US KY: Judge Says Ban Against Hemp Growing Doesn'T Hurt Kentucky Farmers



Pubdate: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 



Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) 



Author: Janet Patton, Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky. 	



ubject: JUDGE SAYS BAN AGAINST HEMP GROWING DOESN'T HURT KENTUCKY FARMERS 	

Mar. 3--Kentucky farmers won't be growing hemp this year -- not that they had much serious hope 

of it anyway, they say. 	



Gaining the right to grow hemp was the goal of a civil lawsuit filed in May, but U.S. District 

Judge Karl S. Forester has dismissed that suit, ruling that the Kentucky farmers couldn't grow 

hemp because state law forbids it.	



Fayette County farmer Andy Graves, one of the plaintiffs, said he was not surprised by the 

dismissal and that they will appeal. 	



"It's the same old tennis match we've been playing all along," Graves said. "We thought this 

lawsuit would clarify some things." 	



In his ruling, Forester acknowledged the farmers' "frustrating position. I As it now stands, 

Kentucky law must change if plaintiffs ever want to grow hemp in Kentucky. However, in the 

present-day climate, lawmakers are understandably hesitant to take any action which might 

possibly be construed as being 'soft' on a substance that is -- rightly or wrongly -- closely 

associated with marijuana." 	



But the judge never actually examined the law and how it affects hemp. Forester ruled that the 

farmers do not have standing to challenge the law that prohibits growing hemp because they are 

not being hurt by it. And they are not being hurt by the law because nobody grows hemp. 	



"The federal government's position on hemp is clear -- it's illegal," said Rogene Wait, 

spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "I can't tell people how to go about 

changing the law." 	



Kentucky farmers and the 100-member Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association filed 

the suit as part of what has become a two-pronged assault on national and state policy that lumps 

industrial hemp with marijuana as a controlled substance that's illegal to produce. 	



The farmers contend that if 27 other nations, including Canada, can grow hemp for the industrial 

market, U.S. farmers should be able to try their hands at something that was once Kentucky's 

major cash crop. 	



Changing Kentucky's hemp law is what hemp activists have been attempting in state courts 

through actor Woody Harrelson's case. 	



Harrelson was arrested on a charge of marijuana possession in June 1996 after he planted four 

hemp seeds. Hemp activists challenged the state law and its definition of hemp as marijuana 

before Harrelson could go to trial.	



District and circuit courts agreed that the statute was overly broad. However, an appeals court 

decided those rulings were premature, and sent the case back to district court to actually try 

Harrelson. The case is pending appeal.	



Plaintiff Graves said the Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative had been a leader in the movement 

nationwide to try to legalize hemp, but that the state is falling behind.	



The co-op is tracking pending legislation in 19 states, he said, that would allow hemp to be grown 

if the federal government would permit it.	



"We've got a political problem," Graves said. "I am frustrated with it. There are a lot of people 

across the state who would like to try this."	



But no farmer, including Graves, is likely to attempt growing hemp just to try to change the law.	



"I'm not really anxious to make myself a martyr," Graves said. "I wouldn't want to criminalize my 

family. Perhaps that verges on being timid. Somebody has to take a stand."