A Republican Campaigns for Hemp at a Rock Festival

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

ODENA, N.Y. Fred A. Maslack made the long drive down from southern
Vermont in the oldest car with Vermont legislative plates, his rusting
1982 Dodge Diplomat.

Maslack, 38, a conservative Republican state representative, had come to
this village, 70 miles north of New York City, on Friday to give the
keynote address at a threeday event that was expected to attract 4,000
people.

"It's about a classic Republican issue," said Maslack, who is also a
slate quarrier from East Poultney, Vt. "It's all about getting
government out of the way so people can go out and make money."

But nothing around him at the Lembo Lake campground appeared remotely
Republican. A rainbowhaired band called the Cheezbutts thrashed through
a pounding rock tune. Hemp burgers sizzled on a griddle. A vendor in a
tiedyed Tshirt hawked skullshaped hashish pipes. And the breeze held
the distinct, pungent tang of marijuana smoke.

The issue that the Vermont legislator shared with the crowd around him
was legalization of the cultivation of hemp, a lowpotency variety of
Cannabis sativa, the ancient multipurpose weed that during World War II
supplied Allied troops with cord and rope and during the 1960s supplied
hippies with altered states of mind.

Maslack's goal was to pass laws in Vermont that permit the licensing of
farmers who seek to grow industrial varieties of hemp that contain no
significant concentration of THC, the chemical that causes a high among
marijuana smokers. "Our farmers need all the help they can get," he
said.

The goal of Robert Robinson, the manager of the threeday festival
billed as "Hemp Splash," was to promote the legal use of marijuana to
get high. "The last census said that 60 million Americans smoke," he
said. "For proof positive, just look around."

Maslack is part of an informal network of legislators from nearly a
dozen states where farming of industrial hemp has been promoted as a way
to boost agriculture and create textile and other jobs.

"It fits Vermont's niche," Maslack said, explaining that hemp is easily
cultivated even on rugged slopes. He held up a tuft of fibers next to a
bale of raw hemp stalks and explained how the material could be turned
into linenlike cloth. The plant's highprotein seeds, he added, could
be made into everything from soap to burger patties.

"Every other industrialized country is growing it, and making money at
it," he said.

At the festival, Maslack set up camp near the booth of the Vermont
Hemporium, a company selling hemp necklaces, backpacks, and other gear
all made from imported fibers.

Joseph Shimek, the company's owner, said he smokes marijuana, but was
mainly concerned with getting a cheap, local source of the raw material
for his goods. "This is about trying to make a stable business," he
said.

He helped Maslack promote legislation last year that allowed Vermont to
begin research on the crop's economic potential. The state's Democratic
Governor, Howard Dean, had opposed an earlier version of the law that
would have licensed hemp growers.

Maslack said he had taken on the hemp issue not only because the crop
could spur Vermont's agricultural economy, but also because he resented
how the Federal drug agency had lobbied states to prevent any shift
toward legalizing cannabis in any form.

Nancy J. Sheltra, a Republican colleague of Maslack's from Derby, Vt.,
said in a phone telephone interview that it surprised her to think of
Maslack speaking at a rock concert. "Except for this one issue, he has
been very conservative in the Republican Party here," said Ms. Sheltra,
who opposed the hemp licensing legislation.

But Maslack said he had no qualms about speaking at such a gathering. He
said what people do in private is their concern. But he said he was
determined to exploit the economic value of hemp as a source of fiber
and food.

As Maslack explained his dream of waving fields of fibrous hemp, those
around him in the campground remained more focused on marijuana's other
uses.

Behind a drape of hemp cloth, a man offered passersby a chance to
"vaporize."

"It's the safest way to inhale," he said, explaining that the marijuana
releases its potent vapors when it is heated to just below the
temperature at which it burns.

As dusk settled over the orchard, the crickets and cicadas were joined
by a chorus of clicking lighters.

Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company

Richard Lake
emailto:rlake@mapinc.org
The Media Awareness Project, Inc. http://www.mapinc.org/