ENTREPRENEUR ON A HEMP HIGH

Hemp grower Greg Herriott is getting high -- off success. Hempola Valley
Farms, which Herriott and his wife Kelly Smith started in 1995 as a
marketing project for his graphic-design work, is growing at a rate of 50
per cent annually. Sales are projected to top $1 million this year.

"So many good things are happening. We're thrilled,'' said Herriott, 45.

The company's products were chosen as gifts for the 120 nominees and
presenters at the American Music Awards in Los Angeles last spring.

And Hempola's Healthy Brownies received the ''Best Baked Good -- People's
Pick'' award at Toronto's Good Food festival in May.

Hempola's DEET-free insect repellent -- dubbed "West a-Nile-ate'' -- also
received a 95 per cent performance rating.

Initially, Herriott used hemp seeds imported from China. In 1998, when
Ottawa lifted a decades-old ban on hemp growing, Herriott started Canada's
first dedicated commercial hemp farm on 20 hectares of land near Dalston,
about 15 kilometres north of Barrie.

The company grows, manufactures and markets hemp-seed and hemp-seed-oil
products in Canada and the United States.

There are about 30 product lines, including hemp oil salad dressing,
high-protein pancake mix, lip balm and hemp oil used as a wood finish.

Two machines in the basement of Herriott's converted barn squeeze the hemp
seeds to produce the oil -- the process leaves behind a mush of seed husks,
which are milled into flour and used in pancake mix and brownies.

Commercially grown hemp contains only a trace of tetrahydrocannabinol --
the mood-altering substance found in marijuana.

However, that didn't stop people sneaking into the fields to raid
Herriott's plants.

''Eventually the word got out that our hemp won't get you high and now they
leave the crop alone,'' Herriott said.