Jacob Bell
New Member
Andrew Kavasilas has barely settled at our table in a Nimbin cafe when a hairy, wild-eyed young stranger rises from somewhere nearby and looms over us. Raising a closed hand above the table, the youth pauses theatrically before opening his fingers and spilling several marijuana buds among our coffee cups. Then, still without a word, he turns, adjusts his coat and swishes off up the main street.
''Bloody idiot,'' grumbles Kavasilas. ''They're everywhere around here - and you reach a point where you just lose patience.''
It's not that Kavasilas doesn't like pot. Quite the contrary. Until recently, he owned this cafe - the Oasis - and was a central figure in the rambunctious, ever-changing hippie culture that made Nimbin one of the world's best-known ''cannabis-friendly'' destinations for young travellers.
He took part in (legal) research into the growing of high-strength cannabis, wrote a book about its medical uses, ran a mail-order service providing the drug to medical users and was busted, in 2001, for possession when he and other Nimbin cafe owners conducted (illegal) ''trials'' for the regulated sale of cannabis: selling small amounts to customers across the counter.
But over time, Sydney-born Kavasilas has grown weary of Nimbin's rag-tag army of blow-ins, often just out of prison, who take advantage of the tolerant mood to sell hard drugs on the streets.
''There's been violence and real turf wars between some dealers,'' he says. ''Normal people, who come here just to get a bit of pot for their own use were worried about getting embroiled in a violent incident or being stood over.''
So Kavasilas began focusing his knowledge of cannabis on industrial hemp - a variety with low levels of the psychoactive element tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - grown not as a drug but to make clothing, textiles and building materials and as a nutritional food source using the seeds and oil.
''A few years ago,'' he says, as another crowd of backpackers spills eagerly from a bus outside, ''I decided to go full-time into growing hemp for food.''
To improve his dealings with politicians and other influential types, Kavasilas shed his beloved dreadlocks, sold the Oasis Cafe and, with a state government permit, became one of a handful of farmers legally growing industrial hemp in NSW. At 46, the father of two still smokes the illegal variety. As is the custom in the Rainbow Country's little slice of Amsterdam, he fires up openly at the cafe table and soon warms to his favourite theme.
''As a businessman and entrepreneur,'' he says, ''I see hemp as the perfect product. It is the most nutritional grain for human consumption - better than fish oil for pregnant women - with a high content of omega three, six and nine plus all the known amino acids and a very good array of vitamins, minerals and trace elements, but delivered in a more digestible form than tablets.'' Sounds good, but there is one not-so-small problem. While it's legal (with a permit) to grow low-THC hemp for consumption in Australia, it's illegal to actually consume it here in any form.
Australia is the only country in the world with such a prohibition, even though the hemp involved has no effect as a drug.
Australia's official argument against hemp food is that it will undermine the national cannabis strategy implemented by the Howard government in 2006 by sending mixed messages about the safety and use of cannabis - and that police won't be able to tell the difference between the low and high THC seed varieties.
Kavasilas, who's been lobbying hard against the ban, reckons it's as irrational as the original prohibition against marijuana that was rushed through the US Congress in 1937 - seemingly to benefit industrialists producing cotton and new synthetic fibres - and later adopted by most of the Western world.
Congressional hearings leading to the ban were told by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics that marijuana use caused ''insanity, criminality and death''. The same hearings were told by a Dr William C.Woodward, on behalf of the American Medical Association, that ''the [association] knows of no evidence that marijuana is a dangerous drug''.
Kavasilas says fears of hemp food undermining the cannabis strategy are silly because the strategy hasn't worked. ''Australia has 2 million known cannabis smokers and the highest use per capita in the world. Through various state laws, we've decriminalised use and personal possession, [so] police and the judiciary can't be said to be administering cannabis laws in the spirit in which they were written. Because that spirit was to wipe cannabis off the face of the earth.''
At his home in a peaceful valley near Nimbin, Kavasilas has an array of hemp foods - oils, milks, flours, cereals, snack bars - to show visitors involved in the legality debate.
His most recent callers were two representatives from the federal government agency Food Standards Australia New Zealand, which is supportive of the potential new industry.
The Food Standards reps were boning up on growing and processing aspects of hemp food in readiness for a meeting in December with the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, whose approval is needed to lift the prohibition. After feeding them hemp cake, Kavasilas took his visitors to a processing facility where he stores the seed from the 12 hectares of hemp he's already grown - on two northern NSW properties where space was leased amid more conventional crops - but he can't sell until the food wrangle is settled.
Interestingly, given the prohibition's background, Americans are now legally devouring about $3 million worth of hemp foods a year. And while Australians can grow industrial hemp but not eat it, Americans can eat it but not grow it - not even with a permit. The whole lot has to be imported, mostly from Canada.
News Hawk- Jacob Ebel 420 MAGAZINE
Source: smh.com.au
Author: Frank Robson
Contact: Contact Us
Copyright: Fairfax Media
Website: Mulling it over
''Bloody idiot,'' grumbles Kavasilas. ''They're everywhere around here - and you reach a point where you just lose patience.''
It's not that Kavasilas doesn't like pot. Quite the contrary. Until recently, he owned this cafe - the Oasis - and was a central figure in the rambunctious, ever-changing hippie culture that made Nimbin one of the world's best-known ''cannabis-friendly'' destinations for young travellers.
He took part in (legal) research into the growing of high-strength cannabis, wrote a book about its medical uses, ran a mail-order service providing the drug to medical users and was busted, in 2001, for possession when he and other Nimbin cafe owners conducted (illegal) ''trials'' for the regulated sale of cannabis: selling small amounts to customers across the counter.
But over time, Sydney-born Kavasilas has grown weary of Nimbin's rag-tag army of blow-ins, often just out of prison, who take advantage of the tolerant mood to sell hard drugs on the streets.
''There's been violence and real turf wars between some dealers,'' he says. ''Normal people, who come here just to get a bit of pot for their own use were worried about getting embroiled in a violent incident or being stood over.''
So Kavasilas began focusing his knowledge of cannabis on industrial hemp - a variety with low levels of the psychoactive element tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - grown not as a drug but to make clothing, textiles and building materials and as a nutritional food source using the seeds and oil.
''A few years ago,'' he says, as another crowd of backpackers spills eagerly from a bus outside, ''I decided to go full-time into growing hemp for food.''
To improve his dealings with politicians and other influential types, Kavasilas shed his beloved dreadlocks, sold the Oasis Cafe and, with a state government permit, became one of a handful of farmers legally growing industrial hemp in NSW. At 46, the father of two still smokes the illegal variety. As is the custom in the Rainbow Country's little slice of Amsterdam, he fires up openly at the cafe table and soon warms to his favourite theme.
''As a businessman and entrepreneur,'' he says, ''I see hemp as the perfect product. It is the most nutritional grain for human consumption - better than fish oil for pregnant women - with a high content of omega three, six and nine plus all the known amino acids and a very good array of vitamins, minerals and trace elements, but delivered in a more digestible form than tablets.'' Sounds good, but there is one not-so-small problem. While it's legal (with a permit) to grow low-THC hemp for consumption in Australia, it's illegal to actually consume it here in any form.
Australia is the only country in the world with such a prohibition, even though the hemp involved has no effect as a drug.
Australia's official argument against hemp food is that it will undermine the national cannabis strategy implemented by the Howard government in 2006 by sending mixed messages about the safety and use of cannabis - and that police won't be able to tell the difference between the low and high THC seed varieties.
Kavasilas, who's been lobbying hard against the ban, reckons it's as irrational as the original prohibition against marijuana that was rushed through the US Congress in 1937 - seemingly to benefit industrialists producing cotton and new synthetic fibres - and later adopted by most of the Western world.
Congressional hearings leading to the ban were told by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics that marijuana use caused ''insanity, criminality and death''. The same hearings were told by a Dr William C.Woodward, on behalf of the American Medical Association, that ''the [association] knows of no evidence that marijuana is a dangerous drug''.
Kavasilas says fears of hemp food undermining the cannabis strategy are silly because the strategy hasn't worked. ''Australia has 2 million known cannabis smokers and the highest use per capita in the world. Through various state laws, we've decriminalised use and personal possession, [so] police and the judiciary can't be said to be administering cannabis laws in the spirit in which they were written. Because that spirit was to wipe cannabis off the face of the earth.''
At his home in a peaceful valley near Nimbin, Kavasilas has an array of hemp foods - oils, milks, flours, cereals, snack bars - to show visitors involved in the legality debate.
His most recent callers were two representatives from the federal government agency Food Standards Australia New Zealand, which is supportive of the potential new industry.
The Food Standards reps were boning up on growing and processing aspects of hemp food in readiness for a meeting in December with the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, whose approval is needed to lift the prohibition. After feeding them hemp cake, Kavasilas took his visitors to a processing facility where he stores the seed from the 12 hectares of hemp he's already grown - on two northern NSW properties where space was leased amid more conventional crops - but he can't sell until the food wrangle is settled.
Interestingly, given the prohibition's background, Americans are now legally devouring about $3 million worth of hemp foods a year. And while Australians can grow industrial hemp but not eat it, Americans can eat it but not grow it - not even with a permit. The whole lot has to be imported, mostly from Canada.
News Hawk- Jacob Ebel 420 MAGAZINE
Source: smh.com.au
Author: Frank Robson
Contact: Contact Us
Copyright: Fairfax Media
Website: Mulling it over
