Will U.S. recover sanity in thinking about hemp (which isn't a drug)?

DAVID MORRIS

COLUMNIST
This July in Hoover, Ala., police arrested eightmonth pregnant Angela
Gilford for selling hemp tshirts and macrame. Angela and her husband face
mandatory threeyear prison terms. Twentysix countries around the world now
grow hemp legally. But in the United States you can still go to jail for
selling hemp paper. To Bud Sholts of Wisconsin's Department of Agriculture and
Chair of the North American Industrial Hemp Council, we have become an
"island' of insanity in an ocean of rationality."

Once upon a time, hemp was the world's most prized fiber.
Washington, Jefferson and Franklin extolled its virtues. Betsy Ross
used it for her flag. A draft of the Declaration of Independence was
written on it. The sails for America's first Navy were from hemp. And
then in the 1930s hemp fell into disfavor. It became confused with
its botanical cousin, marijuana, and was literally hounded out of
existence in the West. But in the early '90s, rapidly rising consumer
demand revived the moribund hemp industry. The number of U.S. retail
stores selling hemp products soared from two in 1988 to over 2,000
today. Over 200 companies now market hemp products. Retail sales went
from zero to over $60 million in Europe and North America. European
hemp acreage tripled from 1990 to 1997. Hemp is now used in sneakers
by Adidas, in high fashion suits by Georgio Armani and in bibles made
by Kimberly Clark. Interface wants to make hemp carpets. Ford is
replacing fiberglass with hemp in its vans. Hemp makes particle
board, animal bedding, cheese and cookies, body oils and skin
moisturizers. Is hemp economical? Canada thinks so. Next year its
farmers will plant its first commercial hemp crop in 60 years. This
August Ontario's minister of agriculture announced that his office is
aggressively nurturing a homegrown hemp industry from farm to
factory. Is hemp economical? The Forest Products Laboratory in
Madison thinks so. In May it released a study that concluded,
"Wisconsin farmers could profitably produce hemp" for the state's
many highgrade paper mills. The study identified an existing pulp
market for more than 500,000 acres of hemp. The Wisconsin report
noted that state farmers could plant a million acres of hemp as a
rotation crop. Hemp is a marvelous rotation crop. Its deep tap root
aerates the soil. Its rapid and dense growth kills pests and weeds.
English farmers have seen a 10 percent increase in their winter wheat
yields after planting hemp.

Almost two dozen states debated hemprelated bills this year. In
Minnesota, Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe leads the fight to
reintroduce hemp to the last state to have legally grown it in the
1950s. But progress on the home front has been thwarted by America's
powerful drug bureaucracy. The DEA, with its $16 billion budget,
calls the shots in Washington, while its network of local police
officers through the DARE program and its citizen networks like Drug
Watch so far have called the shots at the state and local level. To
these folks, hemp is marijuana. Selling a hemp tshirt becomes
tantamount to selling heroin. This crackpot notion is causing great
mischief. In 1995, taking the DEA literally, Alabama made selling
hemp equivalent to selling marijuana. That's why Angela Gilford goes
on trial in September. In Shelby County, Kentucky, Donna Cockrel, a
highly praised teacher, was fired for bringing hemp seeds and hemp
growers into her fifthgrade class. The irony is that the kids'
grandparents probably planted hemp for the War Department during
World War II when Kentucky was the nation's largest hemp producer.
Today 50 percent of Kentucky's farm revenues come from selling the
world's most addictive and harmful drug tobacco. Is that the kind
of agricultural switch that makes the 'DEA swell with pride? When it
comes to hemp the U.S. drug network response is just plain wierd.
When Adidas announced its new sneaker, "The Hemp," the White House
Drug Czar all but accused the company of selling crack to schoolkids.
A highranking police officer calmly informed Wisconsin legislators
that people get high smoking ditchweed, a wild hemp plant that
contains virtually no psychoactive components. A cochair of Drug
Watch told Colorado legislators that "hemp oil causes cancer
overnight on laboratory rats." The jury is still out on whether hemp
is a niche crop or a miracle plant. What we do know is that it makes
a terrific rotation crop. That it rarely needs herbicides
or.pesticides. That its protein is more digestible than soybean's.
That its oil has better properties than flax oil and its fiber is
stronger than wood's and as stylish as linen. George Washington was
onto something when he urged Americans to "sow widely the hemp
seeds." In 1997 the DEA would probably brand him a drug lord.

Morris is a local author, lecturer and consultant. Readers may write to him at
1313 Fifth St. S.E., Suite 306, Minneapolis, Minn. 55414.
[see also, http://www.ilsr.org]

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