WV GOVERNOR SIGNS HEMP BILL

Ready For New Cash Crop State Prepares For Commercial Growth Of Industrial Hemp

CHARLESTON, West Virginia - Agriculture Commissioner Gus Douglass
used to oversee the state workers who slashed and burned wild
marijuana in an effort to eradicate it from the hills of the Potomac
Valley.

But that was more than two decades ago. Now Douglass is the man in
charge of growing hemp in West Virginia.

"I sit here and whatever the laws demand, we in the Department of
Agriculture will attempt to move in that direction," Douglass said
this week.

Gov. Bob Wise recently signed the Industrial Hemp Act, kicking into
motion a plan for West Virginians to cultivate the marijuana-like
plant for use in clothing, bath products, car dashboards and other
products.

Skeptics say hemp is marijuana by another name. But Sen. Karen
Facemyer, R-Jackson, who sponsored the Hemp Act, said there is a big
difference -- industrial hemp won't get anyone high.

Proponents hope West Virginia can take advantage of an untapped
market. No other state is producing hemp for the commercial uses at
this point, though Hawaii is growing a test crop.

There is still at least one major hurdle between West Virginia and
hemp wealth - - the federal government isn't sure whether it's going
to allow commercial cultivation of hemp.

A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman has said industrial
hemp cultivation is stuck in legal limbo. When asked whether it was
legal to grow industrial hemp, Bill Steffick of the federal drug
agency said he couldn't answer that question.

"You have some questions there that I basically can't answer because
this is just an area that there's going to have to be some more
discussion on this," he said.

Douglass said step one for the state's industrial hemp project is
going to be navigating the federal rules. He said he hopes to work
with West Virginia University's Davis College of Agriculture to do
some experimentation on growing industrial hemp.

Bill Vinson, associate director for the agriculture school's
experiment station, said the school stood ready to help.

"I don't know the specifics. I do know that we are ready to support
West Virginia Department of Agriculture in their research programs in
whatever way we can," he said.

Facemyer said she hoped the ambiguities in the laws regarding
industrial hemp would be resolved by the time the university's
research was done and the state was ready to move into commercial
production.

She said advocates of industrial hemp have been pushing hard for its
legalization. U.S. Rep. Nick Joe Rahall, D-W.Va., has said he'll
support that effort.

"Illegal drugs have no place in American society," he said in a statement.

"But industrial hemp is not a drug. Thirty nations -- including
Canada and Japan -- harvest industrial hemp that we import into our
country. Our farmers could become a part of this global industry."

This will not be the first time that West Virginia University has
helped the state with research for cannabis. Or the first time state
residents grew a hemp crop.

During World War II, the Japanese interrupted American's Philippine
hemp supply. The federal government asked states to pitch in and grow
hemp so the Navy could have all the rope it needed to fight the war.

Douglass said the hemp he was in charge of eradicating years ago
spread from an old rope factory in Petersburg.

Besides making rope from it, West Virginia has toyed with using hemp
as a legal drug.

The Legislature legalized marijuana use for medical purposes in the
late 1970s. At the time West Virginia University was involved in
research on how effective the drug was in treating glaucoma and the
side effects of cancer treatment.