ILLINOIS BILL TO SET UP STUDY OF HEMP AS ALTERNATIVE CROP IS SENT TO GOVERNOR

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois Legislature on Tuesday approved a study of
industrial hemp as a possible crop for Illinois farmers, putting the
state's most controversial agriculture issue on Gov. George Ryan's desk.

Critics of the measure worry it will provide fodder for drug-culture
advocates who view it as a first step to public acceptance of recreational
marijuana. Hemp is a biological cousin of marijuana and contains the same
hallucinogen - tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC - though in smaller amounts.

Under the measure, Southern Illinois University's main campus in Carbondale
and the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana would grow hemp under
controlled conditions to study its economic potential. Hemp is used in much
of world to make rope, textiles and other materials, but cannot be grown
legally in most of the United States.

Proponents say the hemp study could provide a profitable alternative crop
for Illinois farmers struggling with low corn and soybean prices.

The House approved the study by a 67-47 vote. The Senate had passed the
measure.

Ryan has not taken a position on the bill. If he signs it, the Legislature
still would have to come up with funding for the study, estimated to cost
between $800,000 and $1 million. Much of that money would be for
barbed-wire fences and other security measures around the plots of hemp
grown by the universities.

State Sen. Evelyn Bowles, D-Edwardsville, who is the bill's top proponent
in the Legislature, shook hands on the House floor while wearing a beige
turtleneck sweater made from hemp.

"It's warm, it's nice, it's very comfortable," said Bowles, who has spent
more than a year trying to get the study approved. "I have all kinds of
hemp products that go from paper to hair products to lotions to cooking oil."

Though hemp cannot be grown legally in Illinois, hemp clothing and other
products can be imported and sold here. Bowles - who said she bought the
sweater from a Chicago hemp-products mail-order business - said that market
could provide the economic boon that Illinois farmers are looking for.

W. David Shoup, dean of the College of Agriculture at SIU, agrees.

"People who are asking for this are genuinely asking for alternative crops
in Illinois. . . . (They) are not looking for a loophole to legalize
drugs," said Shoup, who would be in charge of SIU's portion of the study.
"Part of the goal is developing a product that can't be abused."

Shoup said part of the work would be to determine whether genetic
engineering could produce a hemp plant with THC levels "at or near zero."

SIU's specific role, he said, would be two-fold: studying the viability of
growing hemp in Southern Illinois climates and determining what products
could be developed from it. The university already specializes in studying
alternative crop uses, like production of wall materials from wheat stubble.

The Illinois Drug Education Alliance, an anti-drug citizens' group, fought
to prevent passage of the bill, with the help of state and federal law
enforcement officials who also oppose it.

The alliance argues that legalization of industrial hemp could become one
step toward legalizing marijuana. They also warn that legalized hemp could
make it harder to enforce existing drug laws because hemp and marijuana are
often hard to tell apart without chemical testing.

"(Drug) prevention dollars have been cut over the last several years. We're
scrounging all the time for dollars to do prevention," said Priss Parmenter
of Olney, Ill., the alliance's director, who also works in the field of
drug rehabilitation. "It's a little irksome when we're fighting an
agricultural hemp bill when I'm at home working with kids on substance
abuse issues."

Parmenter said the group will try to persuade Ryan that signing the bill
"would send the wrong message to children" about drugs. The group also will
seek to block funding for the study.

Metro East area representatives who supported the bill were: Steve Davis,
D-Bethalto; Kurt Granberg, D-Carlyle; Jay Hoffman, D-Collinsville; Thomas
Holbrook, D-Belleville; Dan Reitz, D-Steeleville; Tom Ryder, R-Jerseyville;
and Wyvetter Younge, D-East St. Louis.

Voting against the bill were Reps. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro; Gary Hannig,
D-Benld; and Ron Stephens, R-Troy.

The bill is SB 1397.