HEMP GROWER CAUSES U.S. FLAP OVER BIRDSEED

A Canada Goose couldn't get high on the stuff but 20 tonnes of Ontario
birdseed has been confiscated at the Windsor-Detroit border crossing as part
of the U.S. war on drugs.

The truckload of birdfeed, which contains sterilized seeds processed from
industrial hemp, has been sitting in a Detroit warehouse since early August
after the U.S. Customs Service swooped down on it at the border.

"It's very silly. They are telling us this is a truck full of marijuana when
in fact a bug couldn't get a buzz from this seed," said Jean Laprise from
his Chatham-area farm on Monday.

Laprise says instead of enforcing the law, U.S. drug officials are making it
up because American legislation clearly exempts sterilized hemp seed from
its list of controlled substances.

He estimates the value of the birdseed at $35,000 and says he is being
threatened with fines of about $500,000 if he doesn't recall shipped products.

Laprise, the owner of Kenex Ltd. is caught in what the New York Times calls,
"one of the most bizarre episodes of Washington's campaign to curb illicit
drug use."

Hemp and marijuana are different types of cannabis sativa, but the U.S.
government rarely recognizes the distinctions when it comes to that
particular plant species.

It has been more than a year since the Canadian government declared hemp a
legitimate crop. The birdseed seizure is the first time the legislative
change in Canada has run afoul of U.S. drug laws.

While smoking marijuana will lead to a noticeable high, smoking hemp has no
psychoactive effect. The psychoactive component of marijuana, known as THC
for tetrahydrocannabinol, usually varies between five and 20 per cent of a leaf.

The only mind-altering threat posed by the birdseed sitting in Detroit,
which has a THC content of 0.0014 per cent, comes from trying to imagine how
minuscule its psychoactive component is to its consumer. Fourteen parts per
million THC would hardly make a bird chirp, let alone reach a higher altitude.

Rogene Waite, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, said her
country's controlled substance act defines hemp as marijuana.

She released a statement from the agency which said "some of that seed, and
products made from the seed, may be contaminated with THC."

The agency's position is that any product containing any amount of THC can
be imported only by a company that is registered with the DEA.

John Roulac, the president of Nutiva, a California company which has been
supplied by Kenex, called the confiscation "crazy".

"When there are real criminals running around, I guess we have to stay
focused on people who are obeying the law." said Roulac.

"Kenex is the largest, most successful hemp processor in Canada. They are
about as far away as you can get from a drug sealer." he said.

Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MP Rose-Marie Ur echoed Roulac's comments, calling
Kenex, "a very above-board company."

She said the U.S. officials were making a mountain out of a molehill.