A step back into the future
By: Renn Loren
Tags: Dominican Republic, Hemp, Farming, Caribbean

Wake up and smell the hemp!

By Gregory Ricker as channeled through Renn Loren

It’s a wonder that in a world of such modern technology we’re still at battle with such primitive forces. I thought we would have a worldwide council by now to institute common sense for countries, or they wouldn’t be permitted to participate in the Olympics or couldn’t have Christmas — or both.

It’s been a real adventure explaining that hemp is not marijuana and that science is science for science’s sake.

The latest improbable hurdle is that we have to pass FBI background checks to grow the equivalent of corn; no criminals should ever be allowed to grow corn.

When the leader of the free world says we should plant as much hemp as possible to help the planet and then some uninformed misguided religious fanatic says “no marijuana,” someone should buck up and send that genius to 7th-grade science class, or at least get them a botanist friend — or both.

The world is burning, and one answer to stopping that is hempcrete; a concrete replacement material derived from hemp.

I’m telling ya, there’ll be no Christmas if you let your towns burn down; I think last year china harvested 176,000 acres of hemp for a financial yield of $10,560,000,000, but I’m not sure because I imagine half of this rubbish because apparently; nobody, and I mean nobody in the Dominican Republic seems to care that a million jobs could be created overnight!

I had such high hopes for the DR and still do. And I will outlast one administration after the next for two reasons: rum and cigars; they crush it here! And unless President Abinader throws my merry men and me out of here sometime soon, the torch will be passed.

I know it’s a near-impossible job to be a national leader. On the other hand, one does get the sweetest cars, free rent, and is invited to the most lavish parties. This is tongue-in-cheek banter; make no mistake, we have the most amazing respect for Luis Albinader, but it would be nice if he moved us to the front of the lunch line. We’re like fish on Fridays.

Zero cost item. We have strength in this cause that won’t wane, so it’s going to happen. I put the odds at 6 pairs of flip-flops and a hundred gallons of sunblock that the calendar is our friend and time is on our side.

Remember a song written by a rather socially conscientious former Beatle that once suggested giving peace a chance? Why not open more doors and let us help people without greedy hands reaching for their piece of the pie in every paradise jungle I tread through.

It’s okay; my group plays hard and fast, is virtuous, and understands that this crop can help so many families. So we shoot our mouths off and pray for the best. And industrial hemp farming is the very best that could happen for the DR and its people.

Far from being a relic of the past hemp farming is the path to a non-fossil-fuels-dependent future and a chance to recover from the industrial misstep we took at the turn of the century.

It was thanks to the influence of big money industrialists who sought to villanize and criminalize hemp to further their chemical and fossil fuel-driven interests that we got torn from a greener path in the first place.

The future lies in greener cleaner alternatives to old-world fuels. The future lies in the green of hemp.

The DR stands to be the world’s largest producer of the stuff. No less than America, the great global trendsetter has given hemp farming the green light. Puerto Rico is on it and ready to prosper accordingly. So what’s holding it up here in the DR?

Big smile, thanks to the governments for all the invites to speak and present our case. We will keep plugging industrial hemp farming in the DR.