HOPPED UP OVER HEMP

Selena Kontuly swears she has never gotten high using lip balm, shampooing
her hair or rubbing herself down with scented body butter.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, though, takes a different view of the
products Kontuly pushes as manager of The Body Shop skin- and hair-care
store at Crossroads Plaza in downtown Salt Lake City.

The reason? Some of the personal-care items The Body Shop carries are made
with hemp-seed oil that contains trace amounts of THC, the psychoactive
ingredient in marijuana.

And while The Body Shop's products are legal, the DEA in May indicated it
is considering new regulations that will interpret existing drug laws to
prohibit any product that allows THC to enter the body, no matter how small
the amount, said Chad Little, spokesman for The Body Shop USA.

Hemp has a bad reputation because it is related to marijuana, but marijuana
and hemp are two different varieties of the cannabis plant, Kontuly said.

"You'd have to smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole to get high on hemp."

On Thursday, The Body Shop USA launched a nationwide "Save Hemp" campaign
at its 285 stores in the United States. The company's Utah stores at
Crossroads Plaza and Fashion Place Mall in Murray are participating in the
campaign.

Hemp-oil products account for $5 million in sales at The Body Shop USA and
about 5 percent of the nearly $1 billion in annual sales generated by its
parent company based in Britain. The company does not want to lose that
revenue.

Nor does it want customers to lose access to what The Body Shop says are
good products.

Hemp oil is a moisturizer that contains the same fatty acid found in skin
and hair, Kontuly said. "It is easily absorbed and while you cannot get
high, it does make your skin and hair happy."

Hemp has a history as an agricultural product in the United States,
according to Richard Adams, author of The U.S. Hemp Market: An Economic
Examination of the Hemp Industry.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams cultivated the
versatile plants that today can be used in products that include fabrics
and food, packaging and pasta.

"Indeed, so common was the use of hemp during the era that the first two
drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the final version of the
Constitution of the United States of America were, in fact, printed on
paper made from hemp," Richard Adams wrote.

Hemp production was banned under the Marijuana Tax Act of 1938 because it
is essentially the same plant as marijuana. With only a few exceptions, all
industrial production of hemp in the United States is illegal.

However, hemp can be imported into the United States as a raw material or
as an ingredient in finished products.

The hemp oil The Body Shop uses in its products is made in Canada.

The DEA's position is that all cannabis plants -- including those grown for
industrial use -- contain THC, which is a hallucinogenic substance outlawed
under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

"The drafted regulations focus on whether the particular cannabis-derived
'hemp' product causes THC to enter the body," according to a DEA fact sheet
released by the agency's Salt Lake City office. "If so, the product will
remain a Schedule 1 controlled substance."

If, however, use of the product (such as in paper or clothing) does not
cause THC to enter the human body, the product will be exempt from control
and not subject to any of the regulations that apply to controlled
substances, it said.