http://www.veronaliving.com/vmac/ October 17, 2005
Mr. S. Robson Walton
Chairman
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Corporate Headquarters
Bentonville, AR
Dear Mr. Walton
I am a longtime customer of Wal-Mart and have always admired your corporate philosophy of community responsibility and protection of the family. Today, however, I learned that your stores and Walmart.com offer products that promote and glorify hemp.
You offer a book titled "Hemp: A Short History of the Most Misunderstood Plant and Uses and Abuses" that espouses hemp to be food, used to make insulation in clothes and buildings, burned as fuel, made into medicine and distilled into hemp oil for use in lotions, soaps, and cosmetics. It purports to explore the "ongoing struggle for reclaiming its legitimacy" when in fact there is no legitimate purpose for the cultivation of hemp other than! to promote the social acceptance of marijuana use. You also offer "H.E.M.P. - Healthy Eating Made Possible" and "The Galaxy Global Eatery Hemp Cookbook." Not too many drug prevention professionals or scientists would tell you that hemp is healthy eating. Most disturbing, however, is that you offer a paperback titled "Hemp Jewelry" that targets children of a very young age.
You also offer a CD which targets the youth population titled "Chixdiggit!" This CD contains, among other offensive songs, one titled "Hemp Hemp Hooray." One only has to consider some of the words of the song to know that this is not promoting a health lifestyle to our youngsters. Here is just a sampling:
Well, THC, I need some T.L.C., I got plans for you tonight and with
my marking pen and you my friend I know what I'm gonna write so take it from
your brother who's trying to discover and know what he wants to do you k! now
I know what I wanna do I'll take it on the chin for you you know I know what
I wanna do hemp hemp hooray.."
In case you don't know, THC is the major intoxicating ingredient in marijuana!
Since hemp is a "first cousin" of and contains the same intoxicating ingredient as marijuana (THC), I am totally confused as to why a respectable business such as yours would market it. The hemp message and the marijuana message are frequently inter-mixed to confuse our children and create the illusion that both are safe and socially acceptable. Promotion of hemp is one of the self-proclaimed strategies of the advocates of drug legalization in an effort to change the perception of the public about the use of
marijuana.
Young children coming into your stores cannot help but see these items on display and will easily conclude that marijuana is socially acceptable since it is openly promoted at reputable business establishments. This is very troubling since studies through the years have clearly shown that when our children perceive drugs to be harmful and socially unacceptable, they are less likely to use them yet, when their perception is that drugs are not harmful and society condones drug use, they are much more likely to use.
Since I am certain that Wal-Mart would presumably never promote anything that even gives the slightest hint that you accept or condone other illegal activities such as rape, murder, incest, pedophilia, or domestic violence, I am sure that you would also not want to promote anything that gives even the slightest perception that you are supporting illicit drug use.
I am respectfully requesting that you reconsider your decision to market such questionable products and remove them from your shelves and your web site. Please join us in doing all that can be done to curb drug-related violence and to protect o! ur children and teach them that drugs are not acceptable in our society.
Regards,
Calvina L. Fay
Executive Director
Drug Free America Foundation, Inc.
Cc: Mr. Carter Case, President, Walmart.com
Mr. John P. Walters, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy
All we ask is to be let alone.
-- Jefferson Davis (1808-1889): First Message to the Confederate Congress, March,1861.
