creator
New member
Kudos to Georgia state senators who voted in favor of a bill to prevent the sale of marijuana-flavored candy. Members of the Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee realized that the availability of hemp candy on store shelves is harmful to our children and undermines Georgia's anti-drug laws.
Senate Bill 511, which did not win final legislative approval this year, only scratched the surface. Next session's bill must be more protective.
Hemp is low-potency cannabis, i.e., marijuana. Hemp products are being freely sold to anyone who walks into certain specialty food stores. These stores carry items such as cereals, salad dressings, protein powers and dietary supplements that contain small amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a hallucinogenic substance. Anyone with a credit card can go online to purchase these same products.
The sale -- and marketing -- of hemp food products raises several concerns. First, medical research tells us that even low levels of THC can build up in the body's tissues, posing particular health risks, including nerve impairment and hormone disruption, to developing fetuses, young children and teenagers.
Second, any drug prevention message could easily get lost on young people if they think it is OK to buy cannabis products at a grocery store or online. Children are already experimenting with marijuana at a young age. According to a 2004 University of Michigan study, 16 percent of eighth-graders, 35 percent of 10th-graders and 46 percent of 12th-graders have admitted to using marijuana at least once during their lifetimes.
Third, efforts at random drug testing can be circumvented. High school students who undergo drug tests, for instance, or the nation's 12 million safety-sensitive transportation employees who likewise undergo drug screenings, can defend a positive drug test by claiming ingestion of one of these hemp products. Several scientific studies (one of which is published in the Journal of Toxicology,) have shown that eating hemp foods can cause positive results in urine specimens.
Fourth, permitting foods that contain hemp to be marketed, sold and consumed in the United States creates a slippery slope to the dissolution of our nation's anti-drug laws. The Congressional Research Service has reported that the pro-hemp movement is spurred by drug legalization advocates, including Jack Herrer and High Times magazine. These advocates argue that if hemp can be marketed, sold and consumed in the United States, it should be cultivated in the United States. Where low-potency cannabis may be grown as hemp, high-potency cannabis can also be grown as a drug of abuse.
Public officials at all levels of government play a role in reducing the availability of cannabis in the United States. At the national level, the Food and Drug Administration must strictly enforce the current laws on the books; companies that include hemp in their food products are in direct violation of FDA regulations. At the state and local levels, willing legislative bodies, like the Georgia Senate, should adopt more thoroughly protective bills that ban all cannabis plant derivatives from grocery store shelves.
If no action is taken, we as a society, it seems, are implicitly endorsing the sale of cannabis and effectively rendering our nation's drug laws obsolete. This is not the way to protect our children from the harms of drug use.
-- MAP Posted-by: Beth Wehrman
Pubdate: Tue, 04 Apr 2006
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Website: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/
Feedback: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html
Address: 72 Marietta Street, NW, Atlanta, Ga. 30303
Copyright: 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Author: Michael C. Barnes
Note: Michael C. Barnes is a Washington lawyer who formerly served as
counsel in the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n408.a07.html
Senate Bill 511, which did not win final legislative approval this year, only scratched the surface. Next session's bill must be more protective.
Hemp is low-potency cannabis, i.e., marijuana. Hemp products are being freely sold to anyone who walks into certain specialty food stores. These stores carry items such as cereals, salad dressings, protein powers and dietary supplements that contain small amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a hallucinogenic substance. Anyone with a credit card can go online to purchase these same products.
The sale -- and marketing -- of hemp food products raises several concerns. First, medical research tells us that even low levels of THC can build up in the body's tissues, posing particular health risks, including nerve impairment and hormone disruption, to developing fetuses, young children and teenagers.
Second, any drug prevention message could easily get lost on young people if they think it is OK to buy cannabis products at a grocery store or online. Children are already experimenting with marijuana at a young age. According to a 2004 University of Michigan study, 16 percent of eighth-graders, 35 percent of 10th-graders and 46 percent of 12th-graders have admitted to using marijuana at least once during their lifetimes.
Third, efforts at random drug testing can be circumvented. High school students who undergo drug tests, for instance, or the nation's 12 million safety-sensitive transportation employees who likewise undergo drug screenings, can defend a positive drug test by claiming ingestion of one of these hemp products. Several scientific studies (one of which is published in the Journal of Toxicology,) have shown that eating hemp foods can cause positive results in urine specimens.
Fourth, permitting foods that contain hemp to be marketed, sold and consumed in the United States creates a slippery slope to the dissolution of our nation's anti-drug laws. The Congressional Research Service has reported that the pro-hemp movement is spurred by drug legalization advocates, including Jack Herrer and High Times magazine. These advocates argue that if hemp can be marketed, sold and consumed in the United States, it should be cultivated in the United States. Where low-potency cannabis may be grown as hemp, high-potency cannabis can also be grown as a drug of abuse.
Public officials at all levels of government play a role in reducing the availability of cannabis in the United States. At the national level, the Food and Drug Administration must strictly enforce the current laws on the books; companies that include hemp in their food products are in direct violation of FDA regulations. At the state and local levels, willing legislative bodies, like the Georgia Senate, should adopt more thoroughly protective bills that ban all cannabis plant derivatives from grocery store shelves.
If no action is taken, we as a society, it seems, are implicitly endorsing the sale of cannabis and effectively rendering our nation's drug laws obsolete. This is not the way to protect our children from the harms of drug use.
-- MAP Posted-by: Beth Wehrman
Pubdate: Tue, 04 Apr 2006
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Website: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/
Feedback: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html
Address: 72 Marietta Street, NW, Atlanta, Ga. 30303
Copyright: 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Author: Michael C. Barnes
Note: Michael C. Barnes is a Washington lawyer who formerly served as
counsel in the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n408.a07.html
, Theres like 30 shops along the board walk to shop in and They all have those 
