U.S. SHOULD LIFT BAN ON HEMP

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. Some were stars in stem-cell research.

The Obama administration has reversed the Bush policy. Canadians now
fear they might suffer their own brain-drain back to the United
States. 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.
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 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 but is now before
the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. Monson told me 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.
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 American past, and anchors on
stem-cell research recently were lifted. That would leave hemp farming
as a surviving irrational U.S. ban. Whenever the U.S. government
discourages Americans from doing useful work, Canadians make hay - and
sell it back to us.