Canadian “hemp car” to be on the market by 2013

 

Soon, you’ll be able to drive hemp. Literally, thanks to the Kestrel car, named after the colorful raptor.

 

Meet the Kerstel and its hemp composite body

Right now, Canadian company Motive Industries, Inc., is testing the materials for a biocomposite hybrid electric car made from hemp and other natural and synthetic fibers. If all goes according to plan, Motive will finish its prototype mid-2011, and make the car available to the public in late-2012 or -2013, according to Nathan Armstrong, Motive’s president.

The material used to manufacturer the body is impact-resistant composite from hemp mats; these are supplied by Alberta Innovates-Technology Future (AITF), while hemp is grown in Vegreville, Atlanta. Here’s the kicker, AITF is Crown corporation, owned by the Canadian government.

“Plus, it’s illegal to grow it in the U.S., so it actually gives Canada a bit of a market advantage,” said Armstrong to the CBC.

The four-passenger, three-door electric vehicle—created to showcase new automotive technology coming out of Canada—can reach speeds of almost 85 mph. It’s the result of Project Eve, a for-profit collaboration aimed at combining “Canadian skills for the purpose of producing and supporting Canadian electric vehicles and components,” according to Project Eve’s website.

The Kestrel’s a solid step in that direction. “It won’t have any smell. It should be quieter. It should be warmer,” Armstrong says. “The vibrations that we get from the natural fibers are actually quite pleasant.” Plus, he adds, the car’s safer in a crash because it springs back rather than crumbles into a squished-metal ball.

Because of the nascence of the technology being used, Motive doesn’t yet understand how long-term wear and tear will affect the biocomposite car. However, the idea’s to create something durable and easy to repair. If it comes to fruition, “we’re really leaning toward something that’s going to last a long, long time,” Armstrong says.

CBC is reporting that several battery options will be available making the hemp electric vehicle affordable to many people.

Where does the reference to the colorful kestrel come in? “It was initially because we were using design cues from the bird, for aerodynamics,” Armstrong says, “but later [we] found out the kestrel is quick and nimble but has a limited range—perfect for an EV [electric vehicle]!” Get ready to fly in this lightweight, better-for-the-environment, cool-looking hemp-mobile.

Source: Madbolg.audubon.com

Cannabis Debates Begin Tomorrow

In response to the current plans for limiting the right to buy cannabis to Dutch residents, and other related restrictions, a series of debates are taking place throughout the Netherlands during February and March. Beginning tomorrow (05/02) at the Cannabis College in Amsterdam, the Cannabis Debates are open to everyone over the age of 18 and attendance (14:00 to 17:00) is free.

Workable Cannabis Policy
The Cannabis Debates are organized by the VOC (lit. Society for the Abolition of Cannabis Prohibition) and THC (Taskforce for Cannabis Management), an independent work-group including members of the National Platform of Coffeeshop Unions (LOC) and the VOC. Their aim is to present a workable and well supported alternative to the potentially disastrous schemes favoured by the Cabinet.

This alternative is a clear and regulated management of cannabis, including growing, for personal use and would effectively remove the ‘back-door’ criminality from the ‘front-door’ legal sales. The contradiction between illegal wholesale supply and decriminalized personal supply is the root of the problems with the tolerance policy, caused not by going ‘too far’ as many politicians seem to think, but by not going far enough.

Be part of the Cannabis Debates
The management concept presented by THC sets out a practical and safe system for regulating the cannabis trade and is entitled ‘Van Gedogen Naar Handhaven’ (‘From Tolerance To Management’). Contributions and suggestions are welcome from everyone who attends the debates (please bear in mind that the main language will be Dutch). Considering that the Tweede Kamer began their own debate on moving from cannabis tolerance to zero tolerance exactly a year ago today, the Cannabis Debates offer an essential opportunity to find a saner solution that must not be missed.

Other debate dates:

Zaterdag 26 februari:
Coffeeshop The Pink, Willemstraat 35, Eindhoven

Zaterdag 5 maart:
Koffieshop De Os, Korfmakersstraat 2, Leeuwarden

Maandag 21 maart:
Live 330 / Cremers, Korte Molenstraat 2, Den Haag

Source: VOC Nederland, Zaterdag 5 februari eerste cannabis debat in amsterdam

Czech police wants to use seized cannabis for treatment

Well it’s definitely an idea only a cop could come up with, but while being surrealistic, it seems to reignite the debate on medical cannabis in a country where all drugs are already decriminalized in small amount.

Obviously the Justice Minister of the Czech Republic sees in this idea an opportunity to lower costs for his ministry not to dismiss it, but the expert quoted in the original article is right about the quality of the cannabis grown in illegal operations. It’s just not grown for such purpose.

Rather than seizing it, why not grow it?

The junior government Czech Public Affairs (VV) party supports the idea of marijuana being legalised for for medical purposes. But while first thinking about importing  cannabis from Holland, they now appear to be tempted by the cut in costs such initiative would create, not seeing any troubles in using weed from the black market to provide for patients’ treatment .

Maybe this is the opportunity to think about the legislation in a different way for medical marijuana since more and more Czech state institutions and politicians support the use of hemp for medical purposes.

Well even if the idea is not a safe one for patients, at least it opens the debate on medical cannabis. Let’s just hope this will lead to a new law legalising the medical use of cannabis in yet an other European country. And if police wants to help, they could provide with the grow equipment from previous seizure rather than the weed itself.

Sources: Cannabis Culture

Dutch Coffeeshop Pass System Approved By European Court

Coffeeshops will be effectively restricted from selling cannabis to non-residents, and Amsterdam is no exception. The controversial ‘weed pass’ system planned by the new Dutch government is not in conflict with the European treaty on free movement of goods, nor the current anti-discriminatory legislation, it was announced yesterday.

Will tourists still be allowed to share cannabis bought by a resident?

The coalition government, already troubled by internal conflict and scandal in their first few months, asked that the European Court examine the new measure for possible conflict with existing legislation. The European Court has allowed the plans in order to combat the ‘drug tourism’ problems that residents have been experiencing in border towns.

Amsterdam relies on tourists, many of whom openly state that they would not visit the city if they were banned from coffeeshops, for a great deal of revenue. The Mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard van der Laan doubts that the pass system will improve anything, stating that street dealing and the problems associated with it will only increase. Despite this the government will not make an exception for the city that has been a Mecca for marijuana lovers for over three decades and a symbol of free thought and acceptance for hundreds of years.

The pass system will be implemented as soon as possible in the province of Brabant (in the south of the Netherlands, bordering Belgium) although details have not yet been released on who will approve, issue and control the passes, nor how they should be applied for. Other issues, such as whether tourists will be allowed into coffeeshops simply to drink coffee and if there will be restrictions on residents sharing legally purchased cannabis with non-residents, have yet to be explored.

Germany: Merry Xmas Tree Seized by Police

Christmas in Germany seems to turn into a cannabis feast looking at the recent busts made by the police.

On Tuesday, German authorities said that a 21-year-old man in the southern city of Munich had been detained with a homemade Advent calendar with cannabis behind each little door instead of chocolate.

On Wednesday, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, officers entered the home of the ‘old 68er’ – a reference to a group of young students and workers who took part in radical protested across Germany in 1968 –  and he ‘more or less willingly’ handed over 150g, or 5.3 ounces, of marijuana.

But after the police snooped around the property in Montabaur, near Koblenz, further, they found the tall pot plant.

“A hippie celebrates Christmas too, just differently,” read the release. “The two-meter-tall marijuana plant had been put in a Christmas tree stand and decorated with a string of lights.”

“When asked, the hashish fan told the perplexed officers that he had intended to add more decorations to the ‘tree’ and place the presents under it, according to tradition.”

Police seized the plant and the 150 grams (5.3 ounces) of marijuana found in the apartment.

Cannabis was illegal throughout Germany until the federal constitutional court decided on 28 April 1994 that people need no longer be prosecuted for possession of soft drugs for personal use.

Sources: AFP , The Local

 

Dutch Coffeeshops Closed To Tourists?

Plans released this month for a pass system to exclude non-residents from Dutch coffeeshops are causing concern amongst cannabis users around the world. Citing the problems of crime and ‘social nuisance’ caused by foreign tourists smoking cannabis, the new and still unstable coalition government wants to make the coffeeshops into private clubs where only adults who live in the Netherlands can become members.

It is currently unclear whether this will be overruled by EU law which prevents discrimination in business trading, or pass on the grounds that the substance being traded is not fully legal and therefore not protected by legislation.

What is clear is that, if implemented, this plan will remove most of the revenue generated by coffeeshops- an estimated €1.8 billion per year- as well as costing many coffeeshop employees their jobs, in the middle of an economic crisis.

However, this plan was first discussed by the government in 2003 and still nothing concrete has been announced. Confidence in the new coalition is not high, with a recent poll showing that only 28% of voters expect it to last a full term.

Shamefully, this plan represents a complete reversal of Holland’s successful tolerance policy which has led to the country having the lowest rates of drug abuse in the developed world.

Prop. 19: California Marijuana Legalization Measure Loses

In a contest that pitted the legal establishment against activists that have long sought the measure’s approval, California voters snuffed out a proposal that would have legalized recreational marijuana for adults over age 21 and permit the state to tax commercial sale of the drug.

California was the only state with a measure on recreational pot, but South Dakota and Arizona ballots included medical marijuana initiatives, South Dakota’s Measure 13 went down in flames, 63 percent to 37 percent. Arizona’s Proposition 203 was statistically on the fence, though no-votes were ahead by about 7,000 with 92 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday morning. There are currently 14 states, and the District of Columbia, with forms of medical marijuana laws.

The proposal – titled the “Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act” – would have allowed adults 21 and over to possess up to an ounce of pot, consume it in nonpublic places as long as no children were present and grow it in small private plots. Proposition 19 also would have authorized local governments to permit commercial pot cultivation, as well as the sale and use of marijuana at licensed establishments.

Projections in California and by the National Council of State Legislatures show the measure has gone down to defeat by a significant margin, with 54 percent voting no compared with a 46 percent yes vote with most precincts reporting – rejecting a low-budget but high-profile campaign that could have set a groundbreaking trend for the rest of the nation. Advocates had argued that the proposal, known as Proposition 19, would have provided the cash-strapped state with a significant revenue stream and helped ease the overburdened court system, while opponents contended the measure’s approval would have created legal and social chaos.

Supporters of Proposition 19 blamed Tuesday’s outcome on the conservative leanings of older voters who participate in midterm elections. They also acknowledged that young voters had not turned out in sufficient numbers to secure victory, but said they were ready to try again in two years.

“It’s still a historic moment in this very long struggle to end decades of failed marijuana prohibition,” said Stephen Gutwillig, California director for the Drug Policy Project. “Unquestionably, because of Proposition 19, marijuana legalization initiatives will be on the ballot in a number of states in 2012, and California is in the mix.”

Tim Rosales, who managed the No on 19 campaign, scoffed at that attitude from the losing side.

“If they think they are going to be back in two years, they must be smoking something,” he said. “This is a state that just bucked the national trend and went pretty hard on the Democratic side, but yet in the same vote opposed Prop 19.”

According to preliminary exit poll data, only about 1 voter in 10 said that his or her main motivation to vote in this election was Prop. 19.

Voters younger than 40 were slightly more drawn by the marijuana contest than older voters, but even among the younger voters, Prop. 19 came in third.

By far, the pot legalization initiative drew worldwide attention, but support for the measure had been sinking leading up to Tuesday’s ballot, according to recent polls. As late as Tuesday, Oakland City Attorney John Russo – a leading proponent of the pot plan – signaled its fading prospects during a Bay Area press conference.

“Even if we are cheated out of a win today, we have changed the debate from licentious hippies-versus-straight-arrow cops to one that recognizes this issue in all of its complexity,” Russo said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

 

Sources: Politico

High Times Advertisement Representative Pinched in Pot Sting

So much for the high life.

Matthew Stang (left) preceded byKareem "Biggs" Burke and alleged ringleader "Manny" Perez

Cops busted a senior representative for the infamous marijuana magazine High Times along with 45 other people, including a man behind a major hip-hop label, for allegedly operating a multi-million dollar pot ring. Matthew “Woodstock” Stang, known as “Magazine Guy” to his cohorts, whose title in High Times is Senior Advertising Representative, has sold advertising for High Times since 2003.

Dubbed operation “Green Venom,” the feds arrested Kareem (Biggs) Burke , who co-founded Roc-A-Fella Records with Jay-Z and Damon Dash, after intercepting telephone conversations. According to a federal complaint, Burke and alleged ringleader Geovanny (Manny) Rodriguez Perez discussed “potential marijuana suppliers” in California.

“In the case of the High Times employee, it’s a case of art imitating real life,” said Jim Hayes, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The ring allegedly manufactured the marijuana hydroponically in the greater Miami area and shipped it to New York in tractor trailers that also contained legal merchandise.

“Right now we are focused on taking down the network and, as the investigation continues, we want to make sure that other rival networks or other co-conspirators cannot use the same tools,” Hayes said.

“They dominated the wholesale marijuana market in New York for 20 years,” claims Hayes. It was taken down in an 18-month probe.Federal agents say they seized $2 million and more than 360 pounds of marijuana in the bust.

Stang was freed on $500,000 bail, $100,000 of which had to be cash. He was allegedly the guy who supplied the marijuana to ringleader, and also was ordered to wear a monitoring bracelet. High Times declined to comment on the arrest.

Source: The NYPost

 

Area 420: Secret Hemp Research Facility Could Save Uruguay!

Farming industrial hemp could offer Uruguay a simple and elegant solution to a host of serious environmental problems that are currently damaging the country. Tests by the National Institute for Farming Technology are scheduled to start next month at a secret location and will explore hemp’s potential for production and the suitability of various strains.

Uruguay, a small nation tucked between Brazil and Argentina, and advertised to tourists as ‘A Natural Country’, is rapidly becoming anything but natural. Abnormally large numbers of dead animals, birds and fish have been turning up in the last year and cancer is now the second most common cause of death in the human population. Herbicides, fungicides and pesticides, many of them carcinogenic, are currently being used in massive amounts all across the country. Tragically, many users are small-scale farmers who are not aware of the toxicity of these substances and the dangers they pose. Many farmers do not wear or are unable to afford the necessary protective equipment and the chemicals are often used indiscriminately, without proper instructions.

Industrial hemp, with its fast growth and dense foliage, needs no herbicides to compete with weeds and other plants – it simply outgrows them. This alone would be a massive boon to both the farmers and the ecology of Uruguay. Hemp has proven effective in cleaning pollutants and heavy metals from soil; it is feasible that it could also work for removing agrochemical toxins. Hemp’s composted foliage makes an excellent fertilizer which can replenish vital nutrients in soil, while its deep root system aerates and improves the land. Hemp can actually improve the yields of many other food crops when grown in rotation.

Soy is currently one of Uruguay’s main food crops. Transgenic soy – specifically Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready (RR) soy – covers more than 600,000 hectares of Uruguayan farmland and is closely linked to both ecological and economic problems. RR soy is genetically engineered to be resistant to RoundUp, a highly toxic glyphosate-based herbicide (also invented by Monsanto) which has been banned in several countries. RR soy’s main selling point is that fields in which it is cultivated can be sprayed indiscriminately with RoundUp, which will kill all other plant life while leaving the GM soy intact. Given that RoundUp is toxic to mammals (including humans), birds, amphibians, fish and invertebrates, it goes without saying that widespread and high-volume use is capable of significant environmental damage.

Ingested quantities of RoundUp as small as 85ml can kill humans within hours due to organ failure, and much smaller amounts have been shown to cause endocrine disruption (damage to reproductive development) and genetic damage.

Furthermore the cultivation of RR soy is only economically feasible on a large scale (due to the costs of the patented seed and of the accompanying herbicide), making the crop economically damaging to small farmers. Worse still, RR soy has been found to yield significantly less (~6.7%) than unmodified soy varieties.

The nutritional value of hempseeds is by now widely known; hempseed yields 30% oil by weight compared to the 18% for soy. The balance of essential fatty acids in hempseed is far superior to that of soy and the two crops yield comparable amounts of valuable vegetable protein. Replacing the current soy crop with hemp would only be beneficial for all Uruguayans.

Uruguay is set to become the first South American nation to invest in industrial hemp and hopefully, in the not-to-distant future, this progressive and principled decision will be the catalyst for change in its larger neighbors. Last week, Argentinean film maker Ricardo Manochi visited the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum in Amsterdam to shoot footage for a new documentary and to research industrial hemp cultivation and processing in the Netherlands, where pioneering company HempFlax is one of the largest European producers of industrial hemp. He expressed hope that, if the Uruguayan trials succeed, Argentina – where transgenic soy accounts for over half of all agricultural output – will be the next to follow.

Cannabis gateway theory challenged by new research results

DURHAM, N.H. — New research from the University of New Hampshire shows that the “gateway effect” of marijuana — that teenagers who use marijuana are more likely to move on to harder illicit drugs as young adults — is overblown.

Billboard paid for by US tax payers in Portland

Whether teenagers who smoked pot will use other illicit drugs as young adults has more to do with life factors such as employment status and stress, according to the new research. In fact, the strongest predictor of whether someone will use other illicit drugs is their race/ethnicity, not whether they ever used cannabis.

Conducted by UNH associate professors of sociology Karen Van Gundy and Cesar Rebellon, the research appears in the September 2010, issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior in the article, “A Life-course Perspective on the ‘Gateway Hypothesis’.”

“There seems to be this idea that we can prevent later drug problems by making sure kids never smoke pot,” Dr. Van Gundy, told CBS News. “But whether marijuana smokers go on to use other illicit drugs depends more on social factors like being exposed to stress and being unemployed – not so much whether they smoked a joint in the eighth grade.”

“In light of these findings, we urge U.S. drug control policymakers to consider stress and life-course approaches in their pursuit of solutions to the ‘drug problem,’ ” Van Gundy and Rebellon say.

The researchers used survey data from 1,286 young adults who attended Miami-Dade public schools in the 1990s. Within the final sample, 26 percent of the respondents are African American, 44 percent are Hispanic, and 30 percent are non-Hispanic white.

The researchers found that young adults who did not graduate from high school or attend college were more likely to have used marijuana as teenagers and other illicit substances in young adulthood. In addition, those who used marijuana as teenagers and were unemployed following high school were more likely to use other illicit drugs.

However, the association between teenage marijuana use and other illicit drug abuse by young adults fades once stresses, such as unemployment, diminish.

“Employment in young adulthood can protect people by ‘closing’ the cannabis gateway, so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities,” Van Gundy says.

In addition, once young adults reach age 21, the gateway effect subsides entirely.

“While marijuana use may serve as a gateway to other illicit drug use in adolescence, our results indicate that the effect may be short-lived, subsiding by age 21. Interestingly, age emerges as a protective status above and beyond the other life statuses and conditions considered here. We find that respondents ‘age out’ of marijuana’s gateway effect regardless of early teen stress exposure or education, work, or family statuses,” the researchers say.

The researchers found that the strongest predictor of other illicit drug use appears to be race-ethnicity, not prior use of marijuana. Non-Hispanic whites show the greatest odds of other illicit substance use, followed by Hispanics, and then by African Americans.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state’s flagship public institution, enrolling more than 12,200 undergraduate and 2,200 graduate students.

Past research had already largely invalidated the gateway theory. Most recently, in January a study was released indicating that marijuana use actually discourages hard drug use.

A 2002 RAND study dismissed the gateway theory and raised doubts about the legitimacy of federal drug policies based upon its premise.

Source