HEMP -- MYTH AND POSSIBILITY

TWO YEARS ago, a federal appellate court cleared the way for goods and
foods containing hemp seed and oil to be sold and consumed in the
United States.

Today, hemp is used in a wide array of popular products, from soap to
snack foods, from paper to shower curtains, from jeans to auto parts.

Yet the cultivation of industrial hemp remains illegal in this
nation.

Why? Two words: mythology and confusion.

Industrial hemp suffers discrimination by association with its
cannabis cousin -- marijuana. The federal Controlled Substances Act of
1970 effectively banned the production of all cannabis plants
regardless of the level of the psychoactive ingredient THC.

The levels of THC in industrial hemp are so low that it would be
almost impossible to smoke or digest enough to give someone even a
mild buzz.

Even so, the irrationality that sometimes characterizes our "war on
drugs" has allowed foreign hemp farmers to exploit the vacuum created
by the prevailing ignorance about its clear distinctions from
marijuana. Canada lifted its 50-year ban on industrial-hemp
cultivation in 1998.

It took a few years for Canadian farmers to refine their techniques,
but today their industrial hemp is considered "the best in the world,"
according to David Bronner, president of Dr. Bronner's Magical Soaps,
an Escondido-based company that uses hemp to make its soaps smoother
and milder on the skin.

Bronner is convinced that California's superior weather and consistent
irrigation methods could produce more abundant and high-quality hemp
than the variety "fed by rainfall on the Canadian prairie."

Dr. Bronner's and other companies that put imported hemp in their
products -- including Patagonia, with its High Wire Hemp Jeans -- are
supporting legislation by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, that
would allow the cultivation of industrial hemp in California.

The only real barriers to Leno's AB1147 -- which cleared the Assembly
and awaits final passage in the Senate -- come from misunderstandings
about the nature of hemp farming or the details of this bill.

One of the oft-cited fears is that someone might try to conceal
marijuana plants in an industrial-hemp field. But both the legitimate
hemp farmer and the illicit marijuana grower have every reason to stay
out of each other's way. Industrial hemp grows in tall stalks, with
few branches -- and is bred to optimize its high-value seeds.
Marijuana growers want short, bushy plants with many flowers and as
few seeds as possible.

Leno's bill would preclude a marijuana grower from claiming "I was
growing industrial hemp." The legal hemp crops would be registered,
regulated -- and tested for THC content.

The passage of AB1147 would almost certainly provoke a legal
confrontation with the federal government. However, this state should
be willing to challenge a federal policy that hurts domestic farmers
while adding nothing to the war on drugs.