CLEARING THE AIR ABOUT HEMP

I was quite surprised to read the July 15 Marketplace piece, "This Hemp
Beer Is Legal, But Its Ads Hint Otherwise."

The article states, "Stalks of the hemp plant are used in rope; its leaves
and flowers produce marijuana." This is simply not true. Industrial hemp's
leaves and flowers, unlike those of marijuana, contain negligible amounts
of THC (less than 1%) and have no psychoactive qualities. Smoking hemp
would actually lead to a big headache. Twenty-nine nations, including
Canada, England, Germany, France and China all legally recognize hemp's
non-drug status. Canadian farmers will be harvesting about 4,500 acres of
hemp fiber and seed in the coming weeks. The above countries all have
strict laws forbidding marijuana cultivation, while allowing farmers to
grow industrial hemp.

The North American Industrial Hemp Council has published a white paper,
"Hemp and Marijuana: Myths and Realities," by David P. West, Ph.D., which
is available at www.naihc.org.

The North American Industrial Hemp Council is a coalition drawn from
industry, agriculture, academia and the environmental movement working to
reintroduce this sustainable and versatile seed and fiber crop. The U.S.
Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration and Gen. Barry
McCaffrey continue to state that hemp is marijuana or that hemp is only a
"novel market." The "novel marketeers" using hemp include: Mercedes Benz,
Adidas, Armani, The Body Shop and Interface Carpets. Jeffrey W. Gain, an
NAIHC board member, was recently quoted in an AP article as saying, "I feel
the industrial hemp crop could very easily be the soybean crop of the new
millennium." Mr. Gain is a former executive director of the American
Soybean Association.

Tobacco farmers, who now see the handwriting on the wall, are desperately
looking for profitable new crops such as hemp. Farmers also see hemp as a
useful rotation crop, which chokes out weeds and requires little if any
pesticides. The University of Kentucky's Center for Business and Economic
Research just released a study which concluded that hemp could provide
farmers the second highest per-acre income after tobacco.

Recently, several Kentucky farmers filed a suit in federal court,
challenging the U.S. government's current ban on growing hemp. Ironically,
U.S. farmers can grow an addictive drug crop, tobacco, while growing hemp
(a nondrug crop) is banned due to a flawed federal policy. American farmers
and manufacturers are thus hamstrung, while our foreign counterparts profit
by supplying hemp to a growing marketplace. In the long run, market
forces--not outdated policies--will prevail.

Erwin A. Sholts
Chairman
North American Industrial
Hemp Council Inc.
Madison, Wisconsin

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson