COUNTERPOINT: HEMP CAN SUCCEED IF GOVERNMENT ALLOWS IT

It was unfortunate that you introduced Bob von Sternberg's Oct. 16 piece on
hemp with the misleading headline, "In Canada, hemp hasn't lived up to the
hype." Near the end of the article, the reporter offers the tenacious
reader the truth: "On a per acre basis, (hemp) nets farmers more income
than either corn or soybeans." Indeed, last year North Dakota farmers
persuaded their Legislature to legalize hemp after they saw Canadian
farmers receive five times the net income from hemp that they were getting
for wheat.

The story incorrectly reports that Congress outlawed hemp in 1937. Hemp was
grown legally in this country until the late 1950s. What killed hemp was
not prohibition but burdensome federal regulations.

Sternberg notes that it took Canada four years to legalize hemp, but
overlooks the fact that Canada approved the first application by a farmer
to grow hemp in a demonstration plot in a matter of months. The Canadian
department of agriculture immediately issued an objective analysis of hemp
for its farmers. To this day, the U.S. government has yet to issue one
permit for growing low-THC hemp. And the USDA's recent analysis of hemp,
believe it or not, is classified.

Two dozen other countries that once banned hemp have now come to their
senses. Only the United States -- or, more specifically, the DEA -- refuses
to do so. Indeed, so enraged was the DEA about Canada's willingness to
change its mind about hemp that a few weeks ago it instigated the seizure
of shipments of hemp from Canada's largest producer in a remarkably brazen
and illegal act.

The real story about hemp is not whether the industry is thriving but that
it exists at all. In the face of government indifference and even outright
hostility in this country, farmers and customers have succeeded in reviving
the commercial use of a crop that once was the world's most favored fiber.

We would hope that Gov. Jesse Ventura, along with the governors of Hawaii
and North Dakota, would tell the DEA to keep its hands off Canadian hemp,
acquiesce to the will of the people in their states and allow for the
reintroduction of industrial hemp.

David Morris, Minneapolis.
Vice president, Institute for Local Self-Reliance.