NORWICH STORE BRINGS HEMP CLOTHING TO AREA

NORWICH - There's something new for sale in Norwich.

Since mid-November, Solstice Whole Foods & Herbs on South Broad Street
has been selling clothing made of hemp, a crop that cannot legally be
grown in the United States because it is related to marijuana.

"It's been getting a lot of attention, and we're selling quite a bit
of it," Barbara Collins, the store's co-owner, said Thursday.

People like the material's feel and the style of clothes made by
Ecolutions, Hemp Sisters and EarthCreations, she said.

When Collins and her business partner, Jane Swingle, introduced hemp
clothing to the store, they were already carrying hemp oil and soaps
such as Dr. Bronner's that contain hemp.

But now, with a hemp sign on the storefront, and a dressing room in
the back, the focus at Solstice has shifted to hemp clothes.

"A lot of our customers are pretty sophisticated, and they know that
industrial hemp is not the same as marijuana," Collins said.

But others have been surprised that clothing made from hemp is
available locally.

"I did have someone walk in and ask, A Is it really legal to sell
that?'" she said.

Collins said the sale of hemp-based fashions is legal although the
federal government has made it illegal to grow the crop.

"Even when the politicians know the facts, they're afraid to touch
the issue because they're afraid someone will say they're in favor of
marijuana," she said.

In addition to hemp clothes, Solstice carries literature about the
crop, touting it as "hip, hot and happening."

In one piece, published by www.hempindustries.org, the absence of
psychoactive qualities in industrial hemp is underscored.

"In fact, industrial hemp and marijuana are different breeds of
Cannabis sativa, just as Chihuahuas and St. Bernards are different
breeds of Canis familiaris. Smoking large amounts of hemp flowers can
produce a headache, but not a high," the pamphlet states.

That's because THC, the chief intoxicant in marijuana, is present only
in minute amounts in industrial hemp, the pamphlet goes on to say, an
observation echoed by the North American Industrial Hemp Council.

Collins said hemp has many benefits. As food, it's high in the
nutritional fatty acids Omega 3, Omega 6 and Omega 9.

It's easy to grow, good for the soil, and in its many uses, it could
replace wood fiber and other materials, she said.

"It would be really good if our local farmers could grow it here,"
she said.

Until the mid-20th century, hemp was legal to grow, and 200 years
before that, George Washington grew it on his plantation.

Still, the substance is lumped together with marijuana by some people,
if half in jest, according to Carol Sacks of New Berlin.

"I wore a new hemp sweater to work the other day. Some of my
co-workers were admiring it although one asked if she could cut up the
sleeves to smoke them," she said. "Of course, she was only joking."