WAR ON DRUGS REDUCED TO CONFISCATING BIRDSEED

What do 40,000 pounds of birdseed have in common with America's war on drugs?

Nothing, says Jean Laprise, an Ontario farmer who shipped the birdseed to
his American customers only to have it seized when it crossed the
U.S.-Canadian border.

Everything, say the U.S. government and its' critics, but for altogether
different reasons.

The birdseed, nearly 20 tons of it, has been locked in a Detroit warehouse
since Aug. 9, when it was impounded by the U.S. Customs Service. The
reason: the seed consists of sterilized seeds processed from industrial hemp.

Laprise has found himself mired in one of the more bizarre episodes of
Washington's campaign to curb illicit drug use. Hemp and marijuana are
different varieties of the same plant species, Cannabis sativa, though the
government rarely distinguishes between them.

"They say it's a tractor trailer full of drugs," Laprise said. 'We say
it's a tractor trailer full of birdseed.

But while smoking marijuana delivers a psychoactive high, smoking hemp
gives only a headache. Tetrahydrocannabinol, known as THC, the
psychoactive component in marijuana, usually varies between 4 percent and
20 percent of a leaf. Industrial hemp has a THC below 1 percent. The
birdseed seized in Detroit had a THC content of barely .0014 percent, which
wouldn't give a bird a buzz.

Laprise, whose company, Kenex Ltd., grows and processes hemp with the
approval of the Canadian government, said that "all of our other products
have no detectable level of THC. The only shipment with any detectable
amount was the birdseed, and it was really nothing."