Pubdate: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 Source: Daily Herald (IL) Copyright: 2000 The Daily Herald Company Contact: http://www.dailyherald.com/ Author: Joyce Lohrentz and Judy Kreamer HARMFUL HEMP BILLS The Illinois Senate and House of Representatives have before them "industrial hemp" bills. These bills have serious implications for increasing drug use. Hemp and marijuana are the same plant, cannabis sativa, which has the psychoactive ingredient, THC. It is being suggested that "industrial hemp" could be a vital, new crop for Illinois farmers. Yet, according to a new USDA report, there is only a negligible market for hemp. "Given the average size of farms in the United States (about 500 acres), just a few farms could have supplied the hemp fiber and seed equivalent of 1999 import levels." "Industrial hemp" and marijuana look alike, and short of chemical analysis, there is no way to discriminate between the two. Today, people clear patches in the middle of corn fields and grow marijuana plants, hidden from passers-by. If hemp is allowed to be grown in Illinois, then certainly high levels of THC in cultivated marijuana plants will also be growing. The demands on law enforcement will be tremendous. Levels of THC in "industrial hemp" are 0.1 to 0.3 percent, the same strength as the marijuana smoked in the 60s and 70s. Drug use is higher among youth in rural America than in large urban areas, according to a study done by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Rural eighth-graders are 34 percent likelier to smoke marijuana and 104 percent likelier to use methamphetamine. Trafficking and production of meth in rural communities has increased. This, in part, is due to the availability of chemicals used for farming and the cover that the vast farmlands offer production labs. A field of hemp could provide easy access to one more drug, compounding an already existing problem for Illinois rural communities. Pro-drug people have been quoted in High Times magazine as saying that the promotion of hemp is simply a campaign to legalize marijuana. "When people buy and see hemp it stimulates public awareness, mainstreaming the evil weed into a normal commodity whose days of illegality are numbered." (High Times, August 1997.) Some members of the General Assembly are saying that they want only to research the plant, and bill taxpayers $375,000. The Illinois Drug Education Alliance asks, what research needs to be done and money spent, when there is such a little market and growing hemp has such serious implications for Illinois youth? Founded in 1982, IDEA is a statewide, grassroots network of over 4,000 adults and youth working in drug prevention. Joyce Lohrentz, President Judy Kreamer, Past President Illinois Drug Education Alliance Naperville - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea