STATES' HEMP SUPPORT GROWING

WASHINGTON -- It's high time for hemp, say farmers who are enlisting state
legislatures in an effort to legalize cultivation of the potentially
profitable non-hallucinogenic cousin of marijuana.

Montana and Virginia have formally called for an end to a federal ban on
"industrial" hemp, and the Minnesota Senate this week passed a bill, backed
by Gov. Jesse Ventura, aimed at permitting experimental hemp production.
The Hawaii House this week voted to have the state grow a 10-acre test crop.

Hemp is now grown in more than 20 countries for a variety of products,
including cosmetics, beer, plastics and paper.

New Hampshire, North Dakota and Tennessee also are actively considering
pro-hemp legislation, while lawmakers in New Mexico recently funded hemp
research, according to Agri-Tech Communications Inc., which tracks the
agricultural fiber business.

In Kentucky, supporters failed this year to make any progress with the
General Assembly, but they say they'll make another attempt to get some
kind of legislation before a committee next year.

"We haven't given up. But it does seem like an uphill battle," Dave
Spalding, member of the Kentucky Hemp Growers Co-operative said last night.

Spalding said he thinks because Canada is legally growing the crop, "the
products will eventually come here."

Attorneys for the Kentucky group will decide in the next two weeks whether
they will appeal a recent federal judge's decision to throw out their
recent lawsuit, Spalding said.

"We sued the federal government, saying it had no right to prevent us from
growing the crop. But the judge went along with the Justice Department's
motion that it should be dismissed because it was illegal to grow hemp in
the state," Spalding explained.

"Basically it's a catch-22 situation," Spalding said.

Hemp was perhaps the first plant farmed for fiber -- George Washington once
grew it -- but it was a victim of the U.S. government's move to end
marijuana production in the 1930s.

Canada started allowing hemp production last year. Farmers planted 6,000
acres of the weed, claiming profits of as much as $200 an acre, this at a
time when growers struggle just to break even on traditional crops like wheat.

The Drug Enforcement Administration and Justice Department were petitioned
a year ago to repeal the DEA's ban on hemp.

But the DEA and the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy
have said permitting hemp farming would send the wrong signal to young
people. They also worry that marijuana farmers could hide their crops with
industrial hemp plants. Police rely on aerial imagery to detect marijuana
fields.

"The seedlings are the same and in many instances the mature plants look
the same," the Office of National Drug Control Policy said.

That's all the more reason to permit industrial hemp, pro-hemp forces said.
Hemp's tendency to cross-pollinate would make it risky to cultivate
marijuana nearby, because that might hurt the potency of the marijuana
crop, agronomist said.

"You have to be really, really stupid to hide marijuana in an industrial
hemp field," former CIA Director James Woolsey said.

Police counter that cross-pollination could produce hemp with a kick.

Marijuana normally contains 3 percent to 15 percent or more of THC, the
psychoactive ingredient, while hemp has 1 percent or less.

There's also disagreement about hemp's commercial potential.

USDA researchers concluded that it was a "novelty product for a novelty
market." But a University of Kentucky study last year estimated hemp could
bring farmers anywhere from $220 to $600 an acre, depending on whether it
was grown for its fiber or its seeds.

North Dakota State University researchers said hemp could be a useful
rotation crop for wheat and potato farmers.

"Industrial hemp should be considered an alternative crop," said Roger Moe,
the Democratic majority leader in Minnesota's state Senate. "It's certainly
not going to replace the mainstays of agriculture."