Drug Watch International

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.

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Jeanette McDougal, a St. Paul, Minn., schoolteacher, is chairwoman of Drug Watch International's hemp committee.

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