LEGALIZING HEMP

Correcting History's Mistake Benefits Oregon's Agricultural Industry

Gov. Ted Kulongoski announced last week his intent to take pen in
hand and make Oregon the seventh state to legalize the growing of hemp.

By signing into law Senate Bill 676, which allows farmers to grow
hemp statewide and was passed by a veto-proof 27-2 margin, Kulongoski
is among the few politicians taking small steps to reverse an
agricultural mistake made 72 years ago.

Small steps, unfortunately, are the biggest ones Oregon lawmakers
could take because hemp is still banned by federal law.

Oregon became the first Western state to legalize the growing of hemp
since 1999, adding to a slowly building snowball of states that could
eventually push the U.S. Legislature to remove the archaic and unnecessary ban.

Hemp growing was banned for all the wrong reasons seven decades ago.
Its illegalization has a somewhat complicated history that was
largely due to business considerations, rather than drug concerns,
involving powerful figures of the time and some slick political
maneuvering. Maneuvering that stripped away hemp and its benefits for
most of the 20th century, long after America's founding fathers,
including George Washington, were known to cultivate the plant on
their own land.

The short version, which is by no means the complete story, is this:
Harry J. Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Treasury
Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and William Randolph
Hearst, a newspaper mogul, are largely to blame. Hearst owned
hundreds of acres of timber. As hemp-based paper became more cost
effective, the value of such land was threatened. Anslinger fueled
anti-hemp propaganda that Hearst published in his newspapers. In
1937, Anslinger presented Congress with a ban against hemp and
cannabis, which passed.

Unfortunately, some people--many of whom compose our federal
Legislature--still believe hemp and marijuana are equally dangerous.

Hemp is a non-hallucinogenic variety of the cannabis sativa plant.
You could smoke hemp for days and never feel anything more than
throat irritation.

This is a shortsighted view of an agricultural plant that can be
manufactured more cheaply and used for more products than many of the
standard fibers used for clothing, rope, paper, food and other
everyday objects.

America spends about $360 million per year importing hemp, according
to the Eugene Register-Guard--money that could benefit local farmers,
while the cheaper costs of local cultivation would translate into
higher profits for local storeowners.

Opponents of decriminalization contend that it will increase
marijuana growing on Oregon farms and thus heighten use of the drug
in the region.

Oregon state Sen. Floyd Prozanski, a supporter of legalizing hemp
since 1997, optimistically predicts the national ban will be lifted
in about two years with increased pressure on the federal level.
Politicians of traditionally conservative states aren't likely to
support the move, while political campaigns nationwide receive money
from companies that would not like to see hemp's competition in the
marketplace.

Let's hope Prozanski is right that change is coming. Let's hope U.S.
lawmakers will refuse to succumb to political pandering this time
around and reverse a terrible mistake.