ONLY DOPES CAN'T SEE POTENTIAL OF HEMP

Regarding Gov. Ryan's veto of legislation requiring a study of
industrial hemp [news story, Feb. 24]: The history of hemp's change from
cash crop to dreaded symbol of the counterculture bears repeating.
Before passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 and the subsequent
"reefer madness" campaign, few Americans had heard of marijuana, despite
the widespread cultivation of its non-intoxicating cousin, industrial
hemp, which can be used to make a variety of legal products.

Recreational use of marijuana was limited to Mexican migrants.
Historians argue that the first marijuana laws were a racist reaction to
Mexican laborers taking jobs from whites during the Great Depression.
Legislation banning marijuana use was passed in large part due to
newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst's sensationalist journalism.
His papers alleged that incredibly violent acts were committed by
minorities under marijuana's influence. Marijuana prohibition continues
to be part of a larger culture war. These days, hemp represents the
counterculture of the '60s to Americans who would like to turn the clock
back to the 1950s.

This misguided culture war does far more harm than marijuana. As the
most popular illicit drug in America, marijuana provides the black
market contacts that introduce users to hard drugs such as heroin. The
"gateway" status ascribed to marijuana as a substance that leads to use
of other drugs is the result of a fundamentally flawed policy.

Given that marijuana has been called safer than legal alcohol, it makes
no sense to perpetuate drug policies that finance organized crime,
facilitate the use of hard drugs and deprive American farmers of a
potentially lucrative cash crop in the form of industrial hemp.

Robert Sharpe, program officer,
Lindesmith Center- Drug Policy Foundation,
Washington, D.C.