Ralph welcomes old friend, former running mate, and now hemp farmer, Winona LaDuke as well as filmmaker Michael Henning to talk about how industrial hemp can transform the U.S. from a polluting hydrocarbon economy to a healthier carbohydrate economy. And Maryland state senator, Paul Pinsky joins us to promote his bill that will close loopholes and make corporations pay their fair share in state taxes. Plus, Ralph answers your questions.
Michael Henning is a filmmaker and the director of “Hempsters: Plant the Seed,” a documentary about the struggle to legalize industrial hemp. A follow up film, Hempsters: Reap the Harvest, is currently in production.
“It all goes back to this percentage of THC, the quantity that’s allowed [in industrial hemp]… Nobody would be remotely interested in smoking any hemp up to ten percent or fifteen percent [THC]. In the stores, people who are actual regular marijuana users, they’re looking for thirty percent. It’s a joke to put the pressure on the farmers to grow a crop that would have to be 0.3 [percent THC]. It’s so preposterous. I mean, why don’t we start regulating apple farmers for the arsenic in the seeds. It’s that crazy.”
Michael Henning, director of Hempsters: Plant the Seed
Winona LaDuke is an activist, an economist, a hemp farmer, and two-time vice-presidential candidate with Ralph Nader. She lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota.
“I’m ready for the next economy. And I want to be at the table to help create what that economy looks like. Because the last economy didn’t work for most of us. It worked for a few rich guys, right? So, we want the next economy to be equitable and organic.”
Winona LaDuke, activist and hemp farmer
“[Since industrial hemp] was criminalized in North America, none of that [production equipment] is here. And so, we had to go and try to figure out — it’s like a forensic cold case. We know who killed them, and where’s the body? It’s like “who killed the electric car?” We know who did that. And then where’s the body? This is the problem with hemp. We know that hemp was killed by the lumber barons, and the cotton jenny, and the oil companies. But the question is, where’d the body go? And so, trying to rebuild a renaissance of the hemp economy in this country is like really trying to find a bunch of clues.”
Winona LaDuke, activist and hemp farmer
Paul Pinsky represents Prince George’s County in the Maryland Senate, where he has introduced the Corporate Tax Fairness Act of 2021.
“Some of these corporations will pick up the phone and say, ‘Look, if you pass [the Corporate Tax Fairness Act], we’ll leave.’ It’s the traditional economic blackmail. And of course, they’re not going to leave. Corporations don’t move because of tax policy. They decide based on infrastructure. On having roads to deliver their products, schools, and other infrastructure. So, that’s been used around the country for decades and generations. You know, ‘We’re going to take away jobs if you don’t give us this tax break.’”
Paul Pinsky, Maryland State Senator
“No drug company has been driven bankrupt in the past– new or old vaccines– by tort lawsuits. And you don’t want to get a drug from a company that was developed under the belief that, if someone dies because the drug is contaminated… caused a death or a serious injury, and you couldn’t sue… The drug companies should have maximum interest in not being negligent, not rushing to beat the competition, especially since they are so heavily subsidized by the US government.”
Ralph Nader
The Carbohydrate Economy!