The Union: The Business Behind Getting High Page #14

immune system

or terminal illness

seems to experience

none of these effects ?

( Neil )

Some people go home at the end

of the day and they drink

to kind of wash away the day.

You know, just like,

"Oh, that was a hard day.

I need a few drinks,

relax, kick back."

So is that relieving pain ?

Maybe-- or is it pursuing

pleasure ?

I don't know.

So if you think about this in

the context of cannabis,

it also has relevance.

The government's lot more likely

to forgive cannabis use

if it's for relief from pain.

If it's in pursuit of pleasure,

that's a problem,

and I think that points to

something about our culture

that's a little bit odd.

What works for one doesn't

necessarily work for another.

( man )

The father-son

confrontation.

Mom smokes like a chimney.

And you have a drink

every day and smoke, too.

It's not the same.

Why not ?

You can get cancer,

your liver can rot away.

They believe today, and I'm

disappointed in the media,

that it hasn't brought this

information,

this new information to

the people of this country

more than it has,

they believe that marijuana

could well turn out to be

the most dangerous drug that

is in use in our country today.

If you're a politician,

you can get elected on

a get-tough-on-crime platform--

"We're gonna lock up all

the marijuana cultivators

for a long time"--

'cause you're preying on

the fears of the public.

Spokesmen for giant

special-interest groups,

whether those special-interest

groups be law enforcement,

or whether

they're private prisons,

or whether they're

pharmaceutical companies

or whether they're

oil companies,

we have spokesmen

for gigantic corporations

that are trying to calm us

and get us

to press the right button

in the voting booth.

( Todd )

Everybody that gets in

has their own agenda.

They're beholden

to their own lobbyists,

so they don't go in and check

the work of anybody before them.

That's not their job,

because God forbid somebody

come in there

and check what

they do afterwards.

I understand why politicians

may be reluctant

to act on their principles,

but our politicians

need to read their own polls,

because this is one

of those cases,

and it happens a lot in life,

where the people

are ahead of their leaders.

( host )

Hempfest, the largest event for

cannabis in the world,

a showcase of modern-day hemp.

Sure, they used the stuff

but what good is

hemp in a world like today ?

A world that appears to have

everything it needs.

It opens a whole new market.

It opens a whole new market

on every level.

( Dana )

You can harvest off the seeds,

you can harvest out the inner

pulp and the long-stem fibers.

The fiber itself

is the strongest natural fiber

in the world.

( Todd )

All the clothes

I'm wearing today

for this interview are hemp.

All the clothes I actually

always wear

are made out of hemp.

Been so since

probably '94 when I realized

I could buy clothes made out

of organic fibers

that lasted

longer than cotton.

( Joe )

You can eat hemp seeds, and it

contains all the essential

amino acids and fatty acids.

It makes fuel, you can make

biodiesel out of it.

Hemp is an excellent

source for biofuel.

When you grow hemp for fuel,

every crop unleashes a huge

amount of oxygen

into the environment,

and in fact, the same amount

of oxygen that you lose

when you burn it off

you gain back,

so it's a closed cycle,

ending the greenhouse effect.

( Steve )

There are so many hundreds of

strains of industrial hemp

that you could grow hemp

almost anywhere in the world.

Not everywhere in the world,

but almost everywhere

in the world,

so just that alone makes

it a resource for fuel.

( David )

That is a solution,

is to stop using fossil fuels

and nuclear energy,

stop using them entirely,

and using wind and wave

and sun more,

and these biofuels.

( Steve )

People will get it, especially

as the gas prices go up.

It's the highest-

quality paper there is.

I mean, it's archival quality.

The words "tree-free paper"

don't make sense to people...

Hemp paper that

you find in the museums

that are hundreds of years old

haven't even yellowed.

To supplement the wood,

we could solve

the deforestation problem.

( host )

Why isn't it cost-effective

to use hemp

versus the forest

industry right now ?

The simple answer is because

you can't grow the hemp

in the United States.

( Joe )

As far as human beings

are concerned,

it's probably one of

the most useful plants ever,

if notthemost useful

plant ever.

And it's illegal.

Industrial hemp

is not a drug.

Though it is of

the same species as marijuana,

it is a completely different

variety of plant,

similar to comparing

a Chihuahua with a St. Bernard.

You can't get high from

industrial hemp,

but you can get

high from marijuana.

This is the only industrialized

country in the world

that doesn't

grow industrial hemp.

I mean, think how crazy it is

that we can eat the product,

we can sell the product,

we can wear the product,

we can export the product,

import it,

manufacture it,

everything but grow it ?

We can't grow this thing--

it's criminal.

And there you have it.

After two years of research,

our quest for answers

has only left us

with more questions.

And the only thing

that really seems

to make sense...

is that none

of it makes any sense.

It's a weird thing that you do

when you make nature

against the law.

We're worried

about things going extinct,

and yet the policy on the most

useful plant in the world

is that they should

all be eliminated

and driven to extinction.

Absolutely, they should

still be concerned about

youngsters using it.

But we're concerned about

youngsters using alcohol,

tobacco, driving automobiles,

whatever.

But that it should be the kind

of Prohibition that it is now

rather than regulation ?

It cannot be sustained

in a rational society.

I believe that it would be more

ignorant of me

to listen to somebody

who's trying to oppress me

than it would be to just ignore

the ignorant

and go on with

what I think is right.

Even now, this interview

is being conducted,

and I smoked pot all morning.

This is what

I look like high.

There's a great quote that,

"Life is a tragedy

to those who feel

and a comedy

to those who think."

And if you are a thinker,

and you look at

the marijuana situation

and you're not laughing...

you're f***ing dumb.

( host )

Do you think marijuana

will ever be legalized

in Canada

or the United States ?

Yes.

I don't know about

the United States,

but it will be legalized

in Canada.

I won't be alive to see it.

I used to believe it was right

around the corner

back in the 1970s.

Check out the gray hair--

I confess to being 61.

I believe it will happen.

I didn't used to.

As recently as

two or three years ago,

I was convinced it was not gonna

happen in my lifetime.

I wish you didn't

ask me that question,

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