COMMITTEE BACKS HEMP BILL

Some Of Tobacco Trust Fund May Go To Curb Tobacco Use

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill the Agriculture
Committee didn't want to touch that calls for the cultivation of industrial
hemp in West Virginia.

The committee also approved a bill to use some tobacco trust fund money for
programs to discourage the use of tobacco.

The hemp bill's lead sponsor, Sen. Karen Facemyer, had predicted it would
fare better in the Judiciary Committee than in the Agriculture Committee,
which passed it on without a recommendation last week.

Although Sen. Mike Ross, D-Randolph, suggested it would be better to let an
interim legislative committee study the proposal over the next year, the
bill had little trouble passing the Judiciary Committee Monday after
officials from the state Agriculture Department and the West Virginia Farm
Bureau spoke in favor of it.

Facemyer, R-Jackson, argued that hemp, which can be used to make a variety
of products, including rope, clothing, fuel and diapers, could be a good
alternative crop for many farmers, because the United States imports $300
million worth of hemp products each year. Charles Coffman of the
Agriculture Department said it should be able to grow just about anywhere
in West Virginia and could be especially good for farmers needing a
substitute for tobacco crops.

Sen. Herb Snyder, D-Jefferson, said hemp could give some Eastern Panhandle
farmers the ability to stay in farming in the face of increasing
development that is gobbling up farmland in that part of the state.

Sen. Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha, was concerned about whether allowing hemp to be
grown could lead to problems for law enforcement efforts against marijuana.
Coffman said no state has gotten far enough in the process of legalizing
hemp cultivation to have addressed that issue, but he thought it could be
handled.

Hemp is closely related to marijuana but has less than 1 percent of the
ingredient that gives marijuana its hallucinatory properties.

Facemyer said approval of the bill would only mean that the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration would work with the state to set up a research
project on growing hemp for a few years. Only after that might it be
possible for farmers to grow it, she said.

After Les Shoemaker of the Farm Bureau added that his organization has no
opposition to the bill, the committee approved it.

The bill dealing with the tobacco trust fund would allow the state to use
up to $15 million from the half of the fund that has been considered to be
in a "lock box." Until now, the Legislature has prohibited the state from
spending any of the principal of that fund.

The money would be used for education and smoking prevention programs
recommended by the Centers for Disease Control. They would be community
programs focused on preventing young people from starting to smoke.

The committee approved a version of the bill that would permit the state to
spend the money but not require it to be spent.

Approval of two other bills by the committee came only after much
discussion with representatives of the Board of Veterinary Medicine.

The board objected to a provision in one bill that could have made it
possible for someone convicted of a felony involving controlled substances
to work as a veterinary technician and thus have access to some of those
substances. The committee removed that provision before approving the bill.

The provision in the second bill the board opposed would have loosened the
requirement for veterinary clinics that do surgery to have anesthetic
inhalation equipment and X-ray machines. The committee took that provision
out before passing the bill.