RULES ON HEMP RELAXED

The Health Ministry has announced it will relax the rules covering the
cultivation of industrial hemp - the low-drug variety of the marijuana
plant.

Hemp can be used to make edible oils, foods including milk and
biscuits, and cosmetics. Its fibres can be used to make rope,
textiles, paper and plastics and its by-products can be used as biofuels.

Before the regulation change, due to take effect on August 1, hemp
grown in New Zealand was subjected to the same strict controls as the
illegal drug cannabis.

Derek Fitzgerald, spokesman for the Health Ministry's drug safety
agency Medsafe, said the new regulations still classified industrial
hemp as a controlled drug, making it an offence to advertise it for
psychoactive purposes or to supply it to unauthorised persons.

"(The rule changes) seek to balance growers' appeal for practical and
reasonable requirements against the need to maintain adequate controls
on hemp seed and plants," he said.

The decision has been welcomed by a major Canterbury producer of hemp
seed oil, Oil Seed Extractions (OSE), which has contracted about 15
Mid-Canterbury farmers to supply hemp seed for its production of oils,
including a nutritional supplement and a cold pressed culinary oil
similar to olive oil, over the last five years.

Managing director Andrew Davidson said OSE and its parent company
Midlands Seed had been lobbying for the change for five years. The
companies had spent about $1 million.

"Now there's a lot more confidence for farmers in terms of producing
and more confidence for us in terms of investing further in marketing."

Davidson said the changes would give new cropping options to
Canterbury farmers.

Hemp advocate Warren Bryson, a member of the New Zealand Hemp Seed
Association, said the rule change was a good first step.

Agricultural production would still be limited by a Food Standards
Australia New Zealand ban on hemp foods other than oil.

Bryson said hemp-seed milk, bread, ice-cream and biscuits, readily
available in Britain, were fantastic.

"It's much healthier for you (compared to dairy products) from a
non-biased nutrition point of view. And you could use the by-products
for making biofuels," he said.

The 0.5 per cent maximum tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content allowable
to commercial hemp growers under Medsafe rules also limited growers to
only about 12 out of 1000 varieties.