From: Albertus Magnus Area: Magical Plants To: All 28 May 94 14:09:20 Subject: Cal Hemp Init. Update UpdReq CALIFORNIA HEMP INITIATIVE UPDATE [From California NORML Reports, May 1994] New Hemp Initiative Deadline: June 2 The California Hemp Initiative, which would completely legalize industrial, medical and recreational use of hemp, has extended its final signature deadline to June 2 in an effort to make the 1996 ballot. The CHI failed to get enough signatures to qualify for the 1994 ballot. Organizers say they have somewhere between 120,000 and 200,000 out of the 385,000 signatures required, significantly more than were gathered in the 1991 CHI effort. CHI organizer Jack Herer says that petitioners were repeatedly harassed by security guards, police and college officials ignorant of the law that protects signature gatherers. According to the Southern California ACLU, the CHI accounts for 90 per cent of recent reports of election interference. --- Dale Gieringer, Cal. NORML Coordinator California NORML 2215-R Market St. #278 San Francisco, CA 94114 (415) 563-5858 [This message courtesy of the American Anti-Prohibition League] 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Albertus Magnus Area: Magical Plants To: All 28 May 94 16:37:54 Subject: The Battle Between Hemp and Marijuana UpdReq Blowing Smoke The Battle Between Hemp and Marijuana By Erik Espe It's hemp, insists Jack Herer. Not marijuana. The pot guru and Venice Beach resident has launched a new crusade to legalize his favorite green, leafy substance. The grassroots petition drive for the California Hemp Initiative '94 was set to begin January 1. "Essentially, what the initiative does is make pot as free to grow as dandelions," Herer says. Of the more than one thousand volunteers statewide, about three hundred are from the Los Angeles area, according to Herer. But the campaign has hit a major snag. The state of California has renamed Herer's initiative, and is forcing all of Herer's volunteer canvassers to solicit signatures under the new, state-approved name: "Marijuana Initiative Statute." "It's bullshit," says Herer, who filed suit in Sacramento Superior Court the first week of January to have the state's wording of the initiative changed, and for more time to gather signatures. He says the legal entanglement delayed the start of the drive by about two weeks. Volunteers need to collect the signatures of 384,954 registered California voters by April 22 for the initiative to qualify for the November ballot. According to the office of Attorney General Dan Lungren, canvassers must display the state-approved title on petitions for signatures to be considered valid. The wording could be crucial to the success of the campaign, according to Herer. Calling the weed "hemp" calls attention to the plant's multiple uses. But calling it "marijuana" simply re-ignites the hysteria generated by decades of government propaganda against pot - and that, Herrer believes, is precisely why the government has renamed the initiative. Lungren has long been an advocate of the war on drugs. "This was a deliberate act on his part," Herer says. "We were very worried he was going to pull something like this." Eight years ago, Herer unveiled a long-since forgotten history of cannabis. Back then, few knew the plant was once used to create cars, pantyhose, clothes, paper, and more. George Washington once called on Americans to "make the most of the hemp seed," while growing it for non-consumptive uses. During World War II, the U.S. took a break from its campaign against marijuana and distributed a propaganda film entitled Hemp for Victory, encouraging farmers to grow the substance under the name "hemp." Why? Because the same plant that supposedly plunges people into "reefer madness" could also supply oils, pulp, fibers, and other raw materials in short supply during the war. According to Herer, the plant was renamed "marijuana" (the Spanish word for hemp) when the DuPont family (who made synthetic fibers, paints, and chemicals) and the Hearst family (who had timber holdings and pulp mills) realized hemp offered a cheaper alternative to their products. "If pot was nothing but pot, and not paper and fuel, I don't think the government would have cared about it," Herer says. The industrialists lobbied the government and, after centuries of use, hemp became known as marijuana, Herer claims. It was outlawed in 1937 and, ironically, its use as a drug increased. After spending years as an activist for the legalization of pot (and even leading an initiative drive in 1972 that did manage to get the issue on the California ballot, where it lost in a landslide), Herer learned about the history of hemp in the early 1980s. "I had written a book about marijuana before then, and didn't even know that hemp had existed as an industrial product," Herer says. "Eventually, I got a little more information and the tail began to wag the dog." He wrote another book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, during one of his many marijuana-related jail stays. The 1985 book detailed the industrial history of hemp. But, even in the 1980s, people didn't believe Herer's discoveries. "Up until 1990, people thought I was seriously wigged," says Herer, who owns two head shops. "They thought I had made a mountain out of a molehill, that I was using this as a strategy to get pot legal." Then people started reading his book. In the 1990s, merchants started legally selling clothes, backpacks, massage oils and paper made from hemp. An all-hemp shop opened in San Francisco. But Herer says the campaign can't easily tap into that increased public awareness if it can't call the proposal a "hemp initiative." Under the state elections code, the attorney general's office is required to draft a one-hundred-word summary of every initiative to accompany petitions. The attorney general's office also has the power to rename initiatives as it sees fit. Kathleen Darosa, initiative coordinator for the attorney general's office, says she doesn't have an explanation for the new title. "I can't explain to you why," she says. "The position in our office is that the final summary reflects the contents of the measure." In addition to the name change, the attorney general's office wrote that the initiative would ban the chemical testing of employees, which Herer says is not true. Whatever the fate of the California Hemp Initiative '94, Herer believes the campaign will at least continue spreading the word about hemp and hopefully lead to the legalization of California's biggest cash crop. "Our job is to educate everyone from kindergarten to ninety-five years of age," he says. 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718