LOGIC PREVAILS IN HEMP LEGISLATION

Sometimes the state Legislature does the intelligent, logical thing
- -- and it shocks us. Such was the case last week, when the state
Senate overwhelming passed a bill that will allow hemp farming in California.

The Assembly followed suit Monday and sent the bill to the governor's desk.

The legislation seemed destined to become entangled in knee-jerk
partisan opposition because of the word "hemp," which sounds an awful
lot to some conservatives like the word "marijuana."

The proposal struggled a bit in the Assembly in January when
Republicans, including Chico's Rick Keene and Richvale's Doug
LaMalfa, voiced their objection to allowing farmers to grow something
that looks similar to its distant cousin, marijuana.

In the ensuing months, though, lobbyists for industrial hemp worked
tirelessly to educate state senators. In the end, all but three
Republicans in the state Senate voted in favor of the bill. In fact,
more Democrats (eight) voted against the bill than Republicans.

The supporters included one of the Senate's most conservative
members, Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks, who said hemp "bears no
more resemblance to marijuana than a poodle bears to a wolf."

McClintock added that nobody could smoke hemp to get buzzed.

"You would die from smoke inhalation before you would get high," he said.

What a sight: Tom McClintock standing up for the right to grow hemp.

Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley, and other conservatives studied up
on the issue and overcame the knee-jerk reaction that hemp is evil.
Good for them.

Others couldn't see through the haze, including Keene and LaMalfa,
who voted against the revised bill Monday.

Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, a Republican from San Diego County,
wondered: "Why is it the calls and letters I get (supporting the
bill) are from San Francisco and not Fresno?"

Well, yes, that is confusing. The "hemp lobby" bears some resemblance
to the "marijuana lobby," and the bill was introduced by a Democrat
from San Francisco, not a Republican from Bakersfield. But the likely
reason valley farmers weren't clamoring for industrial hemp
legislation is because they've probably never considered the
possibilities. It was never an option.

After farmers learn that hemp products, according to the Hemp
Industries Association, accounted for $250 million in sales last year
and that total is rising by about 10 percent a year, they'll get
interested. When they learn that Californians who make products from
the fibrous plant have to import all of their hemp from other
countries, they may be enticed to replant their fields with the
bamboo-like plant.

Farmers can sell the seed, oil and plant fiber to manufacturers to
make hats, bags, shirts, scarves, wallets, purses, yarn, rope, twine,
hammocks, soap, lip balm, shampoo, body lotion, rugs, paper,
homeopathic medicines and many other products. Hemp is also used to
make a resin similar to fiberglass.

The bill received a thorough vetting in the Legislature in January.
Many safeguards were written into the bill to solve the fears of
keeping hemp and marijuana separate. Among other measures, hemp
cannot be sold outside the state, industrial hemp crops must be
registered, and backyard or horticultural cultivation is prohibited.

We'd bet Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign the bill. The governor
likes to preach the importance of home-grown products. The hemp bill
gives farmers one more option.