------------------------------------------------------------------------ DEA getting close to *banning* hemp foods and cosmetic products! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To help, please visit http://www.SaveHemp.org Dear Friend, The DEA has now officially announced that it intends to ban most hemp products in the United States, including food made from sterile (non-psychoactive) hemp seeds and hemp-based personal-care products. Whether or not you expressed your outrage in October when we first heard about the DEA's plans, please visit http://www.SaveHemp.org now to send an updated pre-written letter to all of your elected officials and the DEA. (Many legislators who are now in office were not in office in October. In addition, legislators who contacted the DEA in October on behalf of their constituents were told that there wasn't any official proposal to ban hemp -- which is no longer true. Please visit http://www.SaveHemp.org to send your second round of letters today!) Under the DEA's proposed regulation, literally millions of Americans will be criminalized for possessing shampoos, lotions, and soaps that have the slightest amount of naturally occurring THC, the primary active ingredient in marijuana. (It is impossible to get a psychoactive effect from hemp-based shampoos and soaps, but the DEA is proposing to ban them nevertheless.) Those who are arrested for shampoo or soap will face up to one year in federal prison and a $10,000 fine -- the same penalties they would face if they were arrested for possessing a small amount of marijuana. If someone is arrested with a stockpile of (currently legal) hemp products that weighs hundreds of pounds, it stands to reason that the defendant would face a 5- or 10-year mandatory minimum prison sentence -- or even the death penalty -- under federal law. There are already 700,000 arrests every year in the U.S. for marijuana offenses. Our nation's beleaguered criminal justice system doesn't need the additional strain of processing 100,000's of additional arrests that will result from the illegal possession of non-psychoactive shampoos and soaps. We don't need another front in our nation's failed war on drugs. Please oppose the DEA's hemp ban before it is allowed to take effect. Please visit http://www.SaveHemp.org right away. Thank you.