SANTA CRUZ FESTIVAL SHOWCASES HEMP PLANT'S MANY USES

What the fourth annual Industrial Hemp Expo in Santa Cruz is not about:

Marijuana, medicinal or otherwise.

What it is about:

Clothes, furniture, candles, candies, lip balm, diesel fuel, building
insulation, art, carpets, bags and packs, hemp-flavored chocolates
and edible seeds, construction materials -- even boats and
skateboards.

All blended with politics, passion, environmentalism and -- hemp-hemp
hurray! -- puns.

The Expo, which continues today, took over the Civic Auditorium, the
city council chambers (for panels on legislation, marketing and other
subjects related to the ``reintroduction'' of a plant effectively
banned in the United States in 1937) and the street in between.

Bob Lamonica, who produces the event, thought the most significant
aspect of this year's expo was ``the mere fact that it has
survived,'' even though attendance has declined slightly since the
first expo.

Assemblywoman Virginia Strom-Martin was the keynote speaker Saturday,
talking over the shoppers and browsers in the main hall of the Civic
about the need to put pressure on politicians. ``I think a lot of
people here are true believers or they wouldn't be here,'' she said.

Strom-Martin, D-Santa Rosa, is the sponsor of a bill to legalize the
growing of industrial hemp in California. She gives it about a 60-40
chance of reaching the Assembly floor when it comes up for a vote in
the Agriculture Committee on May 23.

Hemp, a.k.a. Cannabis sativa, grows in closely planted rows of woody,
9-foot stalks. The stalks provide fiber and building materials; the
seeds contain an oil that can be used in anything from food to fuel.
Industrial hemp contains almost no THC, the active ingredient in
marijuana, which comes from the leaves and blossoms of a different
strain of Cannabis sativa.