One of my most enjoyable activities in drug outreach is talking to civic groups about the manner in which we educate our children (and adults) about drugs. It is always easier to begin at the beginning.
New Zealand has a unique history insofar as in it’s European discovery ‘by hempen canvas and tow’, mirrored the importance of fibre to Polynesian navigators and traders. Hemp assets and supplies thereof were regarded as ‘strategic munitions’ crucial to the expansion of trade within, and defence of, the British Empire. If one reads Joseph Banks’ diary’s so to ‘for Science and Discovery’. Hemp shaped European/North African Politics and Nationalism (WWI & WWII), as a result of Napoleon’s failed attempt to sack Moscow (on behalf of the America’s) to stop Russia from supplying munitions grade hemp to Gt. Britain’s fleet (USA’s National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, was written by Francis Scott Key, September 1814, during the War of 1812 with England. see hempen flag!).
After that it all just gets ironic, but this Yankee social engineering beats the cake “Only in America”….
BTW: When I visited the Smithsonian in 1996, the only reference to anything Maori, was a single word “Tuatara”, but they had spelt it wrong. I made a formal complaint to the Smithsonian via our NZ Embassy. It still remains to the best of my knowledge an egregious reference to the worlds oldest living dinosaur, probably I speculate, because it wasn’t Amercian.
/Blair 
“Jack Herer, author of that touchstone of hemp truth The Emperor Wears No Clothes, asked a curator why “hemp” had been removed from all of the exhibits. The curator replied, “Children do not need to know about hemp anymore. It confuses them.” SAY WHAT? One of the most important aspects of the history of civilization has been cleansed from the Smithsonian Museum so as not to confuse children? Someone decided simple omission was better than “embarrassing questions”? If the truth is embarrassing, doesn’t that imply profound systemic problems? Omission of important meaning is a cornerstone of our corporate-controlled media (CorpoMedia)…but the Smithsonian Pulling hemp from history left a hole in the Smithsonian Museum big enough to drive cattle through. History is a tapestry of events, and if you pull a thread hooked to so many others it’s no longer a tapestry, but a bunch of threads dangling into a big hole. Omission for convenience changes history to propaganda.”
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