INDUSTRIAL HEMP, POT'S STRAIGHT COUSIN, CREEPS INTO MAINSTREAM

WOLF CREEK, Ore. (AP) - In the Oregon woods, where camouflaged deputies beat
the brush each fall for hidden marijuana farms, Kevyn Woven strings his loom
with the straight cousin of the pot plant: industrial hemp.

Using hemp fiber and yarn imported from Poland, Romania, and China, where
the cultivation and sale of industrial hemp is legal, Woven creates rich,
nubby fabrics that wind up as chic boutique clothing and upholstery on
custom-made furniture.

"It is my passion,'' Woven says.

Once sold primarily at hippie fairs and through ads in magazines with an
environmental bent, goods made from industrial hemp are moving into the
mainstream. Adidas used it in a shoe, the Body Shop features a line of hemp
products and European car makers use it in interiors. There's even a beer
made with it.

"I feel the industrial hemp crop could very easily be the soybean crop of
the new millennium,'' said Jeffrey Gain, a former farm lobbyist who now is
chairman of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Alternative Agricultural
Research and Commercialization Corp.

Like soybeans, hemp produces an oil from its seeds that can be turned into
cooking oil, cosmetics and plastics. Hemp fiber can be used to make paper,
cloth and even structural panels stronger than plywood. The seed can be
ground for flour and livestock feed.

Industrial hemp is the same species as marijuana, but it is a different
variety which only contains a very small amount of tetrahydrocannabinol, or
THC, the stuff that makes pot smokers high.

Even that small amount, less than 1 percent, is enough to make it an outlaw
in the eyes of Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the U.S. drug czar who heads the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"A serious law enforcement concern is that a potential byproduct of
legalizing hemp production would be de facto legalization of marijuana
cultivation,'' McCaffrey's office said in a statement. "The seedlings are
the same and in many instances the mature plants look the same.''

Hogwash, say hemp advocates, pointing to the 29 countries that allow farmers
to grow hemp, including Canada, France, Germany and England.

Indeed, hemp was significant part of American agriculture until a few
decades ago. "Old Ironsides,'' the USS Constitution, went into battle with
sails, rigging and caulking made from it. Founding fathers George Washington
and Thomas Jefferson grew it. The Declaration of Independence was drafted on
paper made from it. Farmers could pay their taxes with it.

But cotton soon emerged as the world's dominant fiber. Hemp suffered another
setback with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which prevented farmers from
shipping hemp to processing plants because a few leaves that might contain
THC were left on the stalks, said John Roulac, author of Hemp Horizons and
founder of HEMPTECH, a hemp information network.

By the end of 1938, every hemp factory in the Midwest was shut down, except
one with a contract to supply rope to the Navy.

While the Drug Enforcement Agency argues that hemp is much more expensive
than other fibers, hemp advocates point out that difference would drop
immediately if hemp didn't have to be imported. Canada decided to let
farmers begin planting 5,000 acres this year.

"As long as McCaffrey is there it's probably not going to happen,'' in the
United States, said Gain, who is also on the board of the North American
Industrial Hemp Association.

The Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative, the Hemp Company of America and six
would-be hemp farmers sued the DEA and the Justice Department last May. They
contend Congress never intended to make industrial hemp illegal when it
outlawed marijuana.

Faced with growing uncertainty for the future of tobacco farmers because of
federal efforts to wipe out smoking, the University of Kentucky's Center for
Business and Economic Research looked into the prospects of growing hemp,
once one of the state's biggest crops.

The study found that hemp could earn farmers between $220 and $600 an acre.
That would make it the second most profitable cash crop in the state after
tobacco, which brings in $1,000 to $1,500 per acre.

Med Byrd, director of applied research at North Carolina State University,
thinks hemp could shed its reputation as a "boutique'' product.

"If enough fringe people buy those products, and enough people work on
processes to get the price down and enough farmers are allowed to grow it,
all that can change,'' she said.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett