ATTACK ON HEMP UNFAIR

A Return To "McCarthyism"

It appears that Jeanette McDougal of Drug Watch International mixed a
few facts with a lot of misinformation in the anti-hemp commentary
that appeared in Monday's Herald-Leader (inserted below). It's the old
legal tactic: If you don't have the law or facts, attack the person.

In newsprint it's frequently referred to as character assassination by
association or "McCarthyism."

I have known the Graves family for three generations. During World War
II the federal government asked the Graves family, as well as many
other Kentucky farmers, to grow hemp for the war effort.

Everyone was thanking them in those days instead of attempting to
malign them as McDougal did. I know of no member of Andy Graves'
family, passed or present, who would approve of or promote the
production or use of marijuana.

As for Woody Harrelson, I defended him without charge in the name of
liberty and justice.

I didn't know him before the trial.

He came here to test a legal concept in the interest of Kentucky
farmers.

No one was harmed.

McDougal and I have talked by telephone.

She faxed me much outdated and narrowly interpreted
material.

Modern technology can immediately distinguish between the industrial
hemp plants and the marijuana plants, as can the naked eye. We should
destroy the marijuana plant, but make every possible use of the
industrial hemp plant.

In an honest effort to do both, there is no need to try to destroy
decent people by insinuation, slander, guilt by association or the use
of outdated or misdirected information.

I admire and support McDougal's objective, but shame, shame, shame on
the course she has taken.

Louie B. Nunn,
Former Kentucky Governor,
Woodford County