PLAN TO STUDY HEMP AS A CASH CROP IN ILLINOIS IGNITES CONTROVERSY

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Is it rope, or dope?

That's the question at the heart of a smoldering debate over a proposal in
Illinois to explore growing industrial hemp as a legitimate cash crop.

The controversy, which has already brought a threatening letter from the
White House drug policy director, has state lawmakers growling at each other.

"The sails on Columbus' ships were hemp. The first American flag was made
from hemp," said 79-year-old state Sen. Evelyn Bowles, D-Edwardsville, the
leader of the Legislature's industrial hemp movement. "It's the oldest
fiber crop in existence . . . and we need alternative crops for Illinois
farmers."

Bowles expressed outrage Tuesday at critics who alleged she and other hemp
proponents are pawns of the drug-legalization movement. "I don't condone
the use of marijuana," she said.

The issue could hit the floor of the Illinois House as early as this week,
putting downstate lawmakers on the hot seat as they balance the concerns of
socially conservative constituents against desperate farmers.

On Tuesday, a group of Illinois anti-drug activists relighted the year-old
issue with some of the harshest rhetoric yet. Led by state Rep. Mary Lou
Cowlishaw, R-Naperville, they portrayed industrial hemp supporters as
cohorts of the "drug culture."

The talk of hemp rope, clothing and other useful products, they said, is a
ruse to make society comfortable with hemp's close herbalogical cousin,
marijuana.

"To make the choice that this is (just a) crop is simply beyond the
comprehension of a mature adult," Cowlishaw said in news conference at the
state Capitol.

She invoked the safety of her seven grandchildren as her reason for leading
the charge against the hemp proposal. "Why would we risk the safety of our
children?" Cowlishaw said.

Joyce Lohrentz, president of the Naperville-based Illinois Drug Education
Alliance, displayed full-color reproductions of pro-hemp advertisement in a
prominent drug-culture magazine.

"Industrial hemp is one of the foothold strategies used by the drug
culture," Lohrentz said. "They will stare at you with their glassy eyes and
sermonize on the numerous commercial uses for industrial hemp. (But) the
industrial hemp movement is more about legalizing drugs than about finding
alternative crops for farmers."

Bowles, long one of the Legislature's chief hemp proponents, bristled at
the characterization, though she acknowledged she's used to it.

"The ladies from Naperville," Bowles said, nodding grimly. "To give the
impression that people who are supportive of industrial hemp are a bunch of
druggies is a horrible, horrible insult."

Bowles' bill authorizing a study of hemp's possibilities passed the Senate
this year and is pending in the House. It would allow the agriculture
departments at the University of Illinois and Southern Illinois University
at Carbondale to grow hemp to study its viability as a cash crop for use in
clothing and other textile materials.

Critics - including White House Drug Policy Director Barry McCaffrey, who
wrote legislators on the issue in February - note that hemp contains
hallucinogens and is similar enough to marijuana to confuse police and make
drug enforcement difficult.

The pending bill is SB 1397.