Farmers Arrested Planting Hemp On DEA Headquarters Lawn

• By Cali Shaye
• Hemp Clothing/Jewelry
• 15 years ago
• 13

Credit to Ryan Grim | HuffPost Reporting on October 13/2009. A group of civilly-disobedient hemp farmers and business leaders were arrested Tuesday morning while digging up the lawn to plant industrial hemp seeds at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration. David Bronner, the president of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, a more than 60-year-old company that does tens of millions of dollars of business annually, was among those arrested. Bronner buys the hemp used in his soaps from Canadian farmers. He was arrested outside the DEA museum, which shares space with the headquarters. “Our kids are going to come to this museum and say, ‘My God. Your generation was crazy. What the hell is wrong with you people?'” he said as Arlington County Police handcuffed him and walked him to a waiting car. The group was arrested for trespassing. A DEA spokeswoman referred comment to the Department of Justice “because they’re the people who set the policy for drugs.” A DOJ spokeswoman declined to comment. Hemp, however, is not a drug and has no capacity to get someone stoned, the farmers pointed out. Wayne Hauge and Will Allen, farmers from North Dakota and Vermont respectively, brought shovels and seeds to the protest, where they were joined by representatives of Vote Hemp, which advocates for federal legislation that would allow states to craft their own hemp policies. Currently eight states — Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia …