Express: A Publication of The Washington Post
HEMP: It won’t get you high, but you sure can cook with it. But would you want to? And would you get arrested?

It’s easier now to sample the culinary delights of the leafy green plant — at D.C.’s new Capitol Hemp.  Owned by perennial Green Party candidate and D.C. statehood activist Adam Eidinger and his wife, fellow activist Alexis Baden-Mayer, even the structure itself is made of hemp (in the form of particle board).

There are surprisingly stylish hemp clothes, hemp-related art, hemp shoes and some adults-only products in a room out back. But forget the water pipes — hemp is wholesome. It’s the same species as marijuana — cannabis sativa — but genetic differences mean it won’t get you high.

Up front in the family-friendly part of the store is the food. Hemp’s touted as a great source of protein, essential fatty acids, iron, vitamin E and dietary fiber — which, of course, makes one suspect that it probably tastes terrible. (It doesn’t.)

Best of all, it’s legal to cook and purchase hemp. It’s just not legal, in the U.S., to grow it. Why depends on who you ask. There are conspiracy theories involving paper mills and the suppression of competition. (Hemp makes good paper.) Others believe the plant was outlawed — and continues to be outlawed — because of its link to marijuana.

“Hemp has been misaligned with its cousin marijuana by lawmakers who have waged a cultural battle for years. Hemp has simply been unfairly caught up in the dragnet to ban marijuana,” says Eidinger. “Because the U.S. is the biggest user of hemp products, we send our money to farmers in other countries.”

So, we can’t grow our own hemp but we can eat what’s here, which is mostly imported from Canada, China and Europe. And what’s here are hundreds of edible variations: oil, nuts, flour, chocolate, milk, cheese, bagels and more.

We dig into a healthy sampling of hempy foods, made using the various edible parts of hemp. …We start with homemade guacamole, which is simply regular guac with hemp nuts mixed in. Next is salad with hemp nuts and hemp dressing (two parts hemp oil to three parts vinegar). The nuts add a taste and texture not unlike pine nuts to the salad, and the dressing tastes like regular oil and vinegar.

Hemp veggie burgers on hemp bagels with hemp mustard are the main course. The burgers themselves — made of hemp nuts and hemp oil mixed in with green beans, onion, garlic, ground almonds, bread crumbs and eggs, fried in a pan full of coconut oil — are bright green and dense, and quite tasty when topped with hemp mustard. The hemp bagel is too heavy with such a thick patty; Baden-Mayer suggests using hemp bread instead.

Finally, it’s time for lemon hemparoons — lemon macaroons made with hemp seeds — and big glasses of chocolate hemp milk. The hemparoons are sweet, crunchy, lemony, perfect. The hemp chocolate milk is cold and refreshing. We are quiet and contemplative.

“We eat a lot of hemp,” says Baden-Mayer. “But not usually this much in one meal.”

Regardless what anyone thinks about the wisdom of re-legalizing psychoactive cannabis, there isn’t a single logical reason to outlaw non-psychoactive hemp.  Does it strike anyone as odd that the DEA - the DRUG Enforcement Administration - bans the cultivation of industrial hemp which is not a drug?

The technicality is that even industrial hemp may contain traces of THC, and THC is a controlled substance.  But by the same token, mouthwash contains more than a trace of alcohol, yet kids can buy it at the supermarket.

The micro amounts of THC in industrial hemp are never going to get you high.  Industrial hemp is tall and reedy and very distinguishable from drug cannabis.  You couldn’t hide drug cannabis among industrial hemp because they would cross-pollinate and ruin each other.  There is no public danger from industrial hemp for which the DEA needs to be protecting us!

Careless Detention | Some Detainees Are Drugged For Deportation (washingtonpost.com)
The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

The government’s forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the “pre-flight cocktail,” as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

Such episodes are among more than 250 cases The Washington Post has identified in which the government has, without medical reason, given drugs meant to treat serious psychiatric disorders to people it has shipped out of the United States since 2003 — the year the Bush administration handed the job of deportation to the Department of Homeland Security’s new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.

Involuntary chemical restraint of detainees, unless there is a medical justification, is a violation of some international human rights codes. The practice is banned by several countries where, confidential documents make clear, U.S. escorts have been unable to inject deportees with extra doses of drugs during layovers en route to faraway places.

Federal officials have seldom acknowledged publicly that they sedate people for deportation. The few times officials have spoken of the practice, they have understated it, portraying sedation as rare and “an act of last resort.” Neither is true, records and interviews indicate.

Records show that the government has routinely ignored its own rules, which allow deportees to be sedated only if they have a mental illness requiring the drugs, or if they are so aggressive that they imperil themselves or people around them.

One of the drugs used in these cases was Haldol. 38 detainees were given 10-29 milligrams, 4 were given 30-39 milligrams, and 2 were given 40 milligrams of this very potent drug, used to treat schizophrenia, psychosis, persistent aggressiveness, Tourette’s syndrome, or manic disorder.  It produces a “zombie-like” effect in non-psychotic people.  It has the usual side effects of dizziness, drowsiness, difficulty urinating, trouble sleeping, headache, anxiety and pain at the injection site. May cause muscle spasms or stiffness, tremors, restlessness, masklike facial expression, and drooling.  The recommended daily doses for aggressive behavior are 0.5 milligrams twice a day to 5 milligrams three times a day, although doses of up to 10 milligrams a day may be used in a hospital emergency room.

The government gave 44 detainees well over 10 milligrams of this dangerous drug.  Keep in mind this is the same government that tells you marijuana has no medical value and is extremely dangerous, so much so that even your doctor can’t prescribe it to you.

Washington City Paper: News & Features: Blogs
Adam Eidinger, long one of DC’s most active activists, is also a businessman. He’s had his own PR firm for several years, and now he’s firing up a hemp clothing store.

The shop will open later this month in Adams Morgan, says Eidinger, who briefly achieved international fame in 2004 by disrupting the Washington Nationals introductory news conference to protest the public funding of a stadium here.

“Every major city in America already has a hemp store,” Eidinger says. “Now DC will, too.”

Eidinger, who counts among his good fights a long-time advocacy of marijuana law reform, says he thinks hemp shoes, going from $60-$110 a pair, will be big sellers. His store’s shelves will also be stocked with hemp shirts and pants, hemp cosmetics and hemp food.

Even the shelves will be hemp.

“We built the whole store out of cannabis,” says Eidinger. “It’s all hemp fiber board.”

Maybe some of the lobbyists and lawmakers in DC  will get a look at Eidinger’s store and realize that all this time they’ve been on board with the government’s ban of industrial hemp farming, they’ve been banning shoes, cosmetics, food, and fiber board.