In the past two decades, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has spent at least $175 million in direct spending and grants to the states to eradicate feral hemp plants, popularly known as "ditch weed." The plants, the hardy descendants of hemp plants grown by farmers at the federal government's request during World War II, do not contain enough THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, to get people high.
While the DEA is spending millions of tax payer dollars, including $11 million in 2005, to wipe out hemp plants, farmers in Canada and European countries are making millions growing hemp for use in a wide variety of food, clothing, and other products. Manufacturers of hemp products in the United States must import their hemp from countries with more enlightened policies.
DEA officials regularly argue that there is no difference between hemp and marijuana, but their own statistics belie that claim. In its reports on the domestic eradication program, the agency clearly differentiates between ditch weed and "cultivated marijuana."
Not only is the ditch weed eradication program a waste of money, it may even be counterproductive, said Vote Hemp national outreach coordinator Tom Murphy. "Much of the ditch weed eradicated is believed to be burned, turning a carbon consuming plant into a contributor of Greenhouse gasses," said Murphy in a post-Christmas press release. "For all the effort to find and destroy these harmless wild hemp plants they are coming back year after year. It is likely that the eradication programs help re-seed the locations were ditch weed is found. The late summer timing and removal method causes countless ripe seeds to fall to the ground where they will sprout again the following year."
Your tax dollars at work.
Comments
saw it happen
I first saw this when I was 13-14 and the DEA came to my Dad's pasture to eradicate a half-acre hemp patch. I don't know if he called them or what. There were 3 or 4 uniformed agents who spent half a day there. These guys were not getting minimum wage by any means. I remember even then wondering what that would cost and why they would bother. The patch was maybe 1/3 smaller the next year and it is still there today.
sokeing weed
Marijunua is the best then out thee for us people to smoke , But people make it to big of a deal when it comes to Mariojunua if people can use it for medacel use's only well life is pertty stressing and people out in the world are depressed and manicdepressence so what about those people ?.. so get onit we need it lehalized Now...........
In reply to sokeing weed by Anonymous (not verified)
*spellcheck please*
*spellcheck please*
damn dude, you're stupid
"Marijunua is the best then out thee for us people to smoke , But people make it to big of a deal when it comes to Mariojunua if people can use it for medacel use's only well life is pertty stressing and people out in the world are depressed and manicdepressence so what about those people ?.. so get onit we need it lehalized Now..........."
I love pot, but I think you are sniffing gas or something.
In reply to damn dude, you're stupid by Anonymous (not verified)
RE: "sniffing gas"
Thats one of the things I used to do (gas) and it's pretty stupid, but he must have been drunk or homeless or maybe smoked salvia or something....
Free Weed In Kansas
Heard about pot growing free in Kansas when I was a hippie kid. Drove all the way up from Texas and actually found a big patch near some railroad tracks. In less than two hours we cut enough to stuff the trunk of my Chevy Impala. When we got back to Texas and dried it out, we couldn't get $10 a pound for it. Like most everything else the DEA says about pot, the ditch weed is worthless as a psychoactive agent. Now I smoke KB that I can't get a joint of for $10.
Fort Riley Green
Not from the mid west but always heard (about feral hemp) "you have to smoke a shoebox full just to get a headache".
Not True-while performing some contract work at the above referenced military installation some of that feral hemp got mysteriously stuck in the fender of a competitors vehicle who happened to be staying at the same hotel as our crew.
Not wanting to see them get in any trouble we removed it-good eye!- and proceeded to "destroy" it in the hotel room microwave ovens.This wasn't leaf but mature seeded buds.Somehow the leaf and most stems "fell off" the plant before it got stuck to their vehicle.After careful microwaving failed to destroy the noxious weed we resorted to burning it in rolled torn pages from the gideon bibles in the nightstand.As it didn't burn too well we pulled air through the rolled tubes in an effort to provide adequate oxygen to the combustion process.Thankfully,this destroyed the illegal substance although the process did take several hours.
Long story short,I've paid for worse.We got high as a motherfucker.Everyone involved had much prior "youthful indiscretion"
and all agreed that while of inferior quality-sometimes quantity IS quality.Reasonably smooth and deceptively tasty- big Rasta style spliffs did the trick.All in all a quality smoking experience.I would say destroying such feral plant is a waste of the taxpayers dollar though.It would only have significant market value in a "drought".
Does get you high though-very high if you don't have anything else and you smoke enough of it.
In reply to Fort Riley Green by Anonymous (not verified)
getting high
SOME IS AND SOME AIN'T
I've stumbled into "wild"patches of track weed off the beaten path. It might have been somebody's garden of cloned female indica plants that were by chance polinated by rogue males and voluntarily seeded the following year. At any rate some of these finds have been better gauge than pinch bags copped for $5 a gram. I knew a fellow who spent a week and a couple hundred bucks worth of chemicals to extract about enough "hash oil" to get a fly hi. This was from roughly 200 lbs of green loco-weed. Sad state of affairs when a person has to go to such measures to have a little europhia...
Good on ya DWC! My check is in the mail.
Uncle Buster
Weed
Weed gets me high and i like the fealing.So thusforth bringing me to my point..Legalize this shit duuuude..
In reply to Weed by Anonymous (not verified)
Weed
Yeah that shit gets me high as fuck
sticking it to them
why not stick it to them come up with a beautiful unstopable hybrid
losers will give them fight that they cant win RUDERALIS of siberia
american ditch weed hybrid then will work on the thc levels i dont even
smoke but most of america does for the people by the people
im just talking out my ass i dont know if its possible but if it is
maybe thats why they 're tying to get rid of it
I live in kansas and around
I live in kansas and around here there is ditch weed. Some of it isnt worth messing with and some of it will bud up real big and have white hairs (flowers) and have visible cannaboid crystals. and if dried and cured properly is just as good as some regular stuff you get off the streets.
welove to get high and smoke
welove to get high and smoke weed
crack
lets all buck on the system and become crackheads.
CRACK IS BACK.
btter app(roach)
i think w all nd to recognise it as an illigal substance befor the DEA calm down about it. im all for th legalisation of weed but thrs a right and wrong way to go about it
ditch weed is wisconsin
GO ME HIGH AS FUCK I HAD A SHIT LOAD AND SOLD IT FOR 20 A G.. IT WAS SOME FLAME ASS DANK.. JUST MAKE SURE YOU GET THERE B4 THE MALES TAKE OVER
Hemp and Marijuana
I have a comment to make that not many, apparently, have commented upon. This article appears to be in regard to feral hemp, or industrial hemp, yet the majority of comments have been in regard to marijuana. I am one who does happen to believe that people should have the right to grow marijuana in their homes, yards, greenhouses, or whatever. I am also one who not only destinguishes between industrial hemp and marijuana, but would prefer to see industrial hemp first legalized in Kansas, the State where I reside, before marijuana. The reason is because industrial hemp has over 40,000 different uses and it would create a lot of jobs and opportunities for the people of my State. I would also like to see the DEA halt their eradication programs in regard to feral hemp so that they can continue to claim these great victories in their war on drugs and continue to receive massive funding from the people in this nation. It really does not do the people like me, who are attempting to decriminalize industrial hemp, much justice when others immediately talk about getting high on marijuana whenever they hear the word hemp, or see it in print. If the DEA wishes to enforce marijuana and other drugs, may I recommend that they stop the horseshit eradication of what should be a great industrial crop and begin to focus more upon the reasons that the poppy harvest in Afghanistan reached record bumper crop levels after the U.S. led invasion and occupation of that nation, when the Taliban is reported to have nearly eradicated the plant in 2000 and 2001? Maybe they could focus upon the reason that the New York health department had to recently issue safe use guidelines of heroin? Maybe they should hire a team of monkeys to make the correllation of our invasion of Afghanistan, the increase in poppy planting and harvests, and the irony that the heroin use is increasing in this nation and attempt to combat that, instead of something that I wish to grow to build a house, make clothing with, as well as a ton of additional products? Perhaps they could check into the substantiated allegations that have been made by Cele Castillo, a former DEA head in Latin America, in regard to the CIA trafficking cocaine and other drugs into this nation? Or the connections with the past Clinton and Bush allegations in regard to drug trafficking into this nation? Are thos allegations present, as well? They need to focus upon real issues as opposed to the horseshit eradication of a miracle plant with tens of thousands of uses. There are many others in this comment section, as well as elsewhere, who need to understand that they are not making it easier to override the laws that have criminalized the cultivation of industrial hemp, in this nation, by immediately talking about smoking marijuana when the topic is feral hemp.
bitches
FuckThe DEA niggas they bitch asses. cant you just leave the weed and the hemp alone u know yourself that, getting weed lagalize would totally help theworld...
to "hemp and weed" -I
to "hemp and weed"
-I completely agree, in fact I almost posted something similar until i read your comment.
However my question is, why should getting high be illegal in the first place? If you believe that the effects marijuana has on the human brain is a rationale reason to criminalize it then compare it to the effects of alcohol. In addition to that saying that it is addictive or leads to a lifestyle filled with malaise and apathy is unworthy, although in somecases it can, so can alcohol!
what I find so disturbing about the fight to legalize cannabis isn't all the hippie stoner kids talking about how much the love smoking pot, its the propaganda that is published by our government while they let tobacco and alcohol industries make millions. Instead of legalizing a plant that has soooo many more uses. Medical evidence especially is overwhelming, but they can ignore it?
The legislation that is in effect concerning marijuana gives thousand of people in the government bureaucracy jobs. Where would the DEA be with out their pot smokers? They are much easier to catch that someone doing lines in a bathroom or popping pills. The public has to use their voice. and their vote. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, we have to educate others about marijuana. not just get them high.
im writing a paper at school
im writing a paper at school on why pot should be legalized and have alot of the admin convinced that it should be itll help the deificet and people will b happy legakize the shit
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