Two hundred and fifty-two years ago today, on 31 October 1765, George Hempington celebrated the first documented Hempoween. The farmer and his slaves had harvested 152 bushel of hemp seed; after milling the seed to collect the oil, George writes of his celebratory actions in his farm journal:
 
“31 October: Finished sowing Wheat in Hemp Ground at Rivr. Plantn. & plowed in a good deal of shattered Hemp Seed – 27 Bushls. in all 152.”
 
That, my friends, is a traditional Hempoween celebration: the scattering of shattered hemp seeds on your field (or garden) as a fertilizer for the next season.
 
There are also many more modern ways to enjoy your hemp products this Hempoween: one that was new to me is toasted hemp seeds. I purchased the little delicacies (see picture above) at a regular grocery store in the Midwest – nothing fancy, and no special license or doctor’s note was needed.
 
I did leave the original bag of toasted seeds with some hippies (burners really), and I don’t expect to see the treats again; you see, they are quite yummy toasted and I know what to expect when one leaves a bag of hemp products around burners.
 
So toast them hemp seeds this year while you are celebrating Hempoween, and perhaps even give a shout out of remembrance to George, his wife Artha, and the slaves who made it all possible.
 
Here’s to a happy – and toasted – Hempoween for all!
 
*Next Up: Sunday 5 November and a pamphlet release, Three Liminal Dialogues on Serotonin, Mosby and Luther.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

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This story deserves a hearing – even if it’s been 250 years
 
 
Hempoween is a colonial American invention (if it was invented at all). Obviously, in order to celebrate a Hempoween, one needs some hemp. Back in early colonial times the Tuscarora Nation provided hemp for the land called Virginia; part of the Tuscarora were known as “the hemp gatherers” and this was back when hemp grew wild in America and all one had to do was gather it. Our story, the one about the first Hempoween, honors the aborigine and follows in their spirit.
 
George Hempington faced a different hemp world than the Tuscarora. George began his adult career working as a surveyor for the King of England in western Virginia; he then settled down into plantation life and in 1759 married Artha, also known as “Lady Hempington,” and had a life long love affair with her (the two would spend winters together during George’s later military campaigns).
 
George opted for hemp farming (one couldn’t just gather it anymore) because his king needed hemp and was paying a bounty – a price above market value – for it.
 
George sowed his hemp in May along with the slaves he owned – he would have needed help for the hemp planting and harvesting; of course, like much of colonial America, and colonialism in general, slaves did the labor. George’s first hemp harvest (he would go on to farm hemp the rest of his life) was two-and-a-half ton of fiber and 152 bushels of hemp seed.
 
What defines a Hempoween? Apparently, given the historical evidence, it is the scattering of shattered hemp seed on one’s field (or garden); that’s what George Hempington did on 31 October 1765 when he plowed 27 bushel of shattered hemp seed into the hemp ground newly sowed with wheat at one of his plantations.
 
Perhaps only The Smudge of 17 September 1787 merits consideration along with Hempoween as George’s greatest contribution to American heritage: we’ll let time be the judge.
 
Happy 250th Hempoween All!
 
Next Up: A Supreme Pilgrim’s Progress Update for Thursday 26 November, Thanksgiving Day.
 
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

Just as America plants new seeds for a new harvest, we need some new words for understanding all the kinds of cannabinoid businesses forming. It’s already clear the cannabinoid system (CS) is fundamental to health: now CS economics are taking place.

One key to understanding this new economy: synthetic cannabinoids are simply misplaced pharmaceutical cannabinoids and they work great in one place: research laboratories.

Cannabinoids are in our research labs, sold in white powders by pharmaceutical companies, and now there are pharmaceutical companies placing “green” cannabinoids in pills and sprays and ointments. Suddenly, even for those of us somewhat familiar with the terrain, all the words started blending together like a smoothie.

Publius of The Cannabis Papers found these distinctions useful:

Three Types of Cannabinoid Businesses
I.
Pharmaceutical cannabinoids
These businesses use synthetic cannabinoid in research and in products like Marinol, a synthetic-THC available as a prescription pharmaceutical.

II.
Herbiceutical cannabinoids
These are new businesses like GW Pharmaceutical; their product Nabiximols (Sativex) is made from plant cannabinoids-yet-pharmaceutical-grade.

III.
Herbaceutical cannabinoids
This would be perhaps the most varied business group; it would include hemp foods, such businesses as Dr. Bronner's hemp oil soaps, herbal (raw, phyto-) cannabinoid medical dispensaries, as well as all collective and individual home-grow businesses.

Standardization is the next issue for green cannabinoids, and it’s trifold: the plant varies as well as one’s CS (biology) and the human condition (physiology and psychology). As herbaceutical companies grow and prosper, the listing of the cannabinoids in the product implies (and requires) a basic knowledge of one’s CS; that’s when cannabinoids will not only be a source of bodily health – they’ll also become a source of economic health.

Tomorrow: An update on Cannabinoids and Passing the Alzheimer’s Test.
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

In attending a hemp film showing, I got surprised.

I hadn’t read anything about the movie and didn’t even look up the title; you know, I thought I was just going to see a hemp film (and I’ve seen lots).

It was March, near Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, and I knew it wouldn’t be a bunch of farmers; I knew it would be city folk in a collective space with walls of art and a view of Chicago.

Jack Herer was the surprise; he wasn’t there of course (1939-2010), yet the night was his. Bringing it Home: industrial hemp, healthy houses and a greener future for America (2013), a documentary by Linda Booker and Blaire Johnson, would have inspired an activist like Herer – also known as The Hemperor.

Herer authored The Emperor Wears No Clothes (1985), the best hemp book ever: it tells the political economic story of America’s hemp war and argues (shows really) that hemp can save our home – planet earth.

The Wicker Park crowd though was different than the one Herer wrote for; his audience didn’t know hemp was great. This group, about 25 people, all activists really, in one way or another, arrived already knowing hemp is great; most seemed to be there in support of hemp ~ you know, to show support and see a new show.

Then the movie started … sort of.

What began was a few seconds about a father discussing his ill daughter and her special health needs. The person monitoring said something like, “Oops ~ wrong spot.” I thought that meant we’d see the hemp film now …

The movie started and again it was about a father’s efforts to help his ill child, and it wasn’t about eating hemp: it was about living inside of hemp – in a hemp house – and the environmental (and economic) protection and benefits for individual and community.

Bringing It Home is not an individual health care story: the film is about the revolution that Herer talked about ~ the one with hemp saving the planet ~ and the documentary shows a Herer-like reality.

Here’s a Hemperor inspired Bringing it Home synopsis:

Seed ~
A father in search for the safest and cleanest building material for his environmentally sensitive child: he finds hemp.

Generation ~
No hemp in America to show so the movie goes to Europe. Here we find British farmers (not hippies mind you) working with the government to monitor the fields and the 16 types of industrial hemp that can be grown for seed and fiber.

Pollination ~
Hemp’s not just for breakfast anymore; the 21st century hempvolution is in housing: specifically, building materials.

Flower ~
Food, jobs, clothing, environmentally sound, and now eco-friendly housing … in Europe and the rest of the world. The movie notes the lack of American hemp and highlights the need to grow our own.

Harvest ~
Bringing It Home makes the point that hemp is too expensive to ship to America; not growing our own looks like an economic and environmental failure. From a business and government angle, the film shows America needs hemp investment for infrastructure; most notably, networks of fiber processing plants near the hemp fields in order to turn the green plant into the other green (cash).

Hemp and Earth Day go together, each one for the other one. Hemp offers us an earth gift: an economically environmental revolution that can help the earth get ready for what’s coming … and that’s the 22nd Century. So, like Bringing It Home teaches, let’s begin (and finish) the building with hemp.

Happy Earth Day 2014 Everyone!

Bonus Video:
HempCrete: Strongest & Greenest Building material in Nature

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

By Stephen Young

Distillers continue their work at Mt. Vernon, the home of George Washington, trying to make whiskey like the first US President used to make it.

As initially reported by Reason a couple years ago (and recently updated as, Celebrate George Washington’s Birthday, Drink Some Whiskey), a group using historical recipes and methods have been patiently testing ways to accurately recreate the drink that helped fuel a revolution.

I appreciate efforts to preserve history in a way that is interesting, so cheers to anyone who attempts to make history literally intoxicating.

But I propose a more family-oriented way to relive the past that gives a different sense of Washington’s entrepreneurial spirit: bring back hemp to Mt. Vernon.

As noted in The Cannabis Papers, a book I helped to write, Washington succeeded at his hemp business, and he expressed interest in it that seemed to go beyond mere profit. In his journals Washington described visiting the hemp plots regularly and seemed disappointed when he missed certain aspects of the crop’s growth.

That interest is easy to understand today: hemp was crucial to the colonies just as it was very important to a young nation. And hemp could be crucial now to the current American economy, if only it were allowed to be grown by American farmers. What better place to start a new tradition than at Mt. Vernon? Sure, the crop could be restarted at other estates of founding fathers, say Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello for example, but the first should be the first.

In the wake of discoveries about cannabinoids, hemp has even more potential uses than in the late 18th Century. Even uncultivated wild hemp, once derisively referred to as ditch weed, is now seen as life-saving medicine packed with therapeutic CBD that can stop maladies from epilepsy to cancer.

Washington played many roles with great success, such great success that he must be considered visionary. His revolutionary tactics baffled his enemies in battle. His understanding of representation aimed to ensure a continuing Republic. He put his efforts into businesses he knew would succeed. It’s clear Washington recognized the practical applications of hemp in his time, but I wouldn't be surprised if also he had some sense how important hemp would be in the future.

More Hemp from Mr. Young:

Part I ~ Government Grown: How Polo Illinois Helped Win the War

Part II ~ Government Grown: How Polo Illinois Helped Win the War

posted by bwb