Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) has introduced an amendment to the House appropriations bill that, if passed, would not allow funds to be used to prevent states from implementing their own state laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of industrial hemp. These laws are defined in section 7606 of the Agricultural Act of 2014. In 2014, members of Congress approved language in the omnibus federal Farm Bill explicitly authorizing states to sponsor hemp research.
The majority of US states have already enacted legislation redefining hemp as an agricultural commodity and allowing for its cultivation. However, the federal government still includes hemp in the Controlled Substances Act, despite it containing minimal amounts of THC–the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
All parts of the hemp plant can be cultivated and used to produce everyday household items. It can be grown as a renewable source for raw materials such as clothing, paper, construction materials, and biofuel. Not only is it useful, but growing hemp is much more environmentally friendly than traditional crops. According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States is the only developed nation in which industrial hemp is not an established crop.
If Bonamici’s amendment is passed, this could prevent the Department of Justice from interfering with states’ rights, specifically regarding to the use, distribution, possession, and cultivation of industrial hemp. It’s time for Congress to respect state laws and allow them to engage in the environmentally responsible cultivation of industrial hemp.
We need to follow the money and see if the Koch brothers support or oppose this hemp amendment.
To answer that question, I decided to start my research with petrol and cellulose plastic patents with the name “Koch” (Hemp has a high concentration of cellulose making it a sustainable source for cellulose plastic manufacturing) …and this is what I found:
http://www.google.com.pg/patents/US2397320
The owner of this patent on plastic composition published back in 1946 is a lesser known Koch brother, William Koch. An important link in this link is that William is the assignor to Hercules Powder Company. That takes us to another important patent published in 1959 for “Composite plastic article with a cellulose acetate component.” This patent is vital for creating “a clear glasslike plastic such’ as polystyrene or an acrylic polymer for visibility.”
https://www.google.com/patents/US2914436
The demand and profitability of cellulose plastics is seemingly endless. Even the pharmaceutical industry relies on cellulose ester derivatives in order to coat their prescribed chemicals. What a terrible irony? The same plant, cannabis sativa, that would compete with pharmaceuticals as source of effective and safe medicine, is also one of the world’s most efficient sources of biodegradable, digestible cellulose the pill-mill needs to coat their products.
So how does this answer the question of whether the Kochs truly support hemp legalization or if the trail of money to Roger Stone supports some Machiavellian patenting plan?
(continued)…
Side note:
The American Chemistry Council represents all of the major fossil fuel oil companies from Exxon to Chevron as well as Koch Industries. One of their principal missions is to make sure the United States legally considers plastics are derived from petroleum products, not plant based oils or cellulose. Here is their website defining plastics from Petroleum:
https://plastics.americanchemistry.com/How-Plastics-Are-Made/
Nowhere does it mention plastics derived from plants, much less hemp. Which is astounding considering all of the new evidence of industries turning to hemp-based bioplastics:
https://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/hemp-plastics-made/
Or the fact that Henry Ford built his first model T entirely out of hemp:
After the brief 1940’s video of Henry Ford’s hempcar, stick around for Industrial Hemp Solution’s “Bringing it Home,” which is a great quick educational video that explains hempcrete and hemp building products that will make Houstonites wonder why we ever started building homes out of moldy, toxic wood, sheetrock and insulation.
(Part 2)
Before we answer the question of whether the Kochs are for or against this hemp amendment for states rights to legalize, we need to understand patents and subsidies. The $#!+ gets deeper than cellulose plastics.
The Kochs own Georgia-Pacific (since 2005) which owns Brawny paper towels, Sparkle paper towels, Vanity Fair napkins, baby wipes and even disposable table cloths. Georgia Pacific says it is also a top producer of the cellulose fluff pulp used in diapers and incontinence items. Hemp produces twice the fiber and cellulose than cotton while using half the amount of water, pesticides, fertilizers or herbicides. Ironically, the Kochs refinery in Chorpus Christi TX produces petrol-fertilizers that end up in our foods and the cotton fields that surround the city. Hemp fertilizes itself by losing the lower leaves that are crowded out to create its own soil. Expensive petrol fertilizers would lose demand in a legalized hemp field.
The Kochs have a long history of lobbying for taxpayer subsidies and using lawsuits and crony capitalism for price fixing their products:
http://bridgeproject.com/app/uploads/KochstoneState.pdf
Subsidies and patents are what makes our economy go round. People fight viciously for their patents especially if they believe their profit will compete with a domestic, fairly taxed cannabis industry. We have to be careful when the Koch brothers wish to appear friendly to marijuana legalization on one hand, while their true goal is to promote a regime against “overcriminalization” so they can win law suits that allow them to continue to use toxic products like their sheetrock and spackle that contain asbestos.
Sidenote and update:
“Cotton requires large quantities of pesticides and herbicides–50% of the world’s pesticides/herbicides are used in the production of cotton. Hemp requires no pesticides, no herbicides, and only moderate amounts of fertilizer.”
https://www.hempbasics.com/shop/hemp-information
“Hemp is its own fertilizer”
http://www.hemphasis.net/Environment/environment.htm
Not surprisingly, Universities take lots of money from Koch Industries and report that hemp does need nitrogen fertilizers:
https://dev.purduehemp.org/hemp-production/
Beware: Purdue University took 3/4 of a million from Kochs last year:
http://polluterwatch.org/charles-koch-university-funding-database
“like any petrochemical activity, generating nitrogen from natural gas is a dirty process. To make our fertilizer, ammonia companies not only generate vast amounts of carbon dioxide, they also emit millions of pounds of toxic chemicals each year.”
“Another major nitrogen fertilizer product is urea — used both on farm fields and as a cheap protein enhancer in cow feed.” Koch’s Matador Ranches operate more than 15,000 head of cattle in the US, feeding them cheap petroleum based synthetic protein from which they produce and sell.
The Kochs receive millions in tax payer subsidies for their refineries and Georgia Pacific, http://www.ibtimes.com/charles-koch-blasts-subsidies-tax-credits-his-firm-has-taken-195-million-worth-them-2034949
which not only maintain their synthetic petroleum based monopoly, but they used that money to purchase our 2016 elections using the Republican Crosscheck Program through Kansas AG Kris Kobach: http://www.thebestdemocracymoneycanbuy.com The Koch brothers are personally responsible for electing Trump, the “Freedom” Party Republicans and the whole prohibitionist regime we have in place.
I’m just gonna make this blog on Bonamici’s amendment my reference page for linking Big Agribusiness to hemp prohibition:
http://www.alternet.org/food/how-monsanto-devastating-thousands-farms-across-20-states?akid=16067.2366751.WWfaDB&rd=1&src=newsletter1082244&t=22
Didn’t have to look too far to find a link between those cotton fields around the Koch refineries in Chorpus, hemp prohibition and Monsantos-Bayer’s GMO’s and herbicides. The above linked article by Bill Freese, Science Policy Analyst for the Center for Food Safety reveals how Monsanto-Bayer’s new herbicide dicamba is drifting into small farmers fields, causing millions of dollars of damage to fruit trees and other crops, and forcing farmers into planting Monsantos-Bayer’s GMO herbicide resistant cotton and soybeans. What the article does not mention is that Monsantos-Bayer won a lawsuit years back that allows them to own the seeds of any of their patented GMO crops, even if a farmers crop was cross pollinated by neighboring GMOs.
Can this monocultural invasion of herbicide-resistant patented GMOs that is devastating our agricultural diversity and our human sustainability with our planet reach a legalizing hemp industry? According to my patent research on this page, it already is.
If we start supplementing hemp into our cotton fields even as a rotating crop, herbicide sales from Monsantos-Bayer would be cut in half. Thats millions in profit they will fight tooth and nail for.. even use Ted Cruz to shut the government down for… which is why we must leverage Bonamici’s hemp amendment into the debt ceiling negotiations in December’s 2018 budget.
Hemp is not only healthier than synthetic nitrogen feed and fertilizers, ranchers report %40 leaner beef and pork when supplementing hemp or marijuana roots and stems into their feed.
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/22792/20160524/marijuana-pig-feeds-farmers-hogs-bigger-more-savory.htm
“Koch Fertilizer, LLC, is one of the world’s largest makers of [synthetic, petroleum or natural gas based] nitrogen fertilizers. Koch Fertilizer owns or has interests in fertilizer plants in the United States, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, and Italy, among others. Koch Fertilizer has change its name to Koch Ag and Energy Solutions (KAES)”
http://grist.org/article/2010-02-11-tracking-u-s-farmers-supply-nitrogen-fertilizer/
“Bloomberg reports that from 1999 to 2003, Koch Industries was assessed “more than $400 million in fines, penalties and judgments.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries
We are subsidizing the Koch brothers to poison ourselves:
https://www.southlandorganics.com/blogs/news/17982096-health-effects-of-synthetic-fertilizer
Ask your Congressman if they would rather eat synthetic fertilizer or a hemp leaf? Then tell them to support Bonamici’s hemp amendment, and make it mandatory for the debt ceiling bill this December.
(Part 3)
The Koch influence on the President and price-control of their timber products became obvious when Trump issued an executive order back in June to levy a %20 import tax on “Canadian soft woods.” While we can chuckle about what all fits into that category, don’t think impotence… think about hemp and Koch timber patents. Think about the rising demand for lumber in Houston post-Harvey where hemp once grew for the Texas Republic’s navy. Think about the fact that Canada is on its way to legalizing cannabis. Think about the demand for healthy open-source hemp-board vs. formaldehyde-soaked osb particle board from Koch’s Georgia Pacific manufacturing. Which would you want in your house?
In order for the Koch brothers to profit off of a domestic hemp industry they would have to first own shares in the patent on cannabis. But no one can own the patent on an entire plant. Or can they?
The patent on cannabinoids USP6630507 as neuroprotectants and antioxidants has been a well documented hypocrisy which is currently under litigation in the Washington v. Sessions case.
As I dug deeper into the classic commercial warfare of cannabis patenting, I discovered this incredible claim:
https://www.google.com/patents/WO2013056269A2?cl=en&dq=cellulose+hemp+patent&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOkMHN7ovWAhUP0IMKHRvjCDsQ6AEIJjAA
John C. Phillips (No relation yet found with the Koch-puppet Tim Phillips from Americans for Prosperity) claims in the patent listed above, among many claims,
“The entirety of the plant cannabis sativa.”
Paul, can you verify this patent’s legality and claims? Is this the real deal? Did the US Patent office patent the entire Cannabis Sativa plant two years ago?
(Part 4)
And the web of cannabis strains and patents thickens:
https://www.google.com/patents/USPP27475
The above patent is currently owned by Stephen Kubby of KUBBY PATENT AND LICENSES, LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY:
‘Equadorian Sativa’ has been shown by laboratory testing by Steephill Labs to contain cannabinoid CBG-A at 2.49 mg/g, tetrahydrocannibidiol THC-A at 139.46 mg/g, THC at 2.24 mg/g and cannabinoid CBC-A at 1.75 mg/g. ‘Equadorian Sativa’ cannabinoid content is dominated by its high content of THC (2.24 mg/g) and THC-A (139.46 mg/g).
What are the grounds of patenting what is clearly a schedule 1 substance? Or more importantly AN ENTIRE PLANT?! What, now we get to patent entire strains of plants? Who has the patent on my oak trees outside? Here I was referring Steephill Labs to help us keep fentanyl and byproducts out of our weed and in turns out they’re working for patent-prohibitionists!
Y’know, I started researching what I thought was a simple question: Are the Koch brothers going to support Bonamici’s hemp amendment or not. But it seems like researching the Koch brothers true intentions is like researching a rapidly spreading infection under a toxic system of patenting, prohibition and subsidies. Finding answers would be easier if we just made cannabis LEGAL, FAIRLY TAXED AND REPRESENTED AND OPEN SOURCE. Until then, the answer of whether the Kochs or anyone with a patent lawyer will support this hemp amendment is patently and unequivocally NO.
Do we need to sue the US Patent Office for patenting entire whole plant organisms and for damages caused by patented GMOs?
Conclusion:
So the next time you see an article like this:
https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/koch-network-warns-trump-failed-cannabis-fight
or witty legal commentary like this:
http://www.therodmanlawgroup.com/blog/2017/6/29/cannabis-and-koch-strange-bedfellows
Beware.
Subjectively glorifying the Koch brothers and their long-time nazi-loving Nixon @$$ kisser Roger Stone’s defense of marijuana states rights has to be put into a legal and economic context of Koch Industries economic interests. Simply stating they are “talking tough” with Trump without any investigative reporting into their true legal investments is a threatening political ruse. Just remember what these guys really are: poisonous patent and subsidy bullies who will stop at nothing to make a buck; even if it means pretending to support marijuana legalization while they scramble to protect their poisonous patents, decriminalize pollution or own the pending patents on the entire cannabis plant itself.
Julian, that was an in depth series of positings. I like it!
Thanks Joey.
We can all spend some time following the Great Circle of Money. It’s so nice to smoke some weed and follow the bigger circle of Life and Love. We must remain confident that even the most greedy among us like the Koch brothers will soon be taught by legalized marijuana that Love is stronger than Pride.
Bravo Julian for great research! I read an hour of it, especially the John C. Phillips Patent application which trotted out lots of good mostly coherent cannabis facts where a description of Phillips’ “invention(s)” had been promised… huh?
.
Anyway, how about someone reach Mr. Phillips and ask him why the most possibly controversial claim was buried as “No. 11” down among 14:
.
“11. The entirety of the plant cannabis sativa.
12. I claim the right to cultivate and provide the cannabis sativa plant, or industrial hemp, for industrial use.
13. claim the right to cultivate and provide the cannabis sativa plant, or industrial hemp, for industrial use and not for human consumption.”
This High Times article talks about promoting hemp in detail without addressing the toxic Koch-elephant in the room:
http://hightimes.com/business/why-industrial-hemp-could-prove-a-larger-economic-driver-than-marijuana/
How can we ever succeed in creating a legal hemp industry before Congress without addressing our tax dollar subsidies for fossil fuels that go to Koch Industries that go to prohibitionist Congressman?