Pubdate: Thu, 14 Mar 2002
Source: San Francisco Examiner (CA)
Copyright: 2002 San Francisco Examiner
Contact:  http://www.examiner.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/389
Author: Joyce Nishioka
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hemp.htm (Hemp)

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."
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MAP posted-by: Ariel