'INDUSTRIAL' HEMP SUPPORT TAKES ROOT

As the Market for Products Grows, Farmers Fight to Legalize Controversial Crop

David Monson is a conservative Republican in North Dakota's
legislature. He's also a farmer who believes that a new cash crop
could revitalize his state's agricultural industry, which has been
suffering from poor harvests and depressed soy and corn prices.

The problem: The crop coveted by Monson and hundreds of farmers like him is hemp, the same species of cannabis plant as marijuana ­ with virtually no tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the ingredient in marijuana that makes users high. The federal government doesn't recognize that distinction, and bans the production of hemp in the USA. It does, however, allow manufacturers of cosmetics, clothing, paper and foods to import hemp fiber, seed and oil from Canada and Europe for use in their products.

That policy has led to an explosion in goods containing high-fiber,
high-protein hemp that has been fueled by Americans' thirst for
organic products -- and perhaps by the tie some consumers see between
hemp and marijuana, a counterculture symbol for decades. It also has
put the cannabis plant at the center of a battle between unlikely
foes: angry farmers such as Monson who are leading increasingly vocal
calls for the U.S. government to legalize the growing of what's known
as "industrial" hemp, and federal anti-drug officials who say that
allowing such crops would create a slippery slope toward legalizing marijuana.

Led by Monson, North Dakota's Legislature has passed laws to make
hemp farming legal -- if the U.S. government ever allows it. The laws
would require hemp growers to undergo criminal background checks and
agree to subject their plants to tests for THC.

Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Montana and West Virginia also have passed
hemp-farming bills. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, introduced such a
bill in Congress in June, but it hasn't advanced in the face of
opposition by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the White
House's anti-drug office.

The DEA says allowing farmers to grow hemp in the USA would undermine
the war on drugs. It says marijuana growers would be able to
camouflage their crop with similar-looking hemp plants, and that DEA
agents would have difficulty quickly telling the difference.

"Let's not be naive," says Tom Riley of the White House Office on
National Drug Control Policy. "The pro-dope people have been pushing
hemp for 20 years because they know that if they can have hemp
fields, then they can have marijuana fields. It's ... stoner logic."

Monson says he and his supporters don't intend to grow illegal drugs.
"We have answers for all the (DEA's) concerns."

Other North Dakotans say they resent attempts to cast an agricultural
and economic issue as a "pothead" movement. "It's a silly argument,"
says North Dakota Agricultural Commissioner Roger Johnson. "Does
(Monson) sound like a druggie?"

Johnson says North Dakota and other states are considering a lawsuit
to challenge the ban, he says. "It's legal for us to import the
(hemp) stalks and the seed and turn them into clothes and food, but
it's not legal for us to grow it. What's the sense in that?"

During the past five years, hemp products have popped up all over the
marketplace.

Health food stores stock Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps and French Meadow
Bakery's Healthy Hemp Sprouted Bread. Celebrities such as Sex and the
City's Sarah Jessica Parker have sported Deborah Lindquist's silk and
hemp-blend clothing. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jackson Browne and
the Foo Fighters have used hemp-blend paper from Living Tree Paper
for CD inserts.

"It's growing by leaps and bounds," says Carolyn Moran of Living Tree
Paper in Eugene, Ore. Living Tree uses Canadian-grown hemp in its
products. She expects sales for the 12-year-old company to double
this year to $4 million and to rise because people concerned about
the environment "are willing to pay a little more for green products."

Lynn Gordon of the French Meadow Bakery & Cafe in Minneapolis
introduced hemp bread to her customers in 2000. "It's high in fiber,
high in protein, vitamin E, essentially fatty acids. It's high in
everything, but you don't get high from it," Gordon says.

Hemp products still account for only a small percentage of the $15
billion a year market for organic goods, but the Hemp Industries
Association says sales are rising by 50% a year. Gero Leson, an
agricultural researcher in Berkeley, Calif., says hemp products will
account for about $15 million this year in retail food sales and $40
million in cosmetics and body products.

In Canada, hemp farmers are boosting production to meet rising
demand, the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance says. Canadian farmers
planted more than 24,000 acres of hemp this year, nearly triple the 2004 total.

In 1999, the DEA moved to ban imports and production of hemp food
products that could contain trace amounts of THC. Sellers of hemp
goods took the government to federal court, and while the case was
active many stores declined to stock hemp products. The hemp product
sellers won their case in February 2004, and imports of hemp fiber,
seed and oil accelerated.

"Now that the DEA cloud over the market has lifted, sales are really
exploding," says David Bronner of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, founded
by his grandfather in Escondido, Calif.

Growing hemp used to be legal in the USA. During World War II, the
government urged farmers to grow it for much-needed rope and
textiles. But in 1970, Congress designated hemp -- along with
marijuana and heroin -- as a "Schedule 1" drug under the Controlled
Substances Act, making it illegal to grow hemp without a license from the DEA.

Today, the USA is the only developed nation that has not established
hemp as a crop, the Congressional Research Service says. Great
Britain lifted its ban in 1993; Germany did so in 1996 and Canada
followed two years later. The European Union has subsidized hemp
production since the 1990s.

Bronner says hemp should be disassociated from illegal drugs. He
compares hemp with poppies, which produce both opium and the poppy
seeds used on bagels. "A poppy seed has trace amounts of opiates, but
they don't hassle (makers of) poppy seed bagels. No one is smoking
industrial hemp."

North Dakota's involvement is key, Bronner says. "This is becoming a
serious commodity. You have farmers in North Dakota dealing with
depressed soy and corn prices. They see Canadians farming industrial
hemp. Why are we cutting American farmers out of this rapidly emerging market?"