US: States Back Hemp Farming



Pubdate: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 



Source: Associated Press 



Author: Philip Brasher 	



ubject: STATES BACK HEMP FARMING	



WASHINGTON (AP) It's high time for hemp, say farmers who are enlisting state legislatures in 

an effort to legalize cultivation of the potentially profitable non-hallucinogenic cousin of 

marijuana. 	



Montana and Virginia have formally called for an end to a federal ban on "industrial" hemp, and 

the Minnesota Senate this week passed a bill, backed by Gov. Jesse Ventura, aimed at permitting 

experimental hemp production. The Hawaii House this week voted to have the state grow a 10-

acre test crop.	



Hemp is now grown in more than 20 countries for a variety of products, including cosmetics, beer, 

plastics and paper. 	



New Hampshire, North Dakota and Tennessee also are actively considering pro-hemp legislation, 

while lawmakers in New Mexico recently funded hemp research, according to Agri-Tech 

Communications Inc., which tracks the agricultural fiber business. 	



Former CIA Director James Woolsey was recently hired by the North American Industrial Hemp 

Council to lobby for repeal. 	



"Until the federal government relents, our state efforts aren't going to do much," said David 

Monson, a North Dakota legislator who wants to grow hemp on his grain farm near the Canadian 

border. 	



Hemp was perhaps the first plant farmed for fiber George Washington once grew it but it was a 

victim of the U.S. government's move to end marijuana production in the 1930s.	



Canada started allowing hemp production last year. Farmers planted 6,000 acres of the weed, 

claiming profits of as much as $200 an acre, this at a time when growers struggle just to break 

even on traditional crops like wheat.	



The Drug Enforcement Administration and Justice Department were petitioned a year ago to go 

repeal the DEA's ban on hemp. 	



But the DEA and the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy have said that 

permitting hemp farming would send the wrong signal to young people. They also worry that 

marijuana farmers could hide their crops with industrial hemp plants. Police rely on aerial imagery 

to detect marijuana fields.	



"The seedlings are the same and in many instances the mature plants look the same," the Office of 

National Drug Control Policy says in a statement.	



That's all the more reason to permit industrial hemp, according to pro-hemp forces. Hemp's 

tendency to cross-pollinate would make it risky to cultivate marijuana nearby, because that might 

hurt the potency of the marijuana crop, agronomists say. 	



"You have to be really, really stupid to hide marijuana in an industrial hemp field," Woolsey 

said.	



Police counter that cross-pollination could produce hemp with a kick.	



Marijuana normally contains 3 percent to 15 percent or more of THC, the psychoactive ingredient, 

while hemp has 1 percent or less. 	



There's also disagreement about hemp's commercial potential. 	



USDA researchers concluded that it was a "novelty product for a novelty market." But a 

University of Kentucky study last year estimated hemp could bring farmers anywhere from $220 

to $600 an acre, depending on whether it was grown for its fiber or its seeds. 	



North Dakota State University researchers said hemp could be a useful rotation crop for wheat and 

potato farmers. 	



"Industrial hemp should be considered an alternative crop," said Roger Moe, the Democratic 

majority leader in Minnesota's state Senate. "It's certainly not going to replace the mainstays of 

agriculture."