CLOTHES BUT NO CIGAR HEMP CAMPAIGN COMES UP EMPTY

Would you smoke a rope? Colorado legislators continue to believe you
would-if that rope were made of hemp, a variety of cannabis plant grown for
its fiber rather than its THC content, which is minimal. According to
researchers, hemp has over 25,000 industrial uses. But Colorado, like the
federal government, continues to have no use for the marijuana-like crop.

After making it to the floor of the legislature in 1996 and 1997 (passing
the full Senate the first year), hemp's hopes this year were snuffed out
when Senator Kay Alexander withdrew her sponsorship. It's a futile cause,
she says now. "Until we get some cooperation, and this means lifting it off
the (federal) Controlled Substances Act, we'll be butting our heads,"
Alexander adds.

Bruce Meyer, communication coordinator for a trade and advocacy group
called Agricultural Hemp Association-Voter, was disappointed. "She didn't
give us quality notice on that," he says of Alexander. "We had counted on
her."

AHA-Voter, formed to push for hemp reform (rather than marijuana
legalization), is planning a ballot initiative for the year 2000.

Industrial hemp generally has under 1 percent THC content, as opposed to
the 5 to 20 percent one finds in marijuana. Unlike marijuana, hemp is grown
as tall stalks, closely crowded together and without large flowers.

"It would be an alternative crop that would do for farmers like soybean has
done for farmers, like sunflower has done for farmers," says former State
Senator Lloyd Casey, who in 1996 became the first state legislator in the
country to bring a hemp bill to floor. "There's a sharply rising demand and
low availability," he notes. "Whenever demand is high and supply is low,
you make money."

"We hold these truths..."

Industrial hemp has a long history in the United States. As its advocates
point out, Thomas Jefferson, who like George Washington was a hemp grower,
used hemp paper to draft the Declaration of Independence. As a fiber crop,
hemp was actively promoted by the U.S. government during World War II. Its
many uses include paper, rope, food, birdfeed, clothing, construction
material, auto parts and oil. It wasn't banned until 1970, when the
anti-hippie hysteria was at its height. Both the Colorado Farm Bureau and
the American Farm Bureau have since adopted resolutions in favor of the crop.

"In '95 I heard about industrial hemp, not knowing it was marijuana,"
recalls Bob Winter, who is with CFB. "I thought it was another alternative
crop. It didn't take long to figure out that this was something different.
But the more I dug into it and the more I looked, the more I liked it."

In theory, the U.S. should not be opposed to its cultivation.
"International treaties signed by the U.S. state that hemp with less than
0.3 percent THC shall be considered hemp and not marijuana ... Both NAFTA
and GATT trade agreements recognize hemp as a valid agricultural crop,"
writes Valerie Vantreese, an economist at the University of Kentucky.
However, she notes, "The world industrial hemp market continues to contract
and is dominated by low-cost producers," meaning that the crop might not
have significant agricultural benefit to U.S. farmers.

Others disagree. A report released last month by other economists at U.K.
found the market would support (if current prices were able to remain
stable) 82,000 acres of additional industrial hemp cultivation in the
United States. That may not last long, though. Canada recently ended its
60-year ban on hemp, which means that the value-added support industries
which tend to go along with it are likely going to locate there. "We're the
only industrialized nation in the world not growing industrialized hemp,"
laments Winter.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy would like to keep it that way.
"The marijuana plant, regardless of what its usage is, is banned by the
Controlled Substances Acts," says David Des Roches, the federal agency's
Special Assistant for Strategy. "If (hemp) made better blue jeans, Walmart
would sell it. The market is smarter than people give it credit for, and
the market has decided that hemp isn't the way to go."

Meyer of AHA-Voter doesn't buy that argument. It would "distribute the
wealth with the product chain in a way that petroleum and timber do not,"
he counters, adding that hemp is an agricultural product still in its early
stage of development.

"It just depends what side of the fence you're on," responds Jeff Goodwin,
a technician with the Colorado State Patrol. "The law enforcement groups in
general have always put up a united stance against the legalization of
industrial hemp, and that continues to be our stance ... Let's say every
police laboratory would have to be equipped [to measure THC]. That would be
a very expensive proposition ... We're not going to give you any figures to
support legalization."

However, Laura Kriho, a University of Colorado researcher and official
spokesperson for the Colorado Hemp Initiative argues that hemp will only
grow to be more important as the U.S. depletes its non-renewable resources.
"Everything you can make out of trees, and everything you can make out of
petroleum, you can make out of hemp," she says. She questions whether a
total ban on hemp falls within federal discretion-something that Kentucky
farmers are testing through a lawsuit and the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council
through rescinding their own ban.

Former Senator Casey says, "In every state when we did a poll, 'Should we
allow industrial hemp to be grown for use in paper and textiles,' the
response was 86 percent in favor. Why can't you get that kind of vote from
politicians? Because they run for elections, and (their opponents) would
say that man is soft on drugs, or that lady is soft on drugs."

The federal government's rationale for opposing hemp is detailed in a
position paper by the Office of National Drug Control Policy: "Our primary
concern is ... the message it would send to the public at large," it says,
but also that, "legalizing hemp production may mean the de facto
legalization of marijuana cultivation."

David West, a hemp researcher, takes issue with the ONDCP's philosophy. He
writes, "It is the current refusal of the drug enforcement agencies to
distinguish between an agricultural crop and an industrial one that is
sending the wrong message to our children." He draws an analogy to
breadseed poppies, which are not banned despite their opiate relatives.

In the battle over Colorado's official stance on cannabis, a pro-marijuana
group called Americans for Medical Rights (AMR) campaigned to get an
initiative legalizing the drug for medical use on next November's ballot.
That initiative, if successful, would bring Colorado face-to-face with a
peculiar possibility: Marijuana usage could become legal under state law
before industrial hemp does. In other words, dope could be smoked, but not
rope.

For now, that possibility has been temporarily dislodged. The petition to
get it on the ballot was ruled to be 850 signatures short by the county
clerk on August 7, a decision that the AMR is appealing.

Checked-by: Ghamal de la Guardia