HEMP CAR ROLLS INTO MINNESOTA ON BIG TRIP

1983 Mercedes Wagon Operates On Hemp Oil, Crosses U.S. For Cause

ST. PAUL, MINN.: Grayson Sigler of Hampton, Va., wanted to visit a friend
in Seattle. The trip grew into a beacon for the national call to legalize hemp.

The Hemp Car, a 1983 Mercedes 300TD wagon built to run on diesel fuel, is
circling the country exclusively on industrial-grade hemp oil. Sigler, his
wife and two documentarians making the 10,000-mile trek spent yesterday in
the Twin Cities, visiting two Minneapolis head shops and the steps of the
state capitol building in St. Paul.

The project has a practical goal -- to illustrate another legitimate use
for hemp. The message behind it is decades old: There's no public benefit
but myriad ecological, financial and social costs to America's ban of
domestic hemp and marijuana. That mantra met no opposition from the
smattering of twentysomethings, middle-aged men with ponytails and two
state legislators who came to cheer and chat up Hemp Car's founders.

Scott Blackstock and Shane Waltermeyer drove up from Marshalltown, Iowa,
after reading about the car on the Internet.

``Hemp has 10,000 uses and this is just the latest, but it's like the
biggest, too,'' Blackstock says, speaking of the car's size. ``If it were
legal, it could save a lot of farmers in Iowa if they were allowed to grow
it and it could save the world.''

Diesel engines were built to run on vegetable oils, among other sources, so
the Hemp Car needed no modifications. It gets 27 miles to the gallon -- the
same as it does with diesel fuel, Grayson says. Industrial-grade hemp oil
isn't easy to come by. Legal in the United States only as an import, the
most cost-effective sources are in China. By the time it reaches consumers,
Grayson says, the cloudy, emerald-colored fuel can run $4 per gallon.

Around $50,000 in fuel, sponsorships and assorted services have kept Hemp
Car on the road, along with sales of official Hemp Car T-shirts and
wallets. The white car is festooned with stickers from dot-coms such as
votehemp, sunhemp and earthhemp, along with the slogan for Hemp World --
``Make it Hempen.'' A CD from a group called Los Marijuanos sits on the
floor among bottled water, an atlas and a jar of coins.

The Hemp Car, which began its trip on July 4 from Washington, D.C., carries
up to 500 pounds of the fuel in clear plastic containers in the back of the
wagon. When supplies run low, Grayson calls his supplier in Athens, Ohio,
who ships several dozen gallons at a time to wherever the Hemp Car is
headed within the next week.

The effort to legalize hemp is hindered in part by the politics connecting
it to marijuana. Some are trying to distinguish the advocacy of marijuana
from that of hemp, which carries only traces of the psychoactive ingredient
found in marijuana.