FARMERS TO DEBATE HEMP

The Farm Bureau will reconsider its endorsement of research into the
outlawed plant's potential as a crop.

CHARLOTTE -- The nation's largest farmers' group is buzzing about hemp
production as it meets to hash out stands on pocketbook issues such as
property rights, taxes and foreign imports.

Delegates to the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual convention, which
began Sunday in Charlotte, will revisit a policy statement supporting
research into the economic potential of industrial hemp production in the
United States. The group has 4.6 million members.

Farmers supporting the current policy say they just want to explore a hardy
crop that shows promise for use in fibers, fuel and foods. Opponents of
hemp production and research are citing the concern of law-enforcement
agencies, which say it would be difficult for agents to distinguish between
hemp and its cousin, marijuana.

"I would believe there would be a lively discussion on this issue," said
Dennis Stolte, the federation's senior director of governmental relations.
"This has been pretty much a state issue up until now." Hemp is a term
applied to a number of different fiber-bearing plants. The species at
issue, cannabis sativa, contains an ingredient called tetrahydrocannabinol,
or THC, which produces the high when the plant is used as a drug. Breeding
for marijuana boosts the THC content to as high as 15 percent, while in
commercial hemp it can be less than 1 percent.

Farm groups in Colorado, Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Virginia
in recent years have proposed exploring whether a crop grown for hundreds
of years and still harvested from France to China could be a domestic
moneymaker. Vermont has given researchers a blessing to study the plant's
profit potential.

In California, a petition drive aims to let voters decide in November
whether to legalize hemp production for industrial purposes. Federal
law makes no distinction between hemp and marijuana; neither can be grown
legally. Even research requires approval by the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration, which demands intense security.

President Clinton's chief drug policy adviser, Barry McCaffrey, told
Congress in July that advocates of industrial hemp were aiding efforts to
relax marijuana laws.

"Drug-legalizers seek to revoke this prohibition against the cultivation of
hemp in order to camouflage drug crops," McCaffrey said. "Lifting the ban
on hemp cultivation in the United States would promote increased
availability of marijuana, not legitimate commerce."

Valerie Vantreese, an agricultural economist at the University of Kentucky,
said that even if it were legal, industrial hemp would not be a guaranteed
moneymaker for American farmers. Growers would face uncertain prices,
global competition, a limited market and the lack of a domestic industry to
process the product, she said last year.

Hemp's boosters respond that it is not a viable crop now because of the
prohibitions and the lack of investment since it was outlawed in 1937. It
is a hardy, low-maintenance plant that grows rapidly, has high resistance
to diseases and pests, and can return nutrients to the soil if crops are
rotated appropriately, they say.

Because hemp may be legally imported into the United States, its fibers,
oils and other byproducts are already being used to make carpets, beer and
auto parts. Supporters also point to potential markets including
construction materials, cosmetics and paper. Imports totaled about $1.2
million in 1996, McCaffrey said.

A vote on the Farm Bureau's hemp policy is expected Wednesday or Thursday.
It will be decided by a majority vote of 376 farmer delegates.

Copyright ) 1997 The News and Observer Publishing Company
Raleigh, North Carolina