New York Times article on hemp

The New York Times yesterday (p. A16) published an article on hemp in Kentucky, after Senator Mitch McConnell joined Senator Rand Paul in his support of hemp, and after a meeting on 11 February in which the issue was debated. Kentuckians are most supportive of this, see the plethora of previous posts for the current and past history. Below, Trip Gabriel reports on the issue as follows:

Hemp Growing Finds Allies of a New Stripe in Kentucky

The Courier-Journal, via Associated Press

In the summer of 1952, hemp plants growing wild in a lot in downtown Louisville, Ky., were killed with chemical spray.

 

FRANKFORT, Ky. — In 1996 the actor Woody Harrelson, who has a sideline as an activist for legalizing marijuana, was arrested in Kentucky for planting four hemp seeds.       

 

 

James Crisp/Associated Press

Senator Rand Paul supports legalizing the growing of hemp in the United States.

 

John Sommers II/Reuters

Woody Harrelson in 1996.

Last month Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, announced his support for growing hemp in Kentucky, his home state.

Between those jarringly disparate events lies the evolution of hemp from a countercultural cause to an issue championed by farmers in the heartland and conservative lawmakers.

On Monday, a panel of the Republican-controlled Kentucky State Senate unanimously approved a bill to license hemp growers. It was promoted by the state agriculture commissioner and three members of the state’s Congressional delegation, including Senator Rand Paul, who removed his jacket to testify in a white shirt that he announced was made of hemp fibers.

If the bill is approved by the full Legislature, Kentucky will join eight other states that have adopted laws to allow commercial hemp growing, although the practice is effectively blocked by federal law that makes no distinction between hemp and marijuana.

Mr. Paul, a Republican, said he would seek a waiver from the Obama administration for Kentucky hemp growers, while pressing Congress to delist hemp as a controlled substance, which hemp supporters say is a legacy of antidrug hysteria.

Both plants are the same species, Cannabis sativa, but hemp has only a trace of the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Hemp’s champions see it as a source of agricultural jobs, an alternative for struggling tobacco farmers and a wonder plant with uses from bluejeans to building materials.

Attitudes are changing in surprising places. At a hearing on Monday in Frankfort, the Kentucky capital, the state police commissioner’s opposition to hemp growing was challenged by a former C.I.A. director, R. James Woolsey.

“The specter of people getting high on industrial hemp,” Mr. Woolsey said, “is pretty much exactly like saying you can get drunk on O’Doul’s.”

Hemp supporters say it is only a matter of time before legalization comes as people more fully understand the plant. They also point to states where voters legalized recreational marijuana in November — Colorado and Washington — as inevitably forcing a change in priorities in the Obama administration.

“The demonology of hemp is exposed as being not valid,” said Representative John Yarmuth, Democrat of Kentucky, a sponsor of a bill in the House to allow hemp cultivation. He said the movement to accept hemp has the same inevitability that he attributed to acceptance of same-sex marriage.

Still, the federal government has been unyielding. Farmers in states that allow hemp must seek a waiver from the Drug Enforcement Administration or risk being raided by federal agents and losing their farms.

Dave Monson, a North Dakota wheat farmer and Republican state representative, has held a state hemp license since 2007, when North Dakota legalized cultivation. But he has no plans to plant. “I applied for a D.E.A. license, never got one,” he said.

A spokesman for the drug agency said it did not keep statistics on permits to grow hemp, which it does not distinguish from marijuana under the Controlled Substance Act of 1970.

Mr. Monson knows farmers just north of the Canadian border who profitably grow hemp, and he argues that it can be an economic boon. “The more states that do what we have done in North Dakota, if we can keep the pressure on, I think we’re going to see some movement at the federal level,” he said.

Hemp supporters claim a total retail value of products containing hemp at more than $400 million in the United States. But a Congressional Research Service report last year found that imported hemp raw materials was small, only $11.5 million. All hemp used in United States today — such as in Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps sold at Whole Foods — is imported, mostly from China.

Rodney Brewer, the commissioner of the Kentucky State Police, said that if hemp farming were legal, marijuana growers would hide their plants in hemp fields and the police could not tell them apart.

“They are identical in appearance when it comes to the naked eye,” Mr. Brewer said, predicting that legalizing hemp would create a boom for pot growers.

But Mr. Woolsey, who said he favored hemp because of “my interest in prosperity for rural America,” argued that no pot farmer would hide plants in a hemp field for fear that low-potency hemp would cross-pollinate with marijuana and lower the concentration of THC, its psychoactive ingredient.

Marijuana growers “hate the idea of having industrial hemp anywhere near,” he said.

The Kentucky bill faces resistance from some lawmakers, including the speaker of the State House.

Mr. Paul, after calling attention to his hemp shirt at the hearing in Frankfort, seemed to roll his eyes when he said, “You’d think you’re at a D.E.A. hearing.”

“This is a hearing about a crop,” he said. “It’s a crop that’s legal everywhere else in the world except the United States.”

Mr. Paul, elected in 2010 with Tea Party support, promised to introduce a Senate bill as a companion to the pro-hemp bill in the House, which has 28 co-sponsors. He is following in the family footsteps, since the first House bill allowing hemp was introduced several years ago by his father, Ron Paul, a former Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate. Ron Paul’s embrace of the issue fit his deep libertarian streak, which also at times embraced legalizing marijuana and other drugs.

Those positions placed hemp far outside the mainstream in many lawmakers’ minds, just as the image of its products — soaps, sandals and natural foods sold at co-ops — placed it in a counterculture.

But no better sign exists that hemp’s image is changing than its embrace by Mr. McConnell, the minority leader, who said in a statement last month that his mind had been changed “after long discussions” with Rand Paul and the Kentucky agriculture commissioner, James Comer, a Republican.

“The utilization of hemp to produce everything from clothing to paper is real,” Mr. McConnell said.

Hemp debate: hope or dope? Former Kentucky governor admits mistake

Just in from Mina Hegaard, whose petition for making hemp legal is at www.minawear.com/about-us/ - she sent me a thread of the debate on whether hemp is dope and an admission from a former governor of Kentucky that is it not, with previous arguments and counter-arguments.

 

Hemp Debate in the Lexington Herald-Leader

 

Kentucky Voices: We Can Differentiate Between Hemp, Marijuana

By Louie B. Nunn, Former Governor of Kentucky

Lexington Herald-Leader, Feb. 19, 2001

It is time to separate reality from rhetoric. When I was governor, I listened to all sides of the issues, carefully considered all opinions before me and tried to be fair in my responses. Being actively involved in public service, Iam often asked for my opinion on various matters affecting our state.

 

One of the most recent, the industrial hemp issue, has also proven to be one of the most important.

 

Although Kentucky has long been known for its historical hemp industry, it wasn't until about a year ago that I became educated about industrial hemp. Frankly, I was opposed to the legalization of hemp for years because I had been of the opinion that hemp was marijuana. I was shortsighted in my thinking, and I was wrong.

Last year, as our farmers struggled with the loss of 65 percent of their tobacco income, I was asked to examine information on hemp. What I learned was that hemp is not a drug, and never was. After studying the facts, I believe hemp cultivation has the potential to make a positive impact on our faltering agricultural economy and to create economic opportunities for Kentucky farmers and local industries.

I am concerned with all the misleading and intimidating rhetoric being offered to politicians as facts. We Kentuckians have been so mired in misinformation about industrial hemp that it has become difficult to distinguish reality from rhetoric.

They say politics makes strange bedfellows, but none stranger than marijuana growers and law enforcement. Like preachers and bootleggers, they oppose legislation for different self-serving reasons.

Law enforcement opposes legalizing hemp production because officers get paid to destroy it, while marijuana growers oppose legalization because hemp cross-pollinates and destroys marijuana's potency. And neither side talks about Orincon, a company with the technology to differentiate marijuana and hemp from up to 5,000 feet in the air, and other simple

in-field tests that accomplish the same results.

But despite these diametrically opposing sides, there is a middle ground where common sense and rational people exist together.

For instance, the North American Industrial Hemp Council is so adamantly opposed to ``mixing the message,'' it will not accept pro-marijuana members. Its membership includes James Woolsey, former head of the CIA; Jeff Gain, former director of the National Corn Growers Association; Erwin Sholts, former head of the Wisconsin Department of Agricultural Diversification; Raymond Berard, vice president of Interface Carpets (a billion dollar industry); Curtis Koster, formerly of International Paper; and Shelby Thames, a distinguished professor of polymer science at University of Southern Mississippi.

The list goes on to include farmers, businessmen, legislators and 16 other states in the process of passing legislation encouraging the growth of industrial hemp. Is it rational to say all of these folks are involved with the effort to legalize marijuana?

Should we listen when Canada's Royal Mounted Police report no problems regulating hemp, or is that force also working to legalize marijuana?

I know Kentucky State Police are as well educated as their Canadian counterparts and could as easily understand and incorporate industrial hemp regulations.

As difficult issues are analyzed with just, unbiased and sensible minds, solutions reached are usually fair and beneficial to all. Why should the industrial hemp issue be treated any differently? We should be looking forward to the time when intelligence and truth overshadow rhetoric and lack of knowledge.

Remember, we can't distinguish between Kentucky white moonshine and spring water by looking, but we haven't seen fit to outlaw spring water.

 

�Hemp A Cover For Legalizing Pot�

By Jeanette McDougal, St. Paul, Minn., Chairwoman Of� Drug Watch International's Hemp Committee

Lexington Herald-Leader, March 19, 2001

Separating hemp reality from hemp rhetoric is like separating fleas from dogs: It's hard to do, and it's temporary. When one hemp fact is established, pro-hemp advocates rush in with another of their own facts. Should we really turn for facts to former CIA Director James Woolsey, who bragged about his client the North American Industrial Hemp Council, by saying there was not a tie-dyed shirt owner among the members? He neglected to check their boxers. Several of the board members were either vigorous pro-drug advocates or their close associates.

David Morris, former vice-president of the council, pushed legalization of marijuana, marijuana cigarettes for medicine and industrial cannabis hemp for years in his columns in the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press.

Andrew Graves, founding and former board member, was party to a lawsuit to permit the growing of industrial cannabis hemp. The two lead lawyers in that suit Michael Kennedy of New York and Burl McCoy of Kentucky are on the roster of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, an aggressive pro-marijuana legalization advocate.

Actor Woody Harrelson, an admitted pot smoker, marijuana and hemp advocate, hired Joe Hickey, executive director of the Kentucky Hemp Growers Association, as a consultant, allowing Hickey to leave his former job and devote all his time to hemp. Harrelson has sponsored many Kentucky hemp events, including a hemp essay contest for Kentucky schoolchildren, some of whom received a list of hemp facts intermingled with marijuana facts, such as, ``smoking marijuana can be beneficial for emphysema, and can be used as a handy way to induce dry mouth before dental operations.''

John Howell, former hemp editor of High Times magazine, was in Kentucky in 1998 to help Graves, Kennedy and McCoy publicize the message that there is a hemp market. Howell recently represented the cannabis hemp industry at the National Conference of State Legislatures, without disclosing his ties to High Times.

High Times, one of the oldest and most militant pro-drug/marijuana publications in the United States, announced in its March 1990 edition an ``extraordinary plan'' to legalize marijuana:

``The way to legalize marijuana is to sell marijuana legally. When you can buy marijuana in your neighborhood shopping mall, it's legal ... Anything and everything you can think of will be made from hemp ... Supporters of the hemp legalization movement will be able to buy shares in hemp manufacturing. ... Legal and financial recognition of hemp's industrial value will mean legal marijuana, whether our government likes it or not! Pot will be legal! ... So invest in our future. Buy some legal marijuana. Buy a hemp shirt and wear it proudly!''

As to the economics of cannabis hemp, in 1999 about 540 Canadian farmers planted 35,000 acres of hemp. About 18,700 of those acres were contracted to a company called Consolidated Growers, which went bankrupt (Chapter 7) in February 2000, leaving 232 Canadian farmers� (almost half of those who planted hemp that year) holding the hemp bag for $5 million to $6 million. Much of the 1999 crop is still being stored by Canadian farmers.

In 2000, in all of Canada, a mere 13,500 acres were planted, down from 35,000 the year before. Ontario, the only province to do a costs/return per acre analysis, discovered that for fiber only, there was a $107 loss; for grain only, a $24 loss; and for grain and fiber, a $48 profit. An agriculture ministry official also warned farmers to have a contract with a reputable company before planting hemp, or they could lose $600 an acre.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the market for hemp fibers ``will likely remain a small, thin market.'' The report calculates that U.S. imports of hemp fiber, yarn, fabric and seed in 1999 could have been produced on less than 5,000 acres.

The hemp liability list goes on and on and on.

 

Reactions: �Attack On Hemp Unfair,� Lexington Herald-Leader, March 22, 2001

 

� By Louie B. Nunn, Woodford County

It appears that Jeanette McDougal of Drug Watch International mixed a few facts with a lot of misinformation in the anti-hemp commentary that appeared in Monday's Herald-Leader. It's the old legal tactic: If you don't have the law or facts, attack the person.

I have known the Graves family for three generations. During World War II the federal government asked the Graves family, as well as many other Kentucky farmers, to grow hemp for the war effort. Everyone was thanking them in those days instead of attempting to malign them as McDougal did. I know of no member of Andy Graves' family, passed or present, who would approve of or promote the production or use of marijuana.

As for Woody Harrelson, I defended him without charge in the name of liberty and justice. I didn't know him before the trial. He came here to test a legal concept in the interest of Kentucky farmers. No one was harmed.

 

McDougal and I have talked by telephone. She faxed me much outdated and narrowly interpreted material.

Modern technology can immediately distinguish between the industrial hemp plants and the marijuana plants, as can the naked eye. We should destroy the marijuana plant, but make every possible use of the industrial hemp plant.

In an honest effort to do both, there is no need to try to destroy decent people by insinuation, slander, guilt by association or the use of outdated or misdirected information.

I admire and support McDougal's objective, but shame on the course she has taken.

 

        By Erik Rothenberg, Director, VoteHemp.Com, Los Angeles

Employing innuendo and specious logic, Jeanette McDougal put forth an all-out conspiracy theory of farmers, businessmen, politicians and others concealing secret identities as pot-smoking hippies engaged in the most seditious form of cultural treason: the legalization of marijuana through the re-commercialization of industrial hemp.

For those of us in the real world, hemp enjoys its current widespread bipartisan support because of its proven benefits in 31 other countries. In fact, the irony of McDougal's hysteria is that it is completely misplaced considering that more case law and legislation now exists to grow and use medical marijuana while low-THC hemp remains illegal.

But beware of confusing McDougal with the facts, as her focus is to establish guilt by association. The mere insinuation that an individual is even indirectly linked to what still passes for cultural taboo is offered as a poor excuse for a legitimate gripe. One should note that her complaints have yet to be reconciled with the increasingly long roster of conservative politicians and industrialists who support hemp.

Apparently the crown jewel of McDougal's conspiracy musings is a High Times article published more than 10 years ago, wishfully referring to hemp clothing as ``legal pot.'' Sorry, but inflating the implications of the unfortunate semantics of a biased journalist does not exactly a conspiracy make.

The informed citizen, armed with the hard facts about industrial hemp's well-established commercial potential and environmental benefits will eventually triumph over McDougal's pitiable campaign of misinformation, demagoguery and character smears.