HARMFUL HEMP BILLS

The Illinois Senate and House of Representatives have before them
"industrial hemp" bills.

These bills have serious implications for increasing drug use. Hemp
and marijuana are the same plant, cannabis sativa, which has the
psychoactive ingredient, THC. It is being suggested that "industrial
hemp" could be a vital, new crop for Illinois farmers.

Yet, according to a new USDA report, there is only a negligible market
for hemp. "Given the average size of farms in the United States (about
500 acres), just a few farms could have supplied the hemp fiber and
seed equivalent of 1999 import levels." "Industrial hemp" and
marijuana look alike, and short of chemical analysis, there is no way
to discriminate between the two. Today, people clear patches in the
middle of corn fields and grow marijuana plants, hidden from
passers-by. If hemp is allowed to be grown in Illinois, then certainly
high levels of THC in cultivated marijuana plants will also be
growing. The demands on law enforcement will be tremendous.

Levels of THC in "industrial hemp" are 0.1 to 0.3 percent, the same
strength as the marijuana smoked in the 60s and 70s.

Drug use is higher among youth in rural America than in large urban
areas, according to a study done by the National Center on Addiction
and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Rural eighth-graders are
34 percent likelier to smoke marijuana and 104 percent likelier to use
methamphetamine. Trafficking and production of meth in rural
communities has increased. This, in part, is due to the availability
of chemicals used for farming and the cover that the vast farmlands
offer production labs. A field of hemp could provide easy access to
one more drug, compounding an already existing problem for Illinois
rural communities.

Pro-drug people have been quoted in High Times magazine as saying that
the promotion of hemp is simply a campaign to legalize marijuana.
"When people buy and see hemp it stimulates public awareness,
mainstreaming the evil weed into a normal commodity whose days of
illegality are numbered." (High Times, August 1997.)

Some members of the General Assembly are saying that they want only to
research the plant, and bill taxpayers $375,000. The Illinois Drug
Education Alliance asks, what research needs to be done and money
spent, when there is such a little market and growing hemp has such
serious implications for Illinois youth?

Founded in 1982, IDEA is a statewide, grassroots network of over 4,000
adults and youth working in drug prevention.

Joyce Lohrentz, President
Judy Kreamer, Past President
Illinois Drug Education Alliance
Naperville