Pennsylvania Legalizes Industrial Hemp


Lesley L. / Flickr
 
Farmers and freedom lovers in the Keystone State have reason to celebrate: Pennsylvania legalized industrial hemp Wednesday.
The new law gives individuals the right to farm and sell the plant, but with some strings attached: Interested parties have to register through an agricultural pilot program and are subject to regulations proffered by a newly created Hemp Research Board.
The legislation also allows colleges and universities to produce hemp for research purposes.
 
Full Article:  
http://reason.com/blog/2016/07/21/pennsylvania-legalizes-industrial-hemp
 

Skoochies: The new cannabis drink Nigerian celebs are drinking

Adedayo Showemimo
skoochies
Cannabis tea
 
If you’ve never heard the word ‘Skoochies‘ and you claim to be ‘street’, then your street credentials needs to be re-evaluated and this story is NOT for you!

In simple terms, ‘Skoochies’ is a ‘street cocktail’ made from cannabis/weed leaves. The leaves are boiled, the shaft is sieved and the water (tea) is mixed with different solvents like alcohol, milk, sugary drinks and more.
Its popularity on the streets and among Nigerian celebrities is rapidly growing and the fact that it has health benefits as well as its sexual enhancement prowess has made it an increasing replacement for other street drinks like alomo, ogidiga, jedi-drinks and others that reigned supreme in time past.
We researched the drink further and we stumbled on an article written by article byRyan Hurd on Livestrong.com, where he states, ‘cannabis tea does have health benefits; some of which are predictable, and others that are not. Like smoking marijuana, drinking the tea may relieve anxiety while reducing nausea and chronic pain. Unlike smoking marijuana, the tea is not inhaled through the lungs and thus does not contain the risk of developing long-term lung problems, like emphysema. Surprisingly, cannabis tea may help treat autoimmune diseases‘.
 
Full Article: 
http://thenet.ng/2016/07/skoochies-the-new-cannabis-drink-nigerian-celebs-are-drinking/
 
 

Hemp and Change – Can cannabis farming help clean up the land contaminated by Europe’s biggest steel plant?

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Farmers in the Puglia region are growing hemp to help decontaminate the area surrounding Italy’s largest power plant.
 

The road into Taranto is dotted with 100-year-old olive trees and low stone houses. The town, in the region of Puglia, is in the heel of the boot-shaped Italian peninsula. “The city between the two seas” straddles the southern Mediterranean, known as the Mar Grande, and a small inlet known as the Mar Piccolo. The air has a heavy metallic scent.
At the edge of town is a farm that has been known, since the 1800s, for its traditional cheeses. People came from all over to buy dairy products handmade in ancient, wood-fired terracotta furnaces. Those days are long gone, owner Vincenzo Fornaro explains, as he stands in a field surrounded by chest-high cannabis plants.
In 2008, local officials forced Fornaro to cull his animals, which were no longer safe for human consumption. They were contaminated with a dangerous cocktail of nickel, lead, and other toxic substances. That was the end of the cheese. The culprit, just over a mile away, is the biggest steel plant in Europe. The cannabis plants have replaced the dairy farm in an attempt to undo the environmental damage.
Fornaro was aware the plant was spewing toxic chemicals into the air and soil, he said, in Italian. “I can see the effects of this horrible factory on me.” When he was 20, he had a kidney removed. He told Italian newspaper La Stampa that his own mother had died after being diagnosed with a tumor.

 
Full Article: 
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2016/07/taranto_italy_is_decontaminating_its_land_by_cultivating_hemp.html