No buzz from birdseed.

If Mr. Jean Laprise's birdseed mix was 0.0014% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as reported by Jim Hightower in "High On Hemp" (September/October 2004), that can be expressed as: 0.000014 grams per gram, fourteen parts per million, one 714th of a percent, or fourteen ten-thousandths of a percent, but not one fourteen thousandths of a percent.

The latter expression translates into 1/14,000 of a percent or 0.000000714--less than one part per million, or 714 nanograms per gram, an order of magnitude less that the figure expressed in numbers.

What's sad is that the dogma-driven, blind-to-science-and-reality DEA would have rejected a shipment with this negligible THC content. This is zero tolerance with a vengeance.

By comparison, the FDA fails to take action on foodstuffs that contain surprising amounts of the persistent flame retardant family, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in fat content, This is nothing short of profit protection and corporate political contributions driving decisions that fly in the face of the public interest. The fetus-worshippers should push to outlaw breast feeding since in the United States the level of PBDEs in breast milk, while minuscule, is still one or two orders of magnitude greater than in other countries and growing rapidly.

While birds have evolved with hemp seed in their diets, human infants have only been exposed placentally and via breast-feeding to PBDEs and PCBs for the last forty years, but at an exponentially growing rate for the former. Emerging data on this insidious threat shows that it's a considerable risk. Does the FDA want to protect our progeny or protect corporate profits? Considering the actions of the Bush administration, Humanist readers already know the answer.

Gene E. Bray

Meridian, Idaho