Casey in the Colorado State Senate wearing a hemp vest (1995)
Okay, well, not exactly. Nevertheless, a US politician who’s known for championing the legalization of industrial hemp in the country has a new book out, and that’s bound to gain the hemp industry some added attention. As the Colorado Independent reports:
Lloyd Casey, the oldest first-time elected state senator from Colorado when he entered office in 1993, and the first politician in the country to introduce a bill to re-legalize industrial hemp. Now 85, Casey’s moved to Dublin, Ohio, but he’s back with a Christmas present in the form of a book that dispenses such valuable sex education advice as “Stay off the hard liquor and keep your pecker in your pants.”
[...]
The sex education line that is highlighted in his book, Casey explains, actually came in the form of a one-liner from his dad way back when, at age 17, he was boarding a train in Las Vegas to go to Navy boot camp in Farragut, Idaho.
The article also links to a charismatic letter that Casey wrote outlining his position on hemp. In it, he states:
[...] the fact is, the people who have prevented us from growing industrial hemp are 100% wrong. They are people who play the ‘holier than thou card’ and people like that have bugged me since I can remember. This effort has become my determination to out live the bastards and I expect to live long enough to see industrial hemp become the agricultural and industrial business it deserves to be.
Just goes to show you, I guess, that an interest in hemp is not a niche one. Rather, hemp advocates come in all shapes and sizes, and from all generations — much like common sense 