THE WAR ON #SmokeableHempFlower

Are Smokable Hemp Flowers Getting Banned in Your State?

Georgia, Louisiana, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Hawaii...

Pat Jack

Founder, CBD RICH LOUISIANA LLC

Recent legislation signed by the Governor of Iowa defines “consumable hemp product.” Iowa hemp law considers any “hemp product” where the “intended use” for introduction into the human body of any “hemp product” where that is through any means of inhalation, to be a prohibited “hemp product” under section 204.14A of Iowa State House File 2581, now signed into law by the Governor of Iowa.

Possession of hemp products in Iowa that are prohibited is a serious misdemeanor criminal offense and punishable by rapidly escalating fines as well as jail sentences. There is a war on #SmokableHempFlower being waged in Iowa by the government of Iowa.

Iowa retailers caught selling smokable hemp products, (anyone caught selling them), and consumers found using them, (possessing them), could face “a serious misdemeanor”

punishable by up to a year in prison and a fine of $315 to $1,875. Men with guns will shackle your hands, and during booking or before booking into jail shackle your ankles. If you resist, force, violence or ultra violence will be used against you to force you to submit. Those are acts of war against citizens of The United States of America legally exercising the federal law, the legality of hemp.

The US Congress has made hemp legal. Hemp flower is considered to be a prohibited product in Iowa, unless you have a license issued by the State of Iowa to grow, handle, or process hemp. If you do not have a license to do the aforementioned and you are growing, handling or processing #SmokableHempFlower, you are a criminal in Iowa.

Q:

Is smokable hemp legal to grow and possess in Iowa?

A:

No. A person shall not possess, use, manufacture, market, transport, deliver, or distribute harvested hemp or a hemp product if the intended use of the harvested hemp or hemp product is introduction into the body of a human by any method of inhalation, including any of the following:

1. Smoke produced from combustion

2. A type of article that uses a heating element, power source, electronic circuit, or other electronic, chemical, or mechanical process

3. A device, including but not limited to a cigarette, cigar, cigarillo, or pipe, regardless of whether such device produces smoke or vapor

(From the Iowa Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship)

The war on #SmokableHempFlower is being waged in State legislatures as well as the Federal Courts.(We’ll get to Louisiana hemp law soon.)

Indiana hemp industry stakeholders standing together as plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit sought to suspend Indiana’s barbaric laws criminalizing hemp flower possession. They were successful. Indiana’s governor was ordered by a Federal District Court Judge to cease the enforcement of the criminalization of #SmokableHempFlower. A judge issued an injunction ordering the governor to cease enforcing the criminality of possession or sale of hemp flower. That court battle in Indiana went to the appeals court that presides over the lower court where it began and the temporary injunction was recently lifted by the appeals court.

The criminality of hemp flower possession is once again an extreme peril faced by the citizens of Indiana and for how long we do not know. This battle is continuing in the courts at this time and has the potential to reach the Supreme Court of The United States of America.

Can you imagine how many millions of dollars worth of hemp flower was sold in Indiana, imagine the millions of dollars worth of prerolls sold between the time the lower court issued the temporary injunction in Indiana and the date the appeals court above the lower court recently reversed the injunction?

That court case being litigated now in Indiana costs $40,000 to launch in any state. One acre’s worth of #SmokableHempFlower, about 1,000 pounds, sold at a mere $100 per pound, (outdoor grown hemp flower is being sold for $300 per pound and more at the time of this writing), is a potential revenue for the farmer of $100,000 dollars per acre.

It must be criminal if it’s worth that much money and people want it that bad, right? There is a gigantic amount of profit in growing and selling #SmokableHempFlower that is .3% total THC or less. The #SmokableHempFlower market is growing by leaps and bounds.

State legislatures, state regulatory bodies using standing armies under control of the executive branches of state governments are waging a War on Smokable Hemp Flower.

The War on smokable hemp flower is waged due to an affect of a debilitating dependency in which police and elected officials have become ensnared due to their powerful addiction to the War on Drugs. This addiction to the War on Drugs is fed by the confiscation through asset forfeiture seizure of extremely large amounts of revenue, cash and goods, bank accounts and real estate seizures that result from the execution of the War on Drugs.

Obscenely huge profits produced for shareholders in, and owners of prison industrial complex corporations and prison industrial ancillary support businesses, (huge money makers), drives this #WarOnSmokableHempFlower. Shareholders, owners and principals profiting wildly through the ultra violent interdiction of high THC recreational cannabis, or high THC medical cannabis, (when illegal in a state -- marijuana), are terrified that their revenue streams will be snuffed out as a result of the legality of hemp flower for citizens. We’re talking gigantic amounts of money, (and power).

As most of us understand, the War on Drugs, and the War on #SmokableHempFlower is a serious disorder that greatly damages our society and societies around the world. It is an extremely violent mental disorder afflicting police that preys upon their most basic character flaws, character flaws that can affect many of us, a lust for power over others, pure greed and for more than a few in law enforcement the enjoyment of violent action and behavior such as to cause submission and create a dominant position.

The US Federal Government has unambiguously and unequivocally made hemp, the flower of the hemp plant and any part of the hemp plant, legal.

As victims of the War on #SmokableHempFlower, we, the citizens, the markets and cultivators, farmers and growers are afflicted with terror and ultimately suffer PTSD from the War on Hemp. PTSD is the goal of the War on Drugs, a mental and physical whipping generating subservience through mental conditioning using ultra violence -- all the while creating gigantic profits by transferring wealth to police and those that invest in the industries that support the state’s, your local municipality’s and the federal government’s enforcement armies, the police.

The level of cognitive dissonance a police officer trained in ultra violent techniques, (war making), heavily armed with the weapons of war, when that police officer is faced with the discovery of hemp flower, #SmokableHempFlower, their behavior is predictable. Their behavior is incredibly dangerous to life and limb and to one’s wealth and reputation, both for the police officer, and for the victim of the War on #SmokableHempFlower. When a man with a gun shackles your wrists and during the process of holding you in a cage shackles your ankles with the constant, aggravated threat of assault and battery, (extreme violence), that is war.

Police claim they will lose their ability to wage their War on Drugs as the hemp flower, once dried and cured and trimmed to present for retail sales, looks, and smells exactly like it’s high THC recreational cannabis counterpart. Only a laboratory test specifically designed for identification of hemp can tell the difference.

Everybody loves to look at beautiful pictures of expertly dried, trimmed and cured cannabis buds, smokable hemp flower buds and high THC recreational and medical dispensary cannabis buds. High Times magazine incorporates beautiful pictures of both live cannabis flower, and dried, trimmed and cured cannabis buds as the bedrock of their brand experience.

We can all find great images, even a few gigantic, high resolution images of high THC, recreational cannabis plants and buds online; more and more they are ubiquitous as fully eleven States of the United States of America have passed laws to make both high THC recreational and medical cannabis legal; pics of nice buds are everywhere when you make the right search engine query.

More rare, and extremely rare at this time, are high resolution, fine images of fire, #SmokableHempFlower buds which are accompanied by a lab analysis report, (a COA), that proves the buds are federally compliant industrial hemp. That’s changing.

More and more we see images of cured hemp buds on social media like linkedin and facebook and instagram. The internet in general is awash in fantastic images of high THC, recreational and medical cannabis buds.

How can we tell the difference?

Only a lab test performed post-harvest that indicates a total THC content percentage of .3% or less can truly define compliant hemp that passes over the retail counter, between the #SmokableHempFlower farm and the wholesalers, to the retailers and then between the purchaser’s lips as the retail customer takes possession.

One really has to look hard for high quality images of true, CBD or CBG Rich #SmokableHempFlower buds online or in magazines, and that’s changing.

Police are trained to interdict illegal cannabis buds, (recreational cannabis and in more than a few states hemp flower buds), they are trained to identify cannabis with the very same images we all love to view, and with the same olfactory analysis and awareness. Smells like weed? Go to jail; that’s how police think. Police dogs smell hemp? Go to jail; your civil and constitutional rights are suspended, destroyed, you are a criminal and will suffer criminal accusation.

© Pat Jack 2020

© Pat Jack 2020

Sangria - Jack Amakie © Pat Jack 2020

In Louisiana, recent amendments to Louisiana hemp law were signed by the governor that removed criminal jail sentencing penalties for possession of any part of the hemp plant without a license issued by the state. Criminal fines for possession of hemp flower or #SmokableHempFlower are still on the books as the newly amended criminality of hemp flower in Louisiana goes into effect on August 1, 2020, so you can still go to jail until then. After August 1, 2020, criminal fines ranging from $300 to $5,000 can still be assessed against a person for violating Louisiana State hemp laws. In Louisiana you must have a hemp license issued by the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry to grow, process, transport or breed seed in order to possess any part of the hemp plant, living or nonliving, otherwise it is a criminal act. Unless it is specifically hemp rolling papers. You heard me, a slap across the face from the Louisiana Legislature? You can smoke hemp, but only if it is a rolling paper.

With the stringent total THC compliance requirements of .3% total THC or less making hemp legal, making hemp bud, #SmokableHempFlower legal, there is no confusion in the mind of a police officer as to what hemp bud is, and what high THC recreational cannabis bud is, they look and smell the same, they are both illegal until the substance is proven to be legal through lab testing. Police do not care, even if they are completely aware, that a bust for hemp or marijuana can be defeated in court due to the legality of hemp. Only lab testing can distinguish high THC, recreational and medical cannabis from #SmokableHempFlower. And while that lab testing is being done, you will be in jail until you bond out facing serious criminal charges and criminal fines.

Being placed under arrest, handcuffed, having your ankles shackled during booking, spending the night or a few days in jail waiting to be arraigned on potentially life destroying charges, paying what can be a substantial bond, (if you even have enough for a high bond), having your picture printed in the paper by police stating you were arrested for drugs, getting fired from your job, having family members be concerned or even ashamed of you, facing social derision and ostracization, incurring severe damage to reputation, potentially being found guilty of a serious misdemeanor or more likely a serious felony for being in possession of especially, a large amount of #SmokableHempFlower cannot be tolerated. It’s literally unconstitutional to criminalize the possession or the ingestion of hemp by smoking it. The US federal laws on hemp say nothing about smoking it, the flower is legal to possess. US federal law and regulations cover the production of hemp, not the manufacture of hemp while expressly making hemp legal. It is diametrically opposed to both the will and the intentions of the US Congress and the President of The United States of America as the federal law states in the 2018 US Farm Bill that hemp is legal. The possession of hemp by any person is legal.

The US Congress has expressly and unequivocally legalized hemp just as they legalized alcohol so many generations ago when prohibition ended. Yet the legislature of the State of Hawaii is busy pushing hemp law across the Governor of Hawaii’s desk that criminalizes the possession of hemp flower, or #SmokableHempFlower.

In Georgia there are hefty fines when convicted of the criminal act of possession of #SmokableHempFlower, and in Texas, don’t even think about it. In Kansas one may not purchase hemp unless one has a license. In Kentucky, #SmokableHempFlower is illegal, and there are more states not listed in this article where by some turn of the slickened political tongue in law, smokable hemp flower is illegal, and it’s all changing so fast, and not for the better.

To say that one can grow the hops, produce and gather the ingredients to make beer, but that one will be thrown in jail using ultra violence if one possesses beer is far, far over the edge of absolute tyranny and ultra-violent psychological presentation of extreme mental illness. It’s a tyranny of tyrannies. It’s a reminder of our experience during the prohibition of alcohol and the incredible amounts of violence government used against American citizens during prohibition. This is happening again, there is a War on #SmokableHempFlower.

Will we bend the knee into their chains for something that is absolutely and completely legal?

What choice do we have if the people that are elected to offices which create the laws under which we are persecuted choose to criminalize #SmokableHempFlower? What can we do about it?

What…can…we…DO…about it?

We can agitate, we can redress government under our first amendment rights marching in protests on the steps of the State capital buildings and be sprayed with chemicals that cause us extreme pain, shot with “rubber non-lethal” bullets in the eye and worse. We can be beaten bloody into submission. We can hire incredibly expensive lobbyists who are beholden to the highest bidder and pay huge fees to belong to associations which cater to that money, (the more money the more catering). We can pay lobbyist associations that then hire more lobbyists to work to change the laws, while those laws damage and endanger society, and put you in jail or heap criminal fines upon you and your hemp operations, and keep the lobbyists employed.

Or we can band together as hemp industry stakeholders and hire expert hemp and cannabis attorneys to petition State’s Federal District Courts, to petition a Federal District Court judge to make and sign an order providing injunctive relief that prohibits the enforcement of any criminality of #SmokableHempFlower.

Federal District Court judges can, and have commanded a State’s executive branch to cease all activities which are associated with that State’s laws that criminalize the possession of hemp, (jail sentences or fines), and the smoking of hemp. Injunctive relief of this type in Indiana has been very effective to protect and relieve hemp industry stakeholders while the State of Indiana continues to fight the War on #SmokableHempFlower in the courts against a courageous group of Indiana hemp industry stakeholders, standing together in court, exercising the most precious freedom we have, exercising the freedom to redress government through the courts, where it counts.

We are now facing a war on #SmokableHempFlower and war on dried, hemp flower, and in some states a war on the possession of any part of the hemp plant which crushes the largest market of all, the market of We The People. This ancillary war on hemp, a hybrid of the war on drugs is being fought for many reasons, but primarily because of policing revenues and the power to use ultra violence against the citizens of The United States of America to exercise incredibly lucrative civil asset forfeiture, to exact fines, to extract bail monies and assess jailing fees, collect court cost revenues, and of course the lucrative and gigantic money maker, prison enterprises, the prison industrial complex mega money machine is making bank, literally.

And then there is the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement and the truly gigantic monies states receive for every single cigarette sold in America. That’s right, state’s profit directly to the tune of many billions of dollars and walk hand in hand with big tobacco enjoying the profits of the tobacco industries. That’s another story, one we should all understand.

As hemp industry stakeholders we have the power to redress government effectively by exercising our first amendment rights where it counts, standing before Federal District Court judges in our respective states demanding an injunction that then allows us to sell hemp flower without extreme peril, and allows our markets, We The People, to purchase the products of our legal labor and do whatever they wish with it within the law of the land, The Constitution of The United States of America, the will and intent of Congress and the President of The United States of America.

The War on #SmokableHempFlower will not stand, but will we be on our knees in pain before it is all over? And who will be making big money while we obey the law?

Will you stand together with your hemp industry stakeholder participants and redress government through the courts? Or will you let this incredibly lucrative opportunity just pass you by while growers in other states experience the exciting opportunities #SmokableHempFlower offers?