CANADA PROFITS FROM BIZARRE U.S. BANS

When a pizzeria closes, the pizzeria down the block usually sees a
surge in business. That principle applies to commerce in the larger
North American neighborhood. Whenever the United States locks the
gate on a plausible economic activity, Canadians move in and profit.

The Bush administration's hostility toward stem-cell science created
opportunity in Canada. Starved of adequate federal support, American
labs doing this cutting-edge science shrank or closed down, and many
of their researchers moved to Canada. Between 2002 and 2007, the
number of American university professors and assistants relocating
to Canada jumped 27 percent, according to Canadian immigration
officials. Some were stars in stem-cell research.

The Obama administration has ended that Canadian advantage by
reversing the Bush policy. Canadians now fear they might suffer
their own brain-drain back to the United States - and not just of
Americans. European, Asian and other scientists, who went to Canada
rather than the United States, may decide to head south.

A recent headline from Toronto's Globe and Mail says it all: "As
U.S. emerges from Dark Age, Canada's scientific edge fades."

Hemp is a plant used to make paper, oils, textiles and other
products. American farmers from George Washington on grew it. But
because hemp is related to marijuana, the U.S. government outlawed
its cultivation in the "50s.

Now get this: American manufacturers are free to import hemp fibers,
oil and seed from other countries. For example, U.S. carmakers use
hemp inside door panels and for insulation in seats.

Industrial hemp doesn't contain enough THC (the euphoric agent in
marijuana) to get anyone high, but that hasn't stopped the federal
Drug Enforcement Administration from sending out helicopters to
scour the land for hemp plants growing wild in ditches.

The sight of waving hemp fields just across the Canadian border
frustrates many American farmers. One of them, Dave Monson, a
Republican, is speaker of the North Dakota House.

Monson and other farmers sued the DEA in 2007, demanding the right
to plant hemp. The case was dismissed by a U.S. district court judge
in Bismarck but is now before the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals,
in St. Paul, Minn.

Monson told me that he tried to reason with the DEA about industrial
hemp. The federal agency responded that minuscule amounts of THC
could be processed out of the plants, admittedly with great effort.

"Well, why would anybody do that?" Monson asked, especially now that
actual marijuana plants are freely grown in California and other
states that have legalized medical pot.

"The ironic thing is that they may get medical marijuana legalized
before we can get industrial hemp legalized," Monson said. The Obama
administration has yet to signal a change in policy toward industrial hemp.

When the United States banned the sale and manufacture of alcoholic
beverages in 1920, Canadians found another great export market.
Rules governing alcohol varied from province to province, but
Canada's generally lighter approach to booze opened new avenues for profit.

Ontario's economy grew off the movement of alcohol into the United
States. The black market was exploited by gangsters but also by
ordinary office workers who would row their rum-laden boats across
the narrow parts of the Detroit River separating Detroit from
Windsor, Ontario.

Quebec was the most alcohol-friendly province. During U.S.
Prohibition, "historic old Quebec" enjoyed a boom off of American
tourists seeking a good time.

Alcohol prohibition is now far in the misty American past, and the
anchors on stem-cell research were recently lifted. That would leave
hemp farming as a surviving example of an irrational U.S. ban.
Whenever the U.S. government discourages Americans from
doing useful work, Canadians make hay - and sell it back to us.