SOURCE: Asiaweek
CONTACT: editors@asiaweek.com

Cannabis Couture Is Cool
And the fabric comes from a Chinese village

By Ron Gluckman / Dongping

AMERICAN ACTOR WOODY HARRELSON wears it. Fashion mogul Georgio Armani
flogs it. Tens of millions smoke a derivative, while scores of
Internet sites and groups argue its merits. Hemp is back in fashion
and much of it is coming from tiny Dongping in China, where most
folk have no idea their product is causing ructions half a world
away.

It all started when Western investors spent $12 million to refit a
Dongping textile plant. Since the factory reopened in January, the
workingclass hamlet in Shandong province has won global notoriety as the
planet's leading supplier of hemp, a cousin of the illegal marijuana plant
and the trendiest weed since tobacco.

Estimates of the world hemp market range from $50$150 million a year.
That is a pittance compared with the billions that go up in smoke every
year in pipes. But no one can dispute that hemp is happening. Trade has
grown at least tenfold since 1990, and advocates believe the market has
barely been tapped.

In the face of opposition by politicians who fear booming production will
fuel the supply of illegal drugs, entrepreneurs in China, Europe and the
U.S. are pushing hemp as an ideal raw material for a wide variety of
manufactured goods. Proponents cite it as a fastgrowing, highquality
source of paper products that could offset ravenous demand for the
world's dwindling timber supplies. An Australian firm, Wavelite Express,
uses hemp as a substitute for fiberglass in surfboards. Adidas has
experimented with hemp shoes. German and British companies make hemp
candy, beer and energy bars. Even hempseed oil is used for lubrication,
cooking and cosmetics. In five years, says hemp advocate Michael Rich,
the industry could be worth $1 billion.

That would be a big payoff for China, far and away the leading producer
even after a drastic drop in hemp production in recent decades. Hemp, and
the cellulose that comes from its fibrous stalk, has been in wide use for
centuries and was once a common component in thousands of products, from
dynamite to cellophane. But the last 50 years brought the rise of
synthetic alternatives. That, plus the backlash from antimarijuana
campaigns, has snuffed out meaningful cash crop cultivation in most of
the world. China's annual hemp production topped 100,000 tons in 1980,
but fell to less than onetenth that over the following 10 years. Aside
from use as clothing and bags by ethnic tribes in places like Yunnan
province and Xinjiang region, China mainly relegated hemp to such lowend
uses as pipe insulation and livestock feed bags.

Nowadays, hemp is being revived by environmental activists they
appreciate its ability to thrive with little water or fertilizer and
the fashionmeisters, many of whom tout it as better than cotton. "Hemp is
a marvelous material," says a spokesman for Armani. "It's cool in the
summer and warm in winter." The only problem: limited supplies of
sufficient quality.

That may be changing. "Traditionally, hemp has been considered a rough
material, the kind of thing you would only use in backpacks or for hippie
shorts," says Douglas Mignola, owner of Amsterdam's Hempworks, one of
Europe's biggest hemp apparel makers. "China changed all that and
revolutionized the industry."

The key is a patented process, developed by Chinese scientists more
than a decade ago, that uses a variety of washes and acid treatments
to produce a cloth as soft as cotton but with five times the
strength. The procedure might have gone nowhere were it not for Rich.
Working in Amsterdam to help expand the market for hemp oil, the
American was surfing the Internet when he came upon a citation for
Chinese scientists who won an award for textile innovation.

Rich set about commercializing his find. Using his Amsterdambased
Naturetex International as a vehicle, he formed a joint venture with
mainland partners. They converted an underused cotton factory into the
Dongping Hemp Mill. It employs over 2,000 and can churn out five million
square meters of hemp fabric a year.

When the mill reopened in January, Dongping citizens held a parade and
stretched banners across streets. "Welcome to our partners in cannabis
production," stated one. And therein lies the crux of the hempsters' PR
problem: It is hard to convince the antidrug forces that hemp really is
harmless because it contains minute traces of delta9 tetrahydrocannabinol
(THC), the substance that gets people high.

"Everyone asks the question," says Mignola. "No, you cannot smoke hemp
clothes." Yet, even minute traces are enough to make hemp cultivation
illegal throughout much of the world. Says a frustrated Rich: "We don't
mix dope and rope. It's about business. It's not about politics or
marijuana. It's about money." He gets no argument from the Dongping
mill's gainfully employed workers. Many can be seen sporting their
hempwear like a badge of honor. That's a trend that Rich hopes will
spread like a weed.