JUDGE SHOULD HALT DEA BAN ON HEMP CROPS

THE ISSUE A federal judge is expected to rule this month on whether
to reject a lawsuit allowing the growing of industrial hemp.

Hawaii farmers who have long wanted to become part of the fledgling
industrial hemp industry should look to North Dakota for leadership.
Two farmers, backed by that state's agriculture commissioner, are
asking a federal judge to keep the Drug Enforcement Administration
from stopping them from growing the distant cousin of marijuana.

Farmers Wayne Hauge and Dave Monson, who is a state legislator,
received their state licenses last year to grow hemp under rules
conforming with legislation enacted in 1999. However, federal law
classifies hemp as a controlled substance and the DEA has fought
mightily against the cultivation of hemp under the mistaken
impression that people can get high on it.

THC, the mind-altering chemical that comprises 7 percent to 20
percent of marijuana, accounts for only one-tenth of 1 percent of
industrial hemp. The DEA has tried to block hemp's importation from
more than 30 companies that use it in rope, clothing, cosmetics and
food products, but the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals declared the ban illegal three years ago because of hemp's
harmless quality.

David P. West, a plant geneticist, experimented in hemp-growing on a
quarter-acre of land near Wahiawa beginning in 1999 under a series
of brief permits, but quit in frustration after the DEA refused to
grant him a permanent permit. State Rep. Cynthia Thielen, R-Kailua,
has championed its legalization in Hawaii.

Federal Judge Dan Hovland remarked in a hearing in Bismarck, N.D.,
that the best remedy might be changing federal law. If he rejects
the farmers' lawsuit, U.S. policy might continue to be driven by
politics instead of science.