Hemp Farmers File Appeal

[amsterdamage]

I won't hold my breath but I'd sure like to see them win this time!

The DEA simply cannot be given the authority to define what is marijuana and what isn't, I mean it's a law enforcement organization what the hell do they know about botany?!!

The big problem here is the DEA has too much power, it not only enforces the law but it protects it from ever being repealed and even defines what it will and will not enforce the law against!! Congress has got to do something about this!!


http://www.sunherald.com/447/story/380034.html

Two North Dakota farmers, whose federal lawsuit to end the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) ban on state-licensed and regulated commercial hemp farming in the United States was dismissed on November 28, 2007, filed their appeal today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Lawyers working on behalf of the farmers, State Representative David Monson and Wayne Hauge, are appealing the district court's inexplicable ruling that said hemp and marijuana are the "same," as the DEA has contended.

The ruling failed to properly consider the Commerce Clause argument that the plaintiffs raised -- that Congress cannot interfere with North Dakota's state-regulated hemp program.

Indeed, the lower court itself recognized in the decision under appeal that "the stalk, fiber, sterilized seed, and oil of the industrial hemp plant, and their derivatives, are legal under federal law, and those parts of the plant are expressly excluded from the definition of 'marijuana' under the CSA [Controlled Substances Act]."