National

It's a nearmiracle crop. It's illegal. Hemp movement clouded by cousin

By Jeff Gammage INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

CLAY CITY, Ky. Some people who walk into John Centers' oneroom store
see only the sparsely stocked shelves of roughhewn canvas shirts, caps,
socks and bags.

But Centers sees the beginning of an economic revolution, one he believes
can save struggling farmers, revive rural communities, fill his store with
customers and just maybe make a few people rich in the process.

How? Hemp. Not the notorious, pointyleafed weed that sends its tiedyed
smokers to nirvana, but its industrial cousin, a slender plant whose fibers
and juices can be turned into everything from carpets to cosmetics, stucco
to salad oil and diapers to denim jackets.

``It's only a matter of time before it all comes about,'' said Centers, who
runs The Hemp Connection here. ``It's something that's new, and everyone's
getting into it.''

A widening alliance of farmers and businesspeople describe hemp as a
nearmiracle crop, one that can be grown cheaply with few pesticides, and
harvested by existing machinery. Mostly, advocates say, it may be a way to
wean tobacco farmers onto another crop and still make a living.

There's just one problem.

It's illegal to grow hemp in this country, and has been for nearly half a
century. The plant contains a small amount of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC),
the psychoactive chemical that gets potsmokers high. Police will lock up
anyone who so much as plants a seed.

But that may change. Centers is part of a growing movement, based in
tobacco states such as Kentucky but stretching north to Maine and west to
Hawaii, to legalize the production of industrial hemp.

Bluegrass State legislators are scheduled to hold hearings this summer.
Lobbyists are pushing for a pilot program in Virginia, as they are in a
dozen other states including Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. The
American Farm Bureau, representing almost five million farmers, has
endorsed research into hemp's possibilities.

With that activity has come controversy and confusion. The hemp movement
faces little organized opposition, but plenty of informal resistance.

Questions about hemp's economic viability, and its relationship to
marijuana, cloud its image in the minds of many citizens. The federal Drug
Enforcement Administration makes no distinction between lowTHC hemp and
its highoctane relative, defining any plant that contains THC as marijuana.

Both plants are types of Cannabis sativa. Pharmacologists say, however,
that hemp contains less than 1 percent THC, making it useless as a
narcotic. Hemp supporters say comparing the two plants is like comparing a
toy poodle and a pit bull.

But they know they have a publicrelations problem.

The prodrug National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has
pushed to legalize hemp, saying it could pave the way for legal pot. And
the energetic support of offbeat Hollywood actor Woody Harrelson, who was
arrested in Kentucky last summer for planting four hemp seeds, has made
some wary.

``I think his involvement has scared people,'' said Julia Williams, who is
active in the Community Farm Alliance, which endorsed hemp as an
alternative to tobacco.

Even in this eastern Kentucky town of 1,173, where farming is as natural as
breathing, the mention of hemp doesn't rouse cheers. The mayor declined to
attend the ribboncutting for Centers' store, and some residents fretted
the business would become a draw for potheads.

Centers says that's ridiculous smoking hemp will make you sick, but not
high. Meanwhile, demand for his goods is so strong that The Hemp Connection
he swears the initials are unintentional will soon move to bigger
quarters. It still will sell pants, chairs, cookbooks and soap, along with
hats that say, ``Do not smoke this cap,'' all made from imported hemp.

The new store will stand next to a ``Hemp Motel'' that's being built in
renovated apartments, where visitors will sleep on hemp sheets and
pillowcases, and dine at a cafe featuring hemp burgers.

``Every day I'm finding another way to expand it,'' Centers said. ``The
tobacco industry is just falling to pieces. This right here could bring our
farmers back.''

Hemp once was among the nation's leading cash crops, a plant with a secure
future and proud past.

Drafts of the Declaration of Independence were written on hemp paper, and
Betsy Ross' flag was sewn of hemp canvas. During World War II, the federal
government mounted a ``Hemp for Victory'' campaign, urging farmers to grow
the plant that provided parachutes for battle and cosmetics for the home.

But congressional action, drug hysteria and the arrival of new fabrics such
as nylon soon strangled domestic production, a particularly hard blow in
Kentucky, which once produced 90 percent of the nation's hemp.

Today, a poll funded by the state Hemp Growers Cooperative Association
showed that 77 percent of Kentuckians support growth of industrial hemp.
For most the reason is simple: The farms are dying.

Kentucky has lost more than 150,000 farms in the last 50 years, a lot of
them small family farms. Often it's tobacco that keeps the survivors alive.
And many farmers think they can't last much longer.

``We're in a crisis situation,'' said Dorothy Robertson, a tobacco farmer
in Bethel. ``People are looking for anything to be able to stay on the farm.''

No crop will prove as lucrative as tobacco, which pays $2,000 to $3,000 an
acre. But some farmers see hemp as an option because, theoretically, they
could grow more of it.

The hemp cooperative estimates that farmers could earn $270 to $300 per
acre; others put the figure as high as $475. That's more than crops like
corn, which pays about $250.

Coop president Andrew Graves said that if growing hemp is legalized, he
expects the crop to be regulated and monitored, just like tobacco is now.
Farmers would use governmentcertified, lowTHC seed, raising only enough
hemp to meet manufacturers' orders, to keep prices stable. Hemp is so bulky
it must be processed close to where it's grown. Graves envisions spinning
mills, paper factories and seedcrushing plants springing up around farms,
creating scores of jobs in hardpressed rural communities.

But others say that's a pipe dream.

Owensboro farmer Billy Joe Miles, chairman of a state committee that
studied hemp, has called the crop a ``complete fraud.'' Hemp would earn
about a third as much money as soybeans, not nearly enough to offset
tobacco, he said.

Nearly two dozen countries including France and England now grow hemp to
make paper, fuel, detergents, paints, coffee filters and artists' canvas.
Advocates see the same thing happening here.

``I know we're going to succeed. There's no doubt in my mind,'' said Joseph
Hickey Sr., the hemp cooperative's executive director. ``It's going to
create rural economic development on a scale we've never seen before.''

The Philadelphia Inquirer, National Copyright Sunday, April 27, 1997