Source: BOSTON GLOBE PAGE C4

FAST TRACK
Hemp products yield bounty for 3 old friends
By ANNA KASABIAN, 08/13/97

When you walk into The Hempest store on [207] Newbury Street in Boston,
you find a variety of products from napkins, shoes, and skin
moisturizers, to flour, candles, and dog snacks with one thing in
common.

They're all made from the versatile, hearty, and environmentally
friendly hemp plant.

According to Jon Napoli, one of the owners of T he Hempest, worldwide
sales of hemp byproducts are expected to reach $100 million this year.
''Sales have been doubling each year for the past few years,'' he says,
adding that the United States imports and sells more hemp products than
any other country.

It is illegal in this country to grow the cannabis plant, from which
hemp is derived, because marijuana can be made from cannabis leaves and
flowers. So Napoli imports his cloth from suppliers in such places as
Romania and Hungary. He buys finished products, mostly domestically,
from small, upstart companies.

Napoli is one of three 25yearold childhood friends who own the store,
which opened on Newbury Street July 3 after relocating from Huntington
Avenue. ''The first draft of the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution were written on hemp paper, and the first United States
flag was made of hemp cloth, so it was important to open then,'' Napoli
says.

Mitch Rosenfield, Leah Johnson, and Napoli, who grew up together in
Acton, opened the first Hempest in 1995 with Napoli's life savings and
money from selling his car. Johnson kept her day job to help support the
venture. Later, Rosenfield became a partner at the new location,
investing in the store using his savings from working at his parents'
art gallery.

''I anticipated hemp would be big, and it had a lot of appeal for us
because it is so ecologically sound,'' Napoli says.

What interested all three is hemp's costeffective versatility and
heartiness. Virtually every part of the plant can be used. ''You don't
have to cut down forests to make paper, or use chemicals to process it.
It is 77 percent cellulose, so you [don't] need bleach in processing,''
said Napoli.

Hemp paper and fiber last longer and are stronger than woodbased paper
or cotton, and hemp does not require herbicides or pesticides to thrive,
he adds.

''There's a saying that hemp wears in and cotton wears out. Hemp fibers
actually thicken the more you wash them, and they're highly durable and
breathable. The cloth looks like fine linen but doesn't wrinkle like
linen.

''You can also make a stronger particle board and plastic with the
cellulose. In my research I found that Henry Ford designed a car with a
vegetablebased plastic like this and ran a car on a vegetablebased
alcohol fuel,'' says Napoli.

Hemp, Napoli says, is currently being used as food, fiber, fuel, and
medicine. ''Right now lightweight concrete is being produced from the
hemp plant, and Mercedes Benz is using hemp plastic on their dashboards.
It can replace many petrochemicals or petroleumbased products, and I
believe this is the tip of the iceberg of potential,'' Napoli says. [The
Hempest: 6174219944]