HEMP BILL APPEARS DEAD

The industrial-hemp bill sponsored by Rep. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene,
apparently has been stubbed out.

After a hearing last week on the measure, House Bill 2933, Prozanksi was
optimistic about getting it out of committee for a vote by the full House.
The bill would let Oregon farmers grow hemp, a cousin to marijuana that is
useless for drug purposes but whose fibers, seeds and oil have a multitude
of industrial uses.

Prozanski said Thursday that seven of the nine members of the House
Agriculture and Forestry Committee - including Chairman Larry Wells,
R-Jefferson - had told him they were willing to send the bill out for a
floor vote.

But House Speaker Lynn Snodgrass told Wells not to take up the bill again.
Today is the official deadline for House and Senate committees to deal with
bills originating in their respective chambers; Snodgrass' action would
appear to doom the bill for this session.

Wells, reached Thursday evening, agreed that Prozanski probably had the
votes to send the bill to the floor. But, he said, he had previously assured
Snodgrass he would hold just the one informational hearing on the bill, and
wouldn't bring it up for a committee vote unless she approved.

"I guess they (Prozanski and Snodgrass) had a good discussion, but she was
not comfortable with moving ahead," Wells said. "I don't think she wanted
her administration being perceived as sympathetic toward the legalization of
marijuana. I can't blame her, because when I first heard about this, that's
what I thought."

Snodgrass, R-Boring, could not be reached for comment Thursday evening. But
Prozanski released copies of a handwritten note, written on the speaker's
official letterhead, that he said Snodgrass sent to him Wednesday.

The note reads, in part: "I fall back on my original feelings, am not
persuaded to have the bill move forward at this time. I spoke with other
members of the committee prior to making this decision."

It concludes: "Keep educating the public. Perhaps future sessions are
possible."

Despite today's deadline, Prozanski's bill may not be completely kaput.
Measures that pass one chamber can still be amended in the other, and
proposals long since given up for dead have been known to reappear in the
waning days of the session.

"Nothing's ever dead until the gavel falls," Wells said, "but most of the
time you have to have the approval of the speaker or the president of the
Senate."