HOUSE PANEL DUMPS HEMP BILL AFTER HEARING CRIME CONCERNS

After hearing from Minnesota's top federal narcotics official that
there's no difference between marijuana and its fiber-crop cousin, a
House committee Tuesday voted down a bill to allow the University of
Minnesota to conduct research into industrial hemp.

"As far as our laws are concerned, hemp, marijuana, whatever you want
to call it, it's the same plant," said Tim McCormick, head of the
Minneapolis office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "An
illegal drug under a different name is still an illegal drug."

He said any move to promote hemp production could compromise efforts
to stem increasing marijuana use by young people. Even hemp raised
for paper, rope, clothing, and other fiber products may contain enough
of marijuana's active ingredient, THC, to produce a high, he said.

A broader bill to license Minnesota farmers to grow demonstration
plots of hemp overwhelmingly passed the Senate earlier this month. But
Rep. Rich Stanek, a Minneapolis police captain and leading opponent of
legalizing hemp, said senators didn't hear from McCormick before voting.

Stanek, R-Maple Grove, heads the House Crime Prevention Committee,
which voted 10 to 7 against the hemp bill sponsored by Rep. Steve
Dehler, R-St. Joseph. Dehler said university research could lead to
THC-free hemp and a much-needed new rotation crop for Minnesota farmers.

Dehler said he was disappointed over the panel's action and might try
to amend the hemp issue to another bill.