Eric Troxell

Comment 1

I am writing in regards to the listening session scheduled for tomorrow. I am curious if the Governments job is to put as many road blocks in the way of the citizenry as it possibly can to stifle their ability to be independent and self sufficient. Cannabis sativa L. has been on this planet for as long as humans and possibly longer and yet the various government agencies involved with its control and regulation pretend to know nothing about how to proceed with it. I would like to put a crop of hemp in the ground this spring to generate an income for myself and my family. I'm a disabled veteran, between the military and the VA my health has been destroyed. I live in a rural area where economic opportunity is limited as well as my ability to do a lot of jobs. I made good money until my health degraded to a point where I can no longer do my job from the effects of the prescribed opiates that the vary same government prescribed to me. Bottle after bottle was fed to me for 8 years of what is essentially medical grade heroin. Cannabis is known to work better and with none of these negative and damaging health effects I am suffering, and yet I have no legal pathway to plant a seed for a crop that contains little to no thc and provide a job for myself. I can do this type of work, I have degree in horticulture, I owned and operated a tree and plant nursery for quite a few years, I worked for the department of defense in accounting and I was hired in the past with the farm service agency in Brattleboro, Vermont. The office in Brattleboro hired me to recruit farmers into the program because participation was so low that the office was about to be closed. The farmers there despise the FSA and largely want nothing to do with them for many reasons but mainly because they take their money in taxes and then do not return that to them in the form of an equal service. That is theft. I do not blame them whatsoever. Each and every time I have worked for government I have repeatedly watched countless good people get rolled over and abused by government. Ive watched the consequences of legislation and regulation on hardworking people by the rolling out of nothing more than cleverly crafted price fixing and competition suppression in favor of corporate interests. My state of Michigan even after the 2014 Farm Bill has not registered a single entity to grow hemp for research and development and they cannot even answer a simple question on how to even apply or get started some 4 years later. Of what benefit is Government? Who do you serve? Why is there so much ignorance and deceit presented to us? Why does Government insist on controlling and manipulating every aspect of peoples lives and work? It is as if Milton Friedman never existed. It is as if free markets never existed and the only thing to go on is the formula of marxism to destroy free markets. Where Is the leadership on this? Where is the credibility on this? Where is the moral and ethical superiority on this?  Where is the accountability to the citizens of this country on this? Most importantly where did you derive your authority to drive us out of our birth right of liberty and pursuit of happiness? A crime used to be defined as harming another person financially or physically which I think can be agreed upon by the vast majority, but today, as it stands, it is anything that would allow a person to be independent and financially secure in their own efforts and lives. One could easily conclude that we are not a free country or a free people but rather corporate employees or more accurately corporate slaves driven into servitude. I challenge you to prove me wrong on any of this. You treat us as if we were nothing more than peasants to beg you for crumbs from your Imperialistic table of wealth. In closing I would like to remind you of your history, there was a video put out by the USDA in the 1940's titled Hemp for Victory. Maybe you've seen it?