HEMP HYSTERIA

Legalization debate produces heat, smoke and very little light

This spring, Canada will join the European Union and most of the rest of the
world in allowing its farmers to plant industrial hemp.

Outlawed in the U.S., the crop had been similarly banned in Canada since the
late 1930s (with a pardon during and shortly after WW II) for the crime of
looking too much like marijuana. But unlike the U.S., Canada's debate over
legalization was relatively brief and uncontentious.

"There hasn't been a lot of negative reaction," says Jeff Atkinson,
communications coordinator for the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the
nation's largest farm organization. "There was the usual bureaucratic
resistance," he says. "But hemp wasn't a hard sell for most people. They'd
ask: Is it a drug? No. Is it dangerous? No. People see it as a chance to
diversify."

Canada legalized the crop in 1996 and focused on writing regulations to
prevent potential abuse of hemp's resemblance to marijuana. Meanwhile, U.S.
interest groups devoted their energy to mudslinging.

Typifying the level of discourse, Federal drug czar Barry McCaffrey,
recently called efforts to legalize industrial hemp "a thinly disguised
attempt...to legalize the production of pot," in a story in the Louisville
Courier-Journal.

In reply, hemp proponents accuse the Drug Enforcement Administration of
fighting to protect its marijuana eradication budget. They cite a report
from the Office of the State Auditor in Vermont that says less than 1% of
the plants destroyed in the U.S. under the program in 1996 were cultivated
marijuana. The rest were ditch-weed descendants of industrial hemp grown for
rope, paper and cloth.

Neither position contributes much toward a reasonable resolution. But hey,
that's America. We don't feel we've really debated an issue until we've
turned it into a three-ring circus of exaggeration, recrimination and
celebrity court cases (photo).

At the core of the impasse is the intense emotion driving the anti-drug
crusade in the U.S. Even though certified industrial hemp contains THC
levels far too low to produce a psychoactive effect, opponents of legalizing
hemp say the stakes are too high to allow compromise.

They're also alarmed by uninvited support for hemp from the movement to
legalize marijuana. (Observers note that a reference to American Farm Bureau
(AFB) support for hemp research in High Times magazine played a key role in
AFB's hotly debated decision to reverse its position this year.)

It's hard to say if pro-marijuana forces harbor ulterior motives, or if they
simply believe the crop has been unjustly banned. (More than three-fourths
of people polled in separate surveys in Kentucky and Vermont in 1996 favored
legalization of industrial hemp.) Regardless, hemp supporters say licensing
and inspection, combined with normal hemp cultural practices, make it
virtually impossible to hide marijuana in hemp fields.

Anti-drug crusaders also seem suspicious of all this enthusiasm over a niche
product whose volume in world trade has declined from a modest 400,000
metric tons a year in the 1960s to about 100,000 tons, worth about $5.5
million. They fail to understand that farmers and environmentalists have
been obsessed with creating natural, renewable alternatives to
petrochemicals since Henry Ford's time.

Supporters like hemp because it's a hardy, adaptable plant that produces
large amounts of useful biomass with moderate fertilizer and virtually no
pesticides. They say industries ranging from auto parts to home carpeting
express a growing interest.

Neutral observers like University of Kentucky ag economist Valerie Vantreese
warn that hemp's industrial potential is highly speculative at this point.
"People argue that if we had a good supply of hemp, processors would build
the [factories]. But I'm not sure that argument holds up since we can import
hemp today from China or Romania at least as cheaply as we could grow it,"
she says.

At the same time, she adds that every developing market requires a certain
leap of faith and argues that "legalization and economics should be two
separate questions. Legalization shouldn't depend on whether farmers can
make money on it right away."

Andy Graves, a farmer and hemp advocate from the Lexington, Ky., area,
agrees that timing will be critical. "It's taking much longer than I ever
thought it would, but maybe our years of struggle will pay off by giving us
the time to establish a market before we start to grow it," he says.

Meanwhile, hemp advocates look hopefully, enviously north and wonder: If
they can do it, why can't we?

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett