DENNIS WEAVER LOBBIES FOR HEMP

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Dennis Weaver is endorsing legislative action to make
the growing of industrial hemp legal in California.

It has no connection with marijuana-type hemp -- but is the kind of crop
Dennis' Institute of Ecolonomics encourages. He says it helps the
environment and business simultaneously. When I told Weaver that Woody
Harrelson has also been a hemp supporter, Weaver started conversations with
Woody and told me, ''I'd love to have Woody join forces.''

Dennis and wife Gerry drove in from their home in Ridgway, Colo., to talk
the hemp subject and his institute at the home of attorney/environmentalist
Bonnie Reiss. Bill Pullman, who starred with Weaver in TNT's ''The
Virginian'' (airs Jan. 9), joined that party as a new supporter of the
institute. (Pullman also directed and co-produced ''The Virginian'').

Environmentalist Weaver says hemp would be invaluable for clothing, rope,
seeds, food - and growth would help clean the atmosphere.