulosic ethanol, suffered a similar fate as part of the chemurgy movement. A new invention, similar to Eli Whitney’s revolutionary cotton gin, called the hemp decorticator, made stripping the bast, or outer fibers of the stalk more efficient. Such an improvement in technology reduced the time and cost of processing, which would in turn encourage the expansion of uses for hemp (Rothenberg 7). An ill-timed Popular Mechanics article published in February of 1938, the same month the Marihuana Tax Act came into effect, proposed hemp would be the next “billion dollar crop” (8).
However, the chemical giant DuPont held numerous patents, including one on tetraethyl lead (an oxygenate used to raise octane levels), which could be substituted with ethanol (7). Thus the future profits of the corporation were put in jeopardy, especially since serious questions had been raised about the potential hazards of lead after numerous deaths and injuries of workers who handled the toxic material. In the early development of leaded gasoline at least 40 workers died from lead poisoning and several hundred others were injured. Workers who knew what was causing their hallucinations called their factories “Houses of Butterflies.” These deaths caused much public controversy and at one point, the New Jersey state legislature banned the sale and production of leaded gasoline (Kovarik and Hermes).
As one of the chief investors in the corporation, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, had a vested interest to see DuPont prosper and beat out its competitors, including those who offered alternatives, like ethanol. As the popularity of hemp grew, so did the threat it posed as an alternative to lead.
So Mellon appointed Henry Anslinger, who at that time was the Assistant U.S. Commissioner on Prohibition, to the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Anslinger, who would later marry Mellon’s niece, spent two years drafting the Marihuana Tax Act. In 1937, the bill was submitted to the House Ways and Means Committee, who was headed by another DuPont ally. The House Ways and Means Committee was the only congressional committee that could submit a bill to Congress without input from other government agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and the bill moved on to Congress. Anslinger testified about the “evils” of “marihuana” and with the prodding of prohibition lobbyists, the bill passed (Rothenberg 7).
The Marihuana Tax Act did not ban cannabis outright, nor would the tax of 1 dollar per ounce raise much revenue. But the Act required growers, manufacturers and distributors of hemp products to report every transaction to the IRS and provide the names and addresses of any recipient. Failure to comply would result in heavy fines or imprisonment. As a result, no one wanted to run the risk of dealing with cannabis, so the once-burgeoning industry quickly faded (Solomon). It is worth mentioning that in 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the requirement to register with the IRS violated the 5th amendment by forcing the petitioner to “identify himself as a member of a ‘selective group inherently suspect of criminal activities,’ and thus those provisions created a ‘real and appreciable’ hazard of incrimination …” (Leary v. United States). However, subsequent laws such as the Controlled Substance Act of 1970, plus court decisions such as Gonzales v. Raich in 2005, have upheld the federal government’s ability to regulate the interstate commerce of controlled substances.
The United States of America stands with one of the most crucial choices of its entire history: whether to increasingly rely on foreign markets and imports, which benefit only a few, or to look inside its own borders for alternative resources that would rehabilitate its economy and environment. Such a question should be answered by the people of this great nation, not just government officials and captains of industry. Regardless of hemp’s current legal status, I firmly believe that history will bear out how the many uses of the cannabis sativa plant outweigh concerns and objections held by government officials and other opponents. But it is up to concerned citizens everywhere to make heard their voices and make known their opposition to the status quo.
References
Bellis, Mary. About: Inventors. “George Washington Carver.” About.com. 1/26/07 http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa041897.htm
DiPardo, Joseph. Outlook for Biomass Ethanol Production and Demand. 7/30/02. United States. Dept.of Energy. Energy Information Administration. 1/28/07
Kovarik, William.“Henry Ford, Charles Kettering,and the Fuel of the Future.” 1998. Hempfarm.org. 1/10/07. http://www.hempfarm.org/Papers/Fuel_ of_the_future.html
Kovarik, William and Matthew E. Hermes. ChemCases.com. “TEL Toxicity.” Kennesaw State University. National Science Foundation. 1/29/07 http://www.chemcases.com/tel/tel-17.htm
Rothenberg, Erik.“A RENEWAL OF COMMON SENSE:The Case for Hemp in 21st Century America.” October,2000. VoteHemp.com. 1/26/07 http://www.votehemp.com/PDF/renewal.pdf
Solomon, David. “The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.” Schaffer Library of Drug Policy. DrugLibrary.org. 2/04/07 http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/ taxact/mjtaxact.htm
[http://www.noojournal.com/view.php?mode=1&issue=six&id=105]:
WHICH SINGLE PLANT is found growing naturally in all 50 U.S. states and has over 25,000 possible uses, including paper, clothing, food, and fuel? The answer: hemp, a variety of the plant cannabis sativa L, often mistaken for marijuana. It’s been used for centuries in almost every civilization, including the United States. So, why it is illegal today?
Regardless of its possibilities as a source of food, fuel, and industrial materials, for many Americans, cannabis carries with it the stigma of a drug culture that developed in the U.S. during the 20th century. Viewed as a “gateway” into a forbidden and dangerous world, cannabis has become a scapegoat for the ills of society. But the fact of the matter is that prior to its prohibition in the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, hemp was a legal cash crop, grown by our Founding Fathers, and for many years was even an acceptable form of payment for taxes.
Despite its current status as a Schedule One narcotic, before 1937, the U.S. government recognized the differences between the varieties of the plant used for industrial hemp and those cultivated for the flowers, or buds. What happened to change that is a story of narrow, self-interests that would lead our nation down an unsustainable path, a story all too common in the United States history.
In the early part of the 20th century, incredible discoveries and innovations in the uses of agricultural products inspired a new field of science, called “chemurgy.” Defined by the Columbia Encyclopedia as a “branch of applied chemistry concerned with preparing industrial products from agricultural raw materials,” chemurgy was an agrarian response to an increasingly manufactured world and as such, we shall see, was diametrically opposed to the interests of the major petroleum and chemical corporations of the day.
Perhaps some of the most famous discoveries in the field of chemurgy were those made by the scientist George Washington Carver. While working at the Tuskegee Institute, Carver discovered literally hundreds of uses for various foodstuffs such as potatoes, soy beans, pecans, and peanuts, uses including adhesives, axle grease, bleach, shaving cream, and synthetic rubber (Bellis). But Carver was not the only one making such discoveries.
Always searching for ways to improve his original design of the automobile, Henry Ford looked to nature for answers. Ford built the body of a model car entirely from hemp and other fibers by binding them together with a resin and molding it into the desired shape. Today, this material is known as a biocomposite, and car manufacturers such as Ford, BMW, Daimler-Chrysler, and GM are experimenting with biocomposites to make door panels, head liners, and other parts. The Ford Motor Corporation alone used more than 5,000,000 pounds of hemp between 1999 and 2000 (Rothenberg 20).
But Mr. Ford wasn’t alone in his innovations with hemp, nor in his desire for ethanol, which he called “the fuel of the future," to fuel the automobiles of America. He originally intended to power automobiles with ethanol, known then as ethyl alcohol, so that Americans could make use of the vast number of materials available for conversion into cellulosic and starch-based ethanols.
Another advocate for ethanol was scientist Harold Hibbert. In 1920 at Yale University, Hibbert was experimenting with the chemical decomposition, or hydrolysis, of cellulose, an organic compound found in cell walls of all green plants, including hemp. But because cellulose is a complex polysaccharide and requires enzymes or acids that to this day are expensive to manufacture, cellulosic ethanol was not yet commercially viable (Kovarik).
Almost one hundred years later, several biotech companies, including Arkenol Fuels and Iogen, have begun marketing their patented hydrolysis processes that can convert anything from paper waste to farm and forest residues into cellulosic ethanol. The Energy Information Administration estimates that by 2015 improvements in the hydrolysis process will lower production costs by as much as 60 cents per gallon, allowing cellulosic ethanol to compete with gasoline. One such improvement is the use of genetically engineered enzymes to turn feedstocks into ethanol, technology unavailable to Hibbert in the 1920s.
Undoubtedly, the scientists working on ethanol from cellulose faced challenges, but probably none as daunting as opposition from the alliance between the Standard Oil, Ethyl, DuPont, and GM corporations. In his essay “Henry Ford, Charles Kettering, and The Fuel of the Future,” Professor Bill Kovarik details how the executives of these corporations feared competition from ethanol and so not only spread propaganda and lobbied ferociously against subsidies, but privately investigated politicians and advocates who supported the renewable fuel. In addition, the corporation Ethyl, which marketed leaded gasoline, even went so far as to refuse the sale of its products if a wholesaler also sold ethanol. Although the Supreme Court upheld an anti-trust lawsuit against Ethyl in 1940, as a result of such pressure, according to Kovarik, the once broad-based support for ethanol evaporated.
The cannabis plant, which can be converted into cellulosic ethanol, suffered a similar fate as part of the chemurgy movement. A new invention, similar to Eli Whitney’s revolutionary cotton gin, called the hemp decorticator, made stripping the bast, or outer fibers of the stalk more efficient. Such an improvement in technology reduced the time and cost of processing, which would in turn encourage the expansion of uses for hemp (Rothenberg 7). An ill-timed Popular Mechanics article published in February of 1938, the same month the Marihuana Tax Act came into effect, proposed hemp would be the next “billion dollar crop” (8).
However, the chemical giant DuPont held numerous patents, including one on tetraethyl lead (an oxygenate used to raise octane levels), which could be substituted with ethanol (7). Thus the future profits of the corporation were put in jeopardy, especially since serious questions had been raised about the potential hazards of lead after numerous deaths and injuries of workers who handled the toxic material. In the early development of leaded gasoline at least 40 workers died from lead poisoning and several hundred others were injured. Workers who knew what was causing their hallucinations called their factories “Houses of Butterflies.” These deaths caused much public controversy and at one point, the New Jersey state legislature banned the sale and production of leaded gasoline (Kovarik and Hermes).
As one of the chief investors in the corporation, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, had a vested interest to see DuPont prosper and beat out its competitors, including those who offered alternatives, like ethanol. As the popularity of hemp grew, so did the threat it posed as an alternative to lead.
So Mellon appointed Henry Anslinger, who at that time was the Assistant U.S. Commissioner on Prohibition, to the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Anslinger, who would later marry Mellon’s niece, spent two years drafting the Marihuana Tax Act. In 1937, the bill was submitted to the House Ways and Means Committee, who was headed by another DuPont ally. The House Ways and Means Committee was the only congressional committee that could submit a bill to Congress without input from other government agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and the bill moved on to Congress. Anslinger testified about the “evils” of “marihuana” and with the prodding of prohibition lobbyists, the bill passed (Rothenberg 7).
The Marihuana Tax Act did not ban cannabis outright, nor would the tax of 1 dollar per ounce raise much revenue. But the Act required growers, manufacturers and distributors of hemp products to report every transaction to the IRS and provide the names and addresses of any recipient. Failure to comply would result in heavy fines or imprisonment. As a result, no one wanted to run the risk of dealing with cannabis, so the once-burgeoning industry quickly faded (Solomon). It is worth mentioning that in 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the requirement to register with the IRS violated the 5th amendment by forcing the petitioner to “identify himself as a member of a ‘selective group inherently suspect of criminal activities,’ and thus those provisions created a ‘real and appreciable’ hazard of incrimination …” (Leary v. United States). However, subsequent laws such as the Controlled Substance Act of 1970, plus court decisions such as Gonzales v. Raich in 2005, have upheld the federal government’s ability to regulate the interstate commerce of controlled substances.
The United States of America stands with one of the most crucial choices of its entire history: whether to increasingly rely on foreign markets and imports, which benefit only a few, or to look inside its own borders for alternative resources that would rehabilitate its economy and environment. Such a question should be answered by the people of this great nation, not just government officials and captains of industry. Regardless of hemp’s current legal status, I firmly believe that history will bear out how the many uses of the cannabis sativa plant outweigh concerns and objections held by government officials and other opponents. But it is up to concerned citizens everywhere to make heard their voices and make known their opposition to the status quo.
References
Bellis, Mary. About: Inventors. “George Washington Carver.” About.com. 1/26/07 http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa041897.htm
DiPardo, Joseph. Outlook for Biomass Ethanol Production and Demand. 7/30/02. United States. Dept.of Energy. Energy Information Administration. 1/28/07
Kovarik, William.“Henry Ford, Charles Kettering,and the Fuel of the Future.” 1998. Hempfarm.org. 1/10/07. http://www.hempfarm.org/Papers/Fuel_ of_the_future.html
Kovarik, William and Matthew E. Hermes. ChemCases.com. “TEL Toxicity.” Kennesaw State University. National Science Foundation. 1/29/07 http://www.chemcases.com/tel/tel-17.htm
Rothenberg, Erik.“A RENEWAL OF COMMON SENSE:The Case for Hemp in 21st Century America.” October,2000. VoteHemp.com. 1/26/07 http://www.votehemp.com/PDF/renewal.pdf
Solomon, David. “The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.” Schaffer Library of Drug Policy. DrugLibrary.org. 2/04/07 http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/ taxact/mjtaxact.htm
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