NO NEED FOR RESEARCH; HEMP COULD HAVE WEATHERED THE DROUGHT

The cornstalks I've seen here in northern Illinois aren't pretty.

The plants are scrawny with yellow leaves that started drying out
mid-summer. Many of the ears of corn, usually robust green with
abundant tassels flowing from the top, have been stunted by a severe
lack of rain all summer. This year, some of the ears look more like
mutated clumps of cob barely clinging to a few stray kernels.

As the drought became evident during the summer, some area newspapers
researched drought-resistant crops that would be suitable for the
region. The stories I read indicated such crops are in development.

I did not see any press reports suggesting that such a crop already
exists: Hemp. It's been used over centuries around the globe. There
was even a time when it was grown here in the Land of Lincoln, but
now it's a crime for farmers to grow hemp anywhere in the United States.

One of hemp's many virtues includes drought-resistance. A quick
Google search shows many references to hemp's ability to thrive with
limited rainfall. Historic evidence indicates at least some farmers
here in Illinois noticed the quality in the past. When the Chicago
Tribune grew experimental crops including hemp in the 1930s, editors
and farm managers were amazed at how the crop seemed unharmed by harsh drought.

"When we stopped to look at the test plot where the hemp is growing,
we wanted to doff our straw hat and give this plant a little
applause," wrote Tribune reporter Robert Becker at the end of a
scorching August in 1936. "It has grown remarkably in spite of
intense heat and drouth [sic]. In fact, one of the boys was saying
that during the week of the most severe heat the hemp kept pushing
its head to the blazing sun."

We could know even more about how hemp would fare in Illinois today
if former Gov. George Ryan (whose trial on corruption charges,
incidentally, just got underway last week) hadn't vetoed a bill to
study industrial hemp as a legitimate agricultural crop in Illinois
back in 2001.

Not that the study was needed. Even after the Tribune was forced to
stop growing hemp, other Illinois farmers successfully participated
in the Hemp for Victory program during World War II. And you don't
even need to go back that far. One of the Chicago newspapers told the
story with a photo on the day that I write this.

On Sept. 29, the Chicago Sun-Times published a picture showing a law
enforcement officer burning several marijuana plants. A total of
6,000 plants were burned according to the caption. The caption also
notes that the plants were discovered with the help of "high-tech
electronic gear."

If those plants grew well enough to be considered a threat by drug
agents during the drought, it's reasonable to expect that the
non-psychoactive industrial version of the species could fare just as
well if they were being cultivated by Illinois farmers.

Indeed, we will know eventually when state reports are released next
year whether the drought hurt the industrial hemp crop. Hemp from
those crops sown decades ago still grows wild throughout the state.
Usually, that's what the "high-tech electronic gear" finds:
uncultivated ditchweed lacking psychoactive qualities. The wild hemp
doesn't get anyone high, just like the industrial hemp grown in so
many other nations doesn't get anyone high. To the contrary, smoking
industrial hemp or ditchweed can cause negative effects, like
headache and sore throat. With its own built-in deterrence system,
hemp is a not only beneficial, it's harmless, an imaginary threat
from which no one needs protection.

The absurdity should be difficult to miss. The state government
wants so badly to remain ignorant about the ways hemp can benefit
farmers that it won't even allow research. Yet, it's clear that hemp
has desirable properties; so desirable that every other developed
country in the world grows it. Here we react to that desirability by
spending money on "high-tech electronic gear" to facilitate search
and destroy missions, knowing full-well that we can destroy only a
fraction of what grows, even as Mother Nature challenges the plants
with added adversity.

While the corn in Illinois may be ugly this year, it looks better
from certain perspectives. Compared to a policy that turns cops into
extremely over-equipped lawn service crews and locks American farmers
out of a lucrative global market, the dry and sagging stalks are beauties.

Rain will come back another season, but it's tough to predict when
the drought of government common sense regarding hemp will be doused.