Pubdate: Sat, 27 Jan 2001
Source: Rapid City Journal (SD)
Copyright: 2001 The Rapid City Journal
Contact:  PO Box 450, Rapid City SD 57709
Fax: (605) 394-8463
Website: http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/
Author: Denise Ross

HEMP BILL PLOWED UNDER

PIERRE -- A state legislative committee decided Friday that South Dakota
farmers shouldn't grow industrial hemp.

Members of the Senate State Affairs Committee said they worry that law
enforcement would have trouble distinguishing hemp plants from
marijuana.

"There is a potential risk to society, and we have to weigh the
potential benefits to society. I would conclude the benefits aren't
there," Sen. Fred Whiting, R-Rapid City, said. "There is not an economic
benefit that outweighs the danger to society."

Whiting referred to testimony taken Wednesday, where those who want
industrial hemp to be a legal crop said the worldwide market was about
$500 billion and that the United States imports hundreds of millions
worth of hemp products each year. They touted its environmental
benefits. The plant doesn't require irrigation, pesticides or
herbicides, and it crowds out noxious weeds.

Farmers said hemp works well as a plant to capture carbon from the
atmosphere, one strategy pushed as a way to ease global warming.

Opponents questioned the market and said Canadian hemp businesses had
gone broke.

The bill would have capped the level of the high-producing ingredient in
marijuana -- THC -- to 0.3 percent, but law enforcement officials would
have to perform chemical tests to determine that level, lawmakers said
Friday.

"We put law enforcement in the position of having to be chemical
analysts," Sen. Dennis Daugaard, R-Garretson, said. "We have to remember
why it was made illegal in the first place. It was difficult for law
enforcement to distinguish."

Others said states need to take action on the issue to force a national
policy to regulate industrial hemp.

"Let me assure you there will never be a market so long as it's an
illegal product," Sen. Paul Symens, D-Amherst, said.

States shouldn't outlaw anhydrous ammonia, even though it's a key
ingredient in the drug methamphetamine, the country's "biggest scourge,"
Symens said. "We've made marijuana the bogey-man, and industrial hemp
bears the burden."

Bob Newland of Hermosa, who supports legalizing marijuana for medical
purposes and industrial-hemp production, called the committee action "a
tragedy."

"I think this is essentially a 10th Amendment issue -- states rights,"
Newland said. "George W. Bush said during his campaign that he was in
favor of letting states decide about industrial hemp and medical
marijuana." The Legislature had the opportunity to change the state law
but did not take it, he said.

Sen. Barb Everist, R-Sioux Falls, said the state should pursue research
on hemp before it legalizes the crop. The matter is now before the Iowa
Legislature, and Everist said South Dakota could act based on Iowa's
action before the session ends in early March.

"Some ideas could float to the surface in terms of cooperative
research," Everist said. Other lawmakers suggested hemp be the focus of
a summer study committee.
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