HOUSE COMMITTEE APPROVES HEMP BILL

Prosperity’s Seed Or Insidious Weed?

Legislation aimed at creating a Kentucky industry around hemp - don’t call
it marijuana - was approved by a House committee Thursday.

The long, willowy hemp plant has a market among manufacturers as a fiber
for paper, fabric - even interior panels of Ford vehicles, supporters said.

Those manufacturers, some of them in Kentucky, have to be supplied from
Canada.

The legislation is in two parts. One is a bill for state regulation of hemp
production, including licenses from the Department of Agriculture for hemp
growers. The other is a resolution urging the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration to allow state regulation.

Rep. Joe Barrows, the House majority whip, sponsored both. A federal permit
is required for hemp growing. Barrows, D-Versailles, said the DEA will not
issue permits in states without hemp regulation.

Hemp and marijuana are varieties of the cannabis sativa plant. They are
virtually identical in appearance, but hemp lacks the concentration of a
chemical - THC - that produces the "high" of marijuana.

Hemp was an agricultural staple throughout the 19th century and into the
20th. It was banned in 1937 when the federal government outlawed marijuana.

A Kentucky State Police officer said legalization of hemp would pose an
enforcement nightmare because it is indistinguishable from its illegal
cousin.