LONG ARM OF LAW MAY SOMEDAY WEAR HEMP

Americana Crop Stages Comeback in Goods From T-Shirts to Butters

The hippie days live on in a handful of head shops on upper Southeast
Hawthorne Boulevard, so you might be surprised if you step into a
store called the Master Peace (3623 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd., 503-493-2366).

The shop specializes in, among other things, products made of hemp,
and that may conjure images of billowing smoke and psychedelic
colors. But there are no portraits of Bob Marley or the Grateful Dead here.

Ropy hemp sandals are piled in one corner, but the graphics on a line
of T-shirts are hip and modern, with not a single spiky green pot
leaf symbol in sight.

Hemp, soy, bamboo and organic cotton are the basis for the clothing
here, which is carefully selected from a handful of fashion
designers. Owners Melissa Giacobbe and Sierra Freeman have assembled
an understated, casual collection that brings in all kinds of shoppers.

"It's really amazing what a wide range of customers we get," Freeman says.

According to Freeman, consumer interest in hemp products is on the
rise. What's available on the wholesale market is expanding, too.
Hemp is hardier than cotton, Freeman explains, so it's easier to grow
without pesticides -- and that appeals to ecoconscious shoppers.

Hemp fabric provides natural UV protection, she adds, and it's
breathable and very durable. The downside is cost. "Because it can't
be grown in the United States, it's very expensive," she says.

Food, paper and clothing are just a few of the things that can be
made from hemp.

In a whirlwind shopping spree of some of Portland's more
independently minded retailers, you can stock your pantry with hemp
butter, your bathroom with hemp soap and hand cream, your closet with
hemp shirts and your desk with hemp stationery.

You can even carry it all home in a hemp tote bag. Just don't plant
any hemp in your backyard -- that would be a violation of federal drug law.

Casual speech distinguishes between hemp (grown for commercial
purposes) and marijuana (grown as a drug), but taxonomically they are
the same species, Cannabis sativa.

There is a movement to legalize the growing of hemp -- or perhaps it
would be more accurate to say two movements. Advocates for the
legalization of marijuana inevitably bring hemp into their case,
while advocates for the cultivation of industrial hemp often struggle
to distance themselves from the drug association.

Andy Kerr is a longtime environmental activist from Ashland and a
member of the North American Industrial Hemp Council. In recent
testimony in the Oregon Senate, he used the term "hempsters" to
define "people who believe that all things and all thoughts cannabis
will solve all the world's problems."

Kerr's goals are more modest. He believes that industrial hemp could
have significant environmental and economic advantages for Oregon.

He testified on behalf of Senate Bill 348, which would have legalized
the cultivation of industrial hemp. The bill was introduced in
January by state Sen. Floyd Prozanski, a Democrat representing parts
of Lane and Douglas counties. It died in committee.

Kerr explains the difference between hemp and marijuana as being like
the difference between a Saint Bernard and a Chihuahua. You can't get
high by smoking industrial hemp, he says, and you can't get useful
fibers from a plant bred for pot.

North Dakotans Go for It

In recent years, other states have moved to legalize hemp farming,
despite the federal prohibition against it. In North Dakota, two
farmers who have state approval to grow hemp are suing the Drug
Enforcement Administration.

For now, importing hemp from Canada is not very difficult.

So says John Bannerman, a Portland resident who is preparing a line
of hemp butters under the name Wilderness Poets
(www.wildernesspoets.com). Hemp butter, made from ground hemp seeds,
tastes similar to almond butter, he says, and is very nutritious.

Hemp seeds provide a complete protein source that is easier to digest
than soy, and they contain a perfect balance of omega-3 and omega-6
fatty acids, which are essential nutrients.

"I've always been interested in sustainable agriculture," says
Bannerman, who is a former organic lime farmer as well as a former
creative writing teacher. "I realized that food was as important a
place to educate people as even being in the classroom."

His food products are a tribute to philosophers and poets, and bear
names such as Civil Disobedience Hemp Nut Butter and Moon Priestess
Hemp Nut Chocolate Divinity.

The market for hemp products has been expanding rapidly since 2004,
Bannerman says. That year, a federal court ruled that products made
with hemp don't fall under the ban against Cannabis sativa itself.

The legal climate now is friendly enough that more people are
comfortable investing in hemp-related businesses.

Activist Kerr also has seen the expansion. "I think there's a
renaissance," he says, citing hemp production in Europe and in
Canada, which legalized industrial hemp in 1998.

If so, it is a rebirth rather than a birth -- hemp once was a major
agricultural crop in the United States, before the availability of
cheaper synthetic fibers and tightening of drug laws wiped it out.
The last commercial hemp crop in the United States was grown in
Wisconsin in the 1950s.

DEA Blames It On Congress

The DEA's position on hemp is pretty clear: "The law is the law is
the law," says Garrison Courtney, who is the lead spokesman for the
DEA's public information office. "To get hemp, you have to grow marijuana."

Don't blame the DEA, he says, if the law seems contradictory: "That's
something that Congress put together, and really, the beef should be
with them, not us."

To Kerr, the issue is not so cut and dried, especially with rising
concern about our dependence on oil.

Fiberglass and industrial oils, now made of petroleum, could be made
with plant-based ingredients, Kerr claims. But for him, the biggest
benefit of hemp cultivation would be the preservation of forestland
for clean air, clean water and wildlife.

"We can't afford to be cutting down our forest," he says, "and we can
move fiber production back to the farm. The problem is that farmers
in Oregon haven't been demanding it."

In the city, though, the demand is definitely growing. "As things are
becoming more stylish and current," the Master Peace's Freeman says,
"more people notice it. It's come a long ways."