GOVERNOR SIGNS BILL FOR RESEARCH ON INDUSTRIAL HEMP

HONOLULU (AP) -- Gov. Ben Cayetano signed into law Wednesday a measure that
will allow an experimental plot of industrial hemp to be grown on the Big
Island, if the federal government approves the project.

In signing the measure, Cayetano said it demonstrates his administration's
support for finding different ways to diversify the state's economy,
especially in agriculture.

Allowing the growing of the marijuana-related plant is opposed by some
local law enforcement agencies and the bill sparked strong debate in the
Legislature. Opponents say it sends a message to young people that the
state is softening its stand against illegal drugs.

With the bill signed, the Los Angeles-based Alterna Applied Research
Laboratories, a Los Angeles-based maker of hemp-based shampoo, handed over
to the state a $200,000 grant to pay for the secured quarter-acre research
plot on state agriculture land in Hilo.

Before hemp can be grown in Hawaii, however, Alterna will have to gain a
permit for the project from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. It
hasn't issued such a permit in four decades.

Several other state are also looking to get the federal government to relax
its prohibition against industrial hemp which can be used for food, fuel,
clothing, paper and a wide variety of commercial products.

Hemp is a sister plant to marijuana, but does not contain as much of the
chemical THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.