HEMP IS NOT MARIJUANA

Hartford, Conn. - I'm in the Body Shop at Westfarms mall buying my
annual supply of the only hand cream that alleviates my dry skin.
Discovered three years ago in an airport when I'd left my lotion at
home, this heavy-duty stuff soothes and restores suppleness to my skin
while passing the handshake test. One tube lasts me four months, but
I'm loathe to share even a dab with friends, who roll their eyes as I
mete it out.

While at the mall, I learn that the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration is attempting to ban my cream and other personal-care
products. Why? They contain hempseed oil. "Hemp Hand Protector" is the
cream I use, and its package sports a hemp leaf.

The DEA claims that hemp is marijuana, a narcotic. Gen. Barry R.
McCaffrey, retired, former director of the White House Office of
National Drug Control Policy, has called the effort to legalize
industrial hemp "a thinly disguised attempt...to legalize the
production of pot."

Poppycock! Hemp and marijuana, different varieties of the Cannabis
sativa plant (hemp towers spindly overhead; marijuana squats bushy
below the knees) have different tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content.
THC, derived from the flowering tops, is the active ingredient
responsible for marijuana's medicinal and psychoactive qualities, with
levels ranging from 15 percent to 20 percent. The hemp plant,
harvested solely for its seed and stalk, not its low-THC flowers,
contains less than 1 percent. Applying hemp oil to your skin won't get
you high. Research studies show that if you soaked in a bathtub full
of hemp oil, you couldn't fail a drug test. And smoking marijuana's
clear-headed cousin will only give you a headache.

Under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is labeled a
Schedule I drug (most dangerous category), while products derived from
hemp - sterilized hempseed, hempseed oil and hempseed cake - are
explicitly excluded from the definition of marijuana and from
regulation. Under federal law, these products are legal despite the
DEA's arbitrary interpretation of the CSA as "any substance containing
any amount of THC [as] a Schedule I controlled substance even if [it]
is made from hemp."

The Body Shop, Dr. Bronner's and Kiss My Face, among other companies,
recognize hemp's high essential-fatty-acid content as ideal for lip
balms, soaps and creams. In 2000, hemp products that included apparel,
home furnishings and automobile interiors contributed to worldwide
hemp retail sales of $150 million, $80 million to $90 million in the
United States. Hemp's eco-friendliness and versatility as a raw
material allow its products to compete with those made from petroleum,
coal, natural gas and timber. Grown in more than 30 countries around
the world, most of the hemp used for U.S. products is imported, since
the DEA will try to discourage any American farmer attempting to
cultivate it.

But hemp is not marijuana and the federal government knows
it.

From 1776 to 1937, hemp was a major American crop commonly used for
textiles before it threatened influential petroleum and timber
business interests. The 1937 Marijuana Tax Act made hemp cultivation
impractical for farmers by imposing stiff regulations. At the same
time, hemp was discredited by its association with the demonized
marijuana - "Reefer Madness" hysteria fueled by yellow journalism.

Then the government did an about-face during World War II in response
to Japanese control of U.S. hemp supply in the Philippines. Now,
claimed the military film "Hemp for Victory," the crop was desperately
needed to make rope, canvas, oil and parachute harnesses to win the
war. During the war, farmers grew about a million government-subsidized
acres of hemp across the Midwest. After the war, the program was
quietly dismantled.

But the War on Drugs rages on. Marijuana growers oppose hemp
production because it cross-pollinates and destroys marijuana's
potency and street value. Law enforcement opposes it because Congress
gives the DEA $500 million annually to eradicate marijuana, even
though the DEA's own figures show that more than half of the
"marijuana" its agents destroy is industrial hemp - the harmless wild
variety that escaped during the "Hemp for Victory" days.

If the public's health and safety were a DEA priority, it would
support hemp cultivation. But since the agency has a different agenda,
I respectfully request that it leave my hand cream alone.