Right you are! Whether or not the particular "Indian standoff" that was recently deiscussed here is motivated by the tribe's stand on hemp, it seems clear that much of the "war on drugs" is in fact an attempt to prevent the resurrection of a viable hemp industry in this country.

For a good intorduction to the story of how and why marijuana was prohibited in 1937, see http://www.parascope.com/mx/hempin.htm .

Hemp was the backbone of U.S. agriculture during the early decades of this nation. Thomas Jefferson extolled its virtues in his classic work Notes on the State of Virginia , which included a table comparing, as he saw it, the positive qualities of hemp with the negative qualities of tobacco. He also was the inventor of the horsedrawn "hemp block", used to separate the useful hemp fiber from unusable portions of the plant, a forerunner of the 1930s "decorticator". Jefferson and Washington both grew hemp extensively, and would likely turn over in their graves were they to learn that the Federal Government now prohibits growing or even posessing this eminently useful plant. (They might even be given help getting there, since growing hemp today in the quantities they did would make them "drug kingpins" subject to the death penalty under current law).

And yet, just this month, drug "czar" Barry McCaffrey ordered the U.S. Customs Service (where does he get such authority - and why do we have any kind of a "czar" in this country, anyway?) to seize any hemp seeds imported into this country - even if they are sterilized and cannot grow - if they have any detectable trace amounts of THC whatsoever - which of course they all do, although in such low concentration that no one could possibly get the slightest bit high from them. This shows that concern about drug effects is basically a subterfuge used to stop all trade in the plant whose praises Jefferson sung. See http://www.drcnet.org/wol/122.html#hempembargo for details.