ACTOR HARRELSON PLAYS LEAD AS FORUM AIRS HEMP ISSUE.

Andy Graves, a Lexington KY farmer, thinks he could make a little money from
growing industrial hemp and he brought his argument for legalizing the crop to
the Louisville Forum yesterday.

But as he had feared , it was hard to keep focus on the pros and cons of
industrial hemp as a viable crop for Kentucky farmers and off his friend and
fellow hemp advocate- actor Woody Harrelson.

Harrelson, who became famous portraying Woody the bartender on the "Cheers"
television series, is a good draw for the hemp cause and is willing to show up
at events like the forum's debate.

But he's controversial because of past statements that when he was younger he
regularly smoked hemp's cousin -marijuana- and in part because he has
portrayed
a pornographer and depraved killers in movies. Law-enforcement agencies have
argued that the push to legalize hemp is a cover for people who want to
legalize marijuana.

So reporters given access to Harrelson before the Forum presentation began had
their questions ready. Does Harrelson favor legalization of marijuana? "I deal
with that issue separately", he said. "You can guess where I stand on it." He
never answered the question and tried to steer the conversation back to the
farm issue.

"Do you think Andy Graves and his father, Jake Graves, want to get marijuana
legal?" Harrelson asked. The Graveses are from a respected farming and banking
family with roots many generations deep in Virginia and the Bluegrass area of
Kentucky. The Graves family grew a lot of hemp before it was made illegal
through the anti-drug legislation in 1937. Andy Graves, president of the
Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association, said six previous
generations of
his family grew hemp-employing 1,000 workers during a temporary World War II
legal reprieve.

Despite the controversy surrounding Harrelson, Graves said, "It's a
pleasure to
know somebody with real commitment and passion who is willing to spend time on
things they believe in."

"I guess I'm an easy target," Harrelson said. "People point at me because I
openly admit certain things."

Harrelson was scheduled to participate in the Louisville Forum's panel
discussion of the hemp issue, but he offered to give his seat to Indiana
University hemp expert- Paul Mahlberg-who was in the audience- "so the
debate's
not tainted with emotionality."

Forum officials said that would not be necessary and arranged for both to
participate. Panel members also included David Haight, a retired Kentucky
agent
of the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency, which has opposed legalization of hemp
on grounds it would complicate eradication of marijuana.

Graves said Kentucky farmers need hemp for additional cash income. "Rural
Kentucky is on a daily basis drying up," he said.

Harrelson said there are as many as 25,000 uses for hemp, which can be grown
for fiber to be used in paper, cloth or woodlike products, or for seed which
can produce oil.

Kentucky was once a center for production of hemp seed, which was sold to
fiber
producers in states further north. Graves urged "the doers and the shakers" in
his forum audience to get behind legalization so Kentucky farmers can begin
developing seed to regain that position.

Haight repeated a law-enforcement contention that hemp and marijuana are
indistinguishable. They are the same plant, differing only in that marijuana
growers use strains bred to produce a psychoactive drug called THC, and hemp
growers plant lower THC strains that grow straight and tall and produce a lot
of fiber.

"That's a law enforcement problem," Haight said. Enforcement officials would
have to find some way to wipe out marijuana without destroying legitimate
hemp.
"How would you do it?" He asked. Test every plant for THC? "That's not a
viable
way to do business."

He also said legalization would immediately increase pressure for legalization
of marijuana-because they are genetically the same- and in general send the
country "mixed signals about what is good and bad."

Hemp advocates note that hemp plants, grown for fiber, are closely spaced, so
they'll grow tall and produce few leaves. Marijuana plants are spaced out
to be
short and bushy. Forum panelist Jean Laprise, a Canadian who grows hemp
under a
new program in his country, said the identification question was quickly
put to
rest when a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer first visited his hemp
field.
"Jeez, this is not anything like marijuana," Laprise said the Mountie said.

Harrelson suggested that the marijuana eradication program has become a
lucrative one for law-enforcement officials, providing money they are
reluctant
to give up. He drew a parallel with government spending on wolf bounties,
which
he said began desperate pleas from farmers and ranchers as the country was
settled but continued for decades after wolves were scarce because of the
bureaucracy it supported.

He suggested the marijuana program doesn't make sense. The program spends $9
million a year (*note: this number is in fact $500 million), he said, and less
than 1 percent of the plants it destroys actually are cultivated marijuana.
"The rest are ditch-weed," ferel hemp with little drug content. A report from
the office of the Vermont state auditor supported his figures.

Harrelson said the country shouldn't "let the government propaganda machine
make us so paranoid" that it gives us a potential "miracle crop" because "it
bears a physical resemblance to a plant that makes you euphoric."

"I think it's time for all this hysteria to end. Let's go on to what makes
sense," he said. Harrelson appeared in a shirt, pants, and shoes all made from
hemp. After apologizing for being controversial, he introduced Forum attendees
to his mother- Diane Harrelson - who sat at a table near the front.

And he introduced Donna Cockrel, a former Simpsonville, Ky., teacher who was
fired last year after she sparked a storm of protest by inviting Harrelson to
appear before her elementary school class, twice, to talk about hemp. Cockrel
said afterwards that she now heads up a Frankfort foundation that is looking
for grants to study international educational issues, hemp production among
them.

Harrelson helped her set it up and has supported it financially, she said.

At the end of yesterday's debate, Forum president Sally Wax presented
Harrelson
with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat, which he accepted. But he said, "I
hope
this isn't made from old growth."

Harrelson is an environmentalist who has battled destruction of old growth
forests and who sees hemp as a renewable source of fiber that could save
trees.

Checked-by: Ghamal de la Guardia