HEMP FIBER HOLDS KEY OPPORTUNITY

I have to wonder at this Democratic-controlled Legislature. Last
year, the Democratic contingent came out quite vocally in support of
the Marijuana Legalization Initiative, and yet to date, not one of
them has even broached the idea of legalization for the purposes of
freeing up the hemp industry.

The new jobs created in the cloth/textiles, paper, food, bio-diesel
and farming industries would create new revenue streams for the
anemic state coffers, finally putting Washington farmers back into
the position where they can make a healthy profit again (as opposed
to subsidizing foreign farmers to grow it) and putting thousands to
work across our beleaguered state.

It would create new employer/employee tax revenues. There would be
all new industrial licensing fees, and it would put a healthy dent in
our outrageous unemployment figures, with the creation of
corporate/industrial jobs as well as in new state government
positions in the obligatory industrial regulatory infrastructure.

Affirmative action toward the creation of jobs and new sources of
state revenue, instead of continuing the status quo (nearly 10
percent of the state's workforce praying for yet another extension of
their sub-starvation wage unemployment check).

The solution to the state's financial woes has been right in front of
your eyes the whole time; the public was has just been miss-directed
to the topics of recreational/medicinal uses only. A legalized hemp
industry has no downside in terms of the economic recovery.

All you have to do is be able to think outside of the baggie.

Skot Pierson

Edmonds