INDUSTRIAL HEMP PRODUCER? PLAN RAISES FEDS' SUSPICIONS

N.D. Farmer Says He Is Only Looking for a New Cash Crop.

OSNABROCK, N.D. -- David Monson arrived at church the picture of
rural conservative respectability, dressed in a suit and accompanied
by his 79-year-old mother.

Tall, neatly trimmed, attentive to neighbors as he escorted his
mother to a pew, he is all you might expect and more: farmer, rural
school superintendent, president of his Lutheran congregation, member
of the Eagles, assistant Republican leader in the state House of
Representatives.

He also is on the radar of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration,
a hero of High Times Magazine.

"He had to get fingerprinted," farmer Howard Hove said, laughing as
he watched his friend mingle at church. "And a background check!"

Monson, 56, wants to be the first U.S. farmer licensed to experiment
with industrial hemp.

Although it is a crop with a patriotic past, it is suspect now,
guilty by association with its horticultural cousin, cannabis.

Hemp has trace amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the substance
that makes marijuana a drug, and since 1970, the DEA has classified
hemp -- with marijuana and heroin -- as a controlled substance.

Monson farms 25 miles from Canada, where hemp acreage has grown
sixfold since 2004 as Canadian farmers have tapped into new and
growing markets for the scraggly, fibrous plant, which is used to
make clothing, textiles, diapers, footwear, foods and other products.

Monson wants to try growing it as an alternative to traditional crops
plagued by disease or depressed prices.

The advocacy group Vote Hemp estimates the U.S. hemp products
business at $270 million and growing. But that business -- including
the Minneapolis-based French Meadow Bakery, with its nationally
marketed hemp-seed bread -- now depends on seeds and stalks imported
from Canada and Europe, where hemp was rehabilitated in the 1990s.

Ten years ago, Monson won legislative approval for research into
hemp's potential as a cash crop in North Dakota. In 1999, the
Legislature adopted his resolution urging Congress to unhitch
marijuana and hemp, and the state set up a grower application process.

This month, Monson was the first to apply.

"I had to go up to my sheriff's office and get fingerprinted," he
said. "That cost $2. Then I had to pay $52 to the state agriculture
commissioner and $150 to the attorney general for a background check."

That wasn't bad, he said. But the federal fees total $3,400 and are
nonrefundable, and there's no guarantee the DEA will accept the application.

North Dakota's agriculture commissioner, Roger Johnson, has asked the
DEA to waive fees for all farmers seeking a hemp license.

"We haven't heard back," Monson said.

A Small Patch to Start

Monson plans to raise hemp on only 10 acres at first, a demonstration
crop, but under federal regulations, the acreage still must be
completely fenced and reported by GPS coordinates. All hemp sales
also must be reported.

"That's a per-acre cost of about $400, and that would be
prohibitive," Monson said.

Hemp used to be a legal and valued crop in the United States. George
Washington sang its praises, and during World War II, the federal
government promoted its cultivation for the production of rope and
other wartime needs.

That's cool, the DEA says, but the agency fears legal hemp could lead
to legal marijuana. Also, growers could hide pot plants in hemp
fields, complicating agents' efforts to find them, said Tom Riley, of
the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy.

"You have legitimate farmers who want to experiment with a new crop,"
Riley said. "But you have another group, very enthusiastic, who want
to allow cultivation of hemp because they believe it will lead to a
de facto legalization of marijuana.

"Why is High Times Magazine so enthusiastic about hemp? Because they
care about fiber?"

Drug gangs already cultivate marijuana on remote public lands in
California, Riley said.

"The last thing law-enforcement people need is for the cultivation of
marijuana-looking plants to spread," he said. "Are we going to ask
them to go through row by row, field by field, to distinguish between
legal hemp and marijuana?"

Hemp in Minnesota?

Kevin Edberg, former head of marketing for the Minnesota Department
of Agriculture, has tracked the status of industrial hemp for years
and said there has been little movement recently to support its
reintroduction here. But six other states have passed legislation and
are poised to follow North Dakota's lead. California joined the
parade last year, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill.

When Monson's first hemp bills came before the North Dakota
Legislature, hemp advocates from California arrived in Bismarck to testify.

"They were mostly hippies," Monson said, smiling. "But some had roots
in North Dakota, and they did a great job."

He endured teasing: Was his farm going to pot? How was his weed control?

But his neighbors and legislative colleagues understand that hemp
could help save farms, he said, and that could sustain towns,
schools, Main Street shops and churches.

"In '93, we started having trouble with 'scab' in our wheat and
barley, and it devastated us," Monson said. "Besides giving us
another crop, this could mean new industry and jobs."

Rope, Not Dope

Jerry Lykken, handing out church bulletins last week, said he would
consider adding hemp to his wheat, canola and corn.

"I usually try all the new crops," he said.

So might Hove, although "it's kind of spendy to get into it, with the
fees and all," he said.

James Robertson is skeptical, too. "I've seen them harvest hemp in
Canada," the Osnabrock farmer said. "I've seen how tall it grows, up
to eight or nine feet, and how lush it grows, making it a challenge
to harvest. I think I'll let someone else try it first."

That could be his friend Monson, who probably hasn't heard the last joke.

"If it looks like marijuana, Dave might come home one night and find
an acre missing," Robertson said, laughing. "Fence or no fence."