HEMP HULLABALOO AND THE GROOVY SUPE

Hemp can't get you high.

Nevertheless, while The City embraces hemp, the Drug Enforcement
Administration is trying to ban it.

Displayed outside The Body Shop's downtown store, advertisements with
drawings of marijuana-shaped leaves tout hemp as the best moisturizer in
the world. Another sign reads, "Hemp is hope, not dope."

Health food stores stock cereals, bread, ice cream and oils containing hemp.

An acre of hemp produces four times as much paper as an acre of timber,
said Supervisor Mark Leno.

"Hemp can make fabric that is sheerer than linen, softer than flannel and
more durable than denim," he said.

Nationwide, hemp products have annual sales of $25 million. Despite these
benefits, the DEA, under former Arkansas Congressman Asa Hutchinson, has
adopted a strict interpretation of a 1930s statute that prohibits goods
containing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. So far, the DEA is only going
after food products.

But while THC levels in marijuana are as high as 17 percent, the level in
industrial hemp is about .01 percent.

In other words, hemp isn't mind-altering.

"The federal government has confused hemp with marijuana," Leno said.
"Their position is not based on science at all. They should be reprimanded
for what they are doing."

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals temporarily barred the DEA from
enforcing the prohibition. Hemp activists had argued that by imposing the
ban, the DEA would overstep its authority to regulate substances that have
the potential for abuse.

"Federal statutes don't make a distinction if a product is 99 percent
loaded with THC or .001. Suffice it to say, this matter is being looked
into," said Greg Underwood of the San Francisco division of the DEA. "It's
an area of debate."

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, has been a strong opponent of the
DEA's actions. Nationwide, the company's No. 2 bestseller is its hemp hand
lotion, said Kenneth Isaacs, manager of The Body Shop in the Castro.

Hemp is high in essential fatty acids, proteins and vitamin E, making it an
ideal ingredient in food or body products, supporters said. The DEA hasn't
given The Body Shop any warnings because the company's merchandise isn't
ingestible.

But the company is "concerned about what's next," Isaacs said, especially
in regard to its hemp lip balm, which conceivably could be eaten. The
company has collected 450,000 signatures in protest of DEA, said Isaacs.

Ralph Bronner, vice president of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a company that
is one of the biggest users of hemp oil in North America, has lobbied on
behalf of small businesses that would be forced to shut down if hemp were
banned.

He said there has been no case of a person harmed by hemp, while thousands
have died from alcohol and tobacco.

"I've been waiting for the incredible evidence the DEA has, but all I get
is that the leaves look similar to marijuana," Bronner said. "Even that
isn't true. Industrial hemp is 8 feet high on stalks, and pot is small and
leafy. All the DEA has to do is train agents -- Look down, that's pot, look
up, that's hemp."


Newshawk: http://www.cannabisnews.com/
Pubdate: Thu, 14 Mar 2002
Source: San Francisco Examiner (CA)
Copyright: 2002 San Francisco Examiner
Contact: letters@sfexaminer.com
Website: http://www.examiner.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/389
Author: Joyce Nishioka