CLEAR THE SMOKE

The government of the United States has an unhealthy preoccupation with the
evils of marijuana. It has fought medical marijuana efforts in numerous
states, including Oregon, apparently concerned that marijuana is really a
dangerous drug - a concern that doesn't stretch to include morphine, which
is widely used in hospitals.

The feds take that preoccupation to the point of pointlessness with a
continued prohibition against industrial hemp. A cousin of marijuana, hemp
was first outlawed in the 1930s amid overblown fears raised about marijuana
use. Some 70 years later, a commercial crop that could reduce the need to
harvest trees remains illegal, against all common sense.

The concern about hemp stems from the tiny traces in its fibers of THC, the
psychoactive chemical that gives marijuana smokers a high. But the truth is
that to get high from hemp smoke you would have to erect a pup tent over a
bonfire of the plant and close yourself inside. You would die of
asphyxiation before any buzz set in.

Hemp has a long and strong woody fiber that can be used to produce paper
without typical pulp mill chemicals. As the name industrial hemp implies,
it is purely and simply a commercial source of fiber - evidenced by the
fact that it's legal to import hemp pulp into the United States, even if
you can't grow hemp here.

The federal government should clear the smoke from its eyes and legalize
the use of industrial hemp