HEMP ISSUE DIVIDES FARMERS, THE LAW

SALEM - Oregon State University researcher Daryl Ehrensing neatly
summed up the debate over industrial hemp, a plant whose fibers can be
used for cloth, paper and rope but which has the disadvantage of being
close kin to marijuana.

"You end up with one group telling you hemp is the wonder crop that
will save the world," Ehrensing told the House Agriculture and
Forestry Committee Thursday, "and to the other group it's the demon
weed."

It wasn't quite that black-and-white at Thursday's hearing, which was
held to consider a bill that would allow Oregon farmers to grow hemp.
But supporters and opponents of the measure, House Bill 2933, had so
little in common it sometimes seemed as though they were talking about
two different plants.

In fact, hemp and marijuana are varieties of the same plant, known
botanically as Cannabis sativa L. Hemp, grown primarily for the long,
strong fibers inside its woody stem, is a tall, spindly plant; it
typically contains 1 percent or less of THC, the main psychoactive
ingredient of marijuana. Marijuana grown for drug use is short and
bushy and contains as much as 15 percent THC.

Hemp has been grown in the United States since colonial times; its
heyday was the mid-19th century when it was used to make sailcloth and
rigging for ships. After cheaper imported fibers cut into the nautical
market, and cotton largely displaced hemp for cloth making, the
industry went into decline.

A federal law in 1937 restricted hemp production, though controls were
relaxed during World War II to produce rope for the war effort. A 1970
federal law effectively banned all U.S. hemp production, though it is
still legal in more than two dozen countries, including Canada, France
and Spain.

In the past decade or so, interest in reinstating hemp as a legitimate
crop has spread beyond the original core of marijuana-legalization
activists to include mainstream farmers and agribusiness interests.
Last week, North Dakota became the first state to legalize industrial
hemp, though federal restrictions remain in place.

Rep. Floyd Prozanski, the Eugene Democrat who is sponsoring HB 2933,
predicted that industrial hemp would become legal and widespread
within five years. He told a Senate panel that Oregon could become a
center for high-quality hemp seed, much as it is now for grass seed.

But Larry Welty, assistant commander of the Oregon State Police's drug
enforcement section, said legalizing hemp would greatly complicate law
enforcement efforts against marijuana. The plants are difficult to
distinguish in aerial surveys, Welty said, and marijuana growers could
use hemp fields to camouflage their pot crops.

Joseph Hickey, executive director of the Kentucky Hemp Growers'
Cooperative Association, replied that since hemp and marijuana can
cross-pollinate, marijuana farmers who planted the two together likely
would reduce the potency of their illicit crop. And Prozanski, a
former Lane County prosecutor, noted that under his bill, hemp growers
would be licensed by the state Department of Agriculture and would
have to open their fields to inspection and testing.

Given that, he said, "I think it would be pretty unwise for any farmer
in this state to risk asset forfeiture of his land (under anti-drug
laws) by trying to grow marijuana covertly between rows of hemp."