By Michael Bachara, Hemp News Correspondent
SASKATCHEWAN - Members of Parliament have pledged funding for the Composites Innovation Centre (CIC) to study hemp fibers with the goal of making composites that perform better than fiberglass and plastic."Finding new and innovative uses for our flax and hemp will greatly benefit farmers and the economy in Western Canada," said MP Bruinooge. "This investment will enable farmers to adapt their growth and harvesting regimes to optimize fibre performance, increasing the demand for their crops and resulting in increased profitability."
The investment through the Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program (CAAP) is designed to study the sub-molecular structure of hemp fibers.
"This exciting collaboration between the CIC and our world-class Canadian synchrotron facility will provide our local and national biomass industries with a key competitive edge in a growing international marketplace," says CIC Manager of Product Innovation Simon Potter. "The information we generate with the Canadian Light Source will support the high penetration of agricultural fibers into building materials and composites for automotive and aerospace products."
"The Canadian Light Source welcomes this opportunity to work with Manitoba's burgeoning bio-composite sector on a project that will not only benefit Manitoba, but fibre growers throughout Western Canada and manufacturers around the world," said Jeffrey Cutler, director of industrial science.
The project is being funded under the Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program (CAAP). CAAP is a five-year (2009-2014), $163-million initiative that is trying to help the Canadian agricultural sector evolve and stay competitive.
The goal is to help farmers by focusing on creating sustainable jobs and strengthening the determined community. The group is looking to build the Canadian economy for the future generations.
Because the previous growth of the Canadian hemp industry has been successful, it makes sense that they are now moving to invest in this fruitful and diverse crop. It only makes sense that US farmers, like North Dakotan and Republican State Legislator David Monson in the video above, should be able to take the steps needed to grow hemp in the states.
Monson says, "If they can do it in Canada, England and Germany and all over the world, we should be able to do it, too."
With the situation of our economy in crisis, our farmers should be able to take advantage of the expanding arena of hemp. There are so many products to be made and it is such a healthful contribution to the economy. It's time the United States restores hemp.
Canada is investing in innovation that will help develop new bio-composites derived from hemp fibers. For more information, please visit http://www.agr.gc.ca/caap.
Media Relations
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Ottawa, Ontario
613-773-7972
1-866-345-7972
Ryan Paradis
Composites Innovation Centre Manitoba Inc.
(204) 262-3400 ext. 226
rparadis at compositesinnovation.ca
On September 18th, Oregon NORML entered a team for the second consecutive year into the Komen Race for the Cure. Their team name, NORML People.
Kentucky Gubernatorial Candidate Gatewood Galbraith (Independent) recently spoke in Portland, Oregon to raise money for his current campaign. Galbraith talked about the history of hemp as a cash crop in Kentucky, his lifetime spent learning and working within the political and legal system, and also his campaign and running-mate Dea Riley. 
The Kentucky candidate continued his talk explaining the government’s right to tax commerce and making available medical marijuana for the sick and dying. He explained how he himself discovered marijuana for an aid to his asthma. “Marijuana is a gateway drug,” he said, “a gateway to existentialism.”
Galbraith and Hemp Activist Paul Stanford reminisce about their historic trip across Kentucky with Willie Nelson in the early 1990's in the red Mercedes Benz Station Wagon that they ran with hemp bio-diesel and that event’s impact on the bio-diesel industry. The trip even inspired Nelson’s own bio-diesel company.
Galbraith expressed his concern with the current wave of political party partisanship, what being an Independent candidate means in relation to that partisanship and how that is reflected in the momentum of the Gatewood/Riley 2011 campaign. “All we want to do is what’s right for the people,” he pronounced.
While Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were drafting the U.S. Constitution (on hemp paper), each was farming cannabis hemp. Said Jefferson, who would later become the 3rd President of the United States:
Pitchman, businessman, and world traveler, Robert Platshorn, aka Bobby Tuna, has also served more federal time than any other non-violent marijuana inmate, having spent 28 years in federal prison. Platshorn has compiled his memoirs into his book, The Black Tuna Diaries, in which he tells his life story intermingled with his story of smuggling marijuana.
Why do you continue to run - I continue to run not just to express my own convictions but to answer the call of the people who continue to ask me to run in the hope that my election will ensure our government will again begin to work the way our founding fathers intended; to serve as a representative of the people and those laws so brilliantly laid out in order to form the most admired government in the World.
In 1985, the Oregon Marijuana Initiative (OMI), with petitioners including Jack Herer, Paul Stanford, John Sajo and countless others, collected over 87,000 signatures necessary to place the issue of legalization on the ballot. 
Ben Masel was, beginning in his teens, a leader and activist for freedom and cannabis. Ben was brilliant, incisive and a Grand Master chess champion. He was a seemingly fearless advocate who spent his life supporting others and working for freedom and justice. I am proud and honored to count Ben Masel as an associate, mentor and friend.
Madison, Wisconsin - A lifelong activist, Ben Masel, has died after his battle with lung cancer. As the Hemp and Cannabis Community and many others mourn this great loss, we must also remember what Masel spent most of his life fighting for and continue on the path he helped to blaze. 
In conjunction with Hempstalk 2010, Masel created one of the first online festival petitions asking President Obama to pardon or commute the sentences of long-term marijuana prisoners. He educated the crowd on how the President has the authority with the pull of a pen to pardon these individuals. The following is video footage of the event.
Sacramento, California - In a hearing set before Federal Judge Damrell, Doctor Mollie Fry, MD and her husband, Attorney Dale Schafer were ordered to surrender themselves to United States Federal Marshals on May 2, 2011 at 2:00 PM to begin their five-year minimum mandatory sentence in federal prison.
Hemp seeds produce more oil and protein than any other plant per land area cultivated. Hemp protein and oil are rich in the essential fatty acids (EFAs) that our brain and cardiovascular system need, Omega 3 & 6, in the perfect ratio for optimal human health. Hemp protein has all 8 amino acids, again, in just the right balance to meet humans' nutritional needs.
I believe hemp is Mother Earth's greatest gift to us.
As there are so many applications for hemp and hemp products, so it is not a surprise to find that it can be used to build a house; but the question we need to answer is, is it worthwhile? 
Last month, because of years of festering propagandist lies, the Illinois House of Representatives voted against mid-west farmers and their right to grow a viable rotation crop (
A friend of mine recently put together a survey for a ethnography research methods class on the topic of creating effective hemp education and promoting hemp awareness. Below are a few of my responses. 
In the early 1990's, C & S Specialty Builder's Supply (namely Bill Conde, Dave Seber, Barry Davis, and Tim Pate) in Harrisburg, Oregon, imported regulated bales of hemp and began working on a medium density fiberboard (MDF). The evolution of hemp MDF as a viable building supply option began when Bill Conde of C & S took their hemp fiber research and ideas to Paul Maulberg, the head of Washington State University's Wood Engineering Laboratory.
"In fact, the hemp fiberboard met or surpassed every standard industry test by Washington State University Wood Materials and Engineering Laboratory (http://www.wmel.wsu.edu/ ) in Pullman," stated Tim Pate, when discussing the testing with Hemp News. The WSU laboratory has a long and illustrious history in wood composite materials, design and construction. Since its founding in 1949, the scope of the research, outreach and education programs of the laboratory has expanded beyond wood materials to include other natural fibers, polymers, inorganic cements, masonry and steel, according to the WSU website. 
Members of the organization Sensible Washington have filed their highly-anticipated hemp and cannabis initiative. 
This past weekend, members of 
United we stand, divided we fall: Bluegrass State, if you are tired of all the negative political rhetoric taking place in the capitol in Frankfort between both Democrats and Republicans, vote Gatewood/Riley in 2011!
Gatewood Galbraith is currently campaigning for Kentucky's 2011 gubernatorial race as an Independent, free from any party affiliations, and describes himself as free from hidden agenda. Galbraith is focusing his campaign on young voters by proposing a freeze on college tuition expenditures, a $5,000 educational voucher to high school graduates for college or technical school, and legalization of cannabis for medicinal purposes, which he estimates could save the state $500 million to $1 billion in medical costs each year. His pledge is to end the “synthetic subversion” in his state.