HEMP OIL FUELS LEGALIZATION DRIVE

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 Wednesday in
the Twin Cities, visiting two Minneapolis head shops and the steps of the
Minnesota State Capitol 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 Hemp 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 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 car and its four passengers are scheduled
to return home Oct. 2.

The mayor of Keene, N.H., rode in the car, and police in Toronto posed for
pictures inside it. On Monday, the mayor of Tomah, Wis., declared "Hemp Car
Day."

"One of the most surprising things is we haven't been hassled, outside of
crossing the border from Canada into the United fascist States of America,"
Grayson says. "There's just this giant support network. Everyone's been
like family to us."

The effort to legalize hemp is hindered in part by the politics connecting
it to marijuana. Among Hemp Car's sponsors is the National Organization for
the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Some are trying to distinguish the
advocacy of marijuana from that of hemp, which carries only traces of the
psychoactive ingredient found in marijuana.