Pubdate: Thu, 04 Apr 2002
Source: Boston Phoenix (MA)
Copyright: 2002 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group.
Contact:  http://www.bostonphoenix.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/54
Author: Nina Willdorf
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hemp.htm (Hemp)

THE WAR AGAINST HEMP

First it was medical marijuana. Now the Bush administration is taking 
aim at hemp-food products. What will be next?

There's no doubt about it: Jimmy Trapella loves his hemp. Hanging 
outside Newbury Street's Hempest, Jimmy's about to chomp into a 
hempseed bar. Earlier this morning, he enjoyed hempseed sprinkled on 
his bowl of breakfast cereal and had some hempseed nuts on a salad 
for lunch.

Jimmy owns a hemp wardrobe, too, including a belt, pants, bag, and 
shirt - most of which he's currently wearing. And the 25-year-old is 
contemplating writing a song about hemp for his band. But despite his 
blissed-out devotion to the leafy green, Jimmy is not as chill as one 
might surmise. That's because, depending on the outcome of an 
upcoming legal battle in the California courts, Jimmy's afternoon 
snack could soon land him in prison.

"I'm bummed," he says.

If you think hemp equals marijuana, you're not alone. But in fact, 
the two plants are actually different varieties of the same species. 
One is grown to maximize fiber content, the other to maximize 
psychochemical effect. One is legal in brownies, the other isn't. One 
was grown as a cash crop by our forebears, the other was not inhaled 
by a recent president.

But it seems even the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has 
difficultly differentiating between the two. In October, the DEA 
published an interpretive rule in the Federal Register banning 
hemp-food products containing any amount of tetrahydrocannabinol 
(THC), the psychoactive compound found in marijuana. The rule - which 
included an exemption for personal-care products like soap and 
shampoo and industrial products like paper, rope, and clothing - 
reinterpreted the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, which classified 
all drugs into five groups. The DEA's rule also effectively rewrote a 
60-year-old definition from the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, which stated 
that "neither the mature stalk of the hemp plant nor the fiber 
produced there from contains any drug, narcotic, or harmful property 
whatsoever."

"Given the recent increase in marketing of these so-called 'hemp' 
products in the United States," reads the rule, written by DEA 
administrator Asa Hutchinson, "and given that many such products have 
recently been determined to contain THC, DEA has repeatedly been 
asked in recent months whether the THC content of such products 
renders them controlled substances despite the fact that they are 
reportedly made from portions of the cannabis plant that are excluded 
from the definition of marijuana."

The agency's decision: yes. As a result, all hemp intended for 
consumption that contains any amount of THC has suddenly been 
classified as a Schedule I substance - which means that, according to 
the DEA's new regulation, Jimmy's afternoon snack is basically the 
same thing as smoking a joint, shooting smack, or dropping a tab. 
Hemp pretzels, nutrition bars, pancake mix, salad dressing, beer - 
all illegal. The new rule gave store owners a 120-day window to 
remove hemp-food products from their shelves.

Many in the industry cried foul. Led by the Hemp Industries 
Association (HIA), a trade organization representing more than 250 
companies and small businesses, seven manufacturers banded together 
and filed a request for a formal review of the rule in the Ninth 
Circuit Court of Appeals. "[The DEA's rules] were arbitrary, they 
didn't follow due process, and they weren't based on due process," 
argues John Roulac, founder of Nutiva, which manufactures hemp and 
flax bars, among other hemp products. "What we're doing is perfectly 
legal, healthy, sustainable." The review, which begins April 8 in San 
Francisco, could effectively reverse the DEA's rule. In addition, 
Canadian company Kenex has accused the US government of violating the 
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by impeding the import of 
hemp seeds. In March, the company filed notice of an intent to 
arbitrate under NAFTA's Chapter 11, requesting tens of millions of 
dollars in compensation for lost revenues.

In the meantime, the group of hemp supporters filed an urgent motion 
to stay the DEA's rule, which would allow stores to continue to stock 
their hemp-food products. "This action seriously threatens our 
business," the motion reads, "to the point that we may need to shut 
down our operations and force us to go out of business." In early 
March, the Ninth Circuit granted the stay, meaning that until the 
court finishes its review of the rule and renders its final decision, 
it's still legal to sell - and consume - hemp-food products.

Michael Cutler, a drug-policy-reform advocate and an attorney for the 
Voluntary Committee of Lawyers, sees the stay as substantial 
indication that the feds' case has little merit. "I don't think the 
government's even close to having a case," he says. "The fact that a 
circuit court would step on a government agency, particularly the 
DEA, is extraordinary. And to do it as an emergency-injunctive 
action, with only affidavits, and without evidence," is even more 
extraordinary.

Human have made use of hemp plants for 10,000 years. In fact, its 
devotees are fond of throwing historical information at the 
government, such as the claim that both George Washington and Thomas 
Jefferson grew hemp. And they tirelessly point out that while 
marijuana and hemp are both classified as Cannabis sativa, the first 
is bred for maximum THC content, and the second is bred for maximum 
fiber content.

Industrial hemp plants, a tall, stalk-like variety, are bred for 
exceptionally low THC content, and can be harvested either for their 
seeds (also known as nuts) or their oil. The seed's outer shell 
contains trace amounts of THC, which may brush against the nut, but 
the psychochemical component can be removed with dabs of alcohol or 
the whisk of a brush, says Richard Rose, founder of hempseed-food 
maker HempNut Inc. After it's been extracted, the seed can be turned 
into anything from crunchy nuts and pretzels to salad oil. And 
according to the HIA, the small nuts are gaining steam: estimated 
retail sales for hemp-food and body-care products in the US exceeded 
$25 million in 2000, up from less than $1 million in the early ' 90s.

Sure enough, at the Hempest outlet in Northampton, about a dozen 
people come in every day to enjoy a cup of hempseed coffee. Ed Dodge, 
a member of the Massachusetts Green Party and a hemp aficionado, says 
he also eats hemp daily. He mentions the Galaxy Restaurant in New 
York. "They have a whole hemp-food menu. Twenty different hempseed 
dishes. They've got the best veggie burger I've eaten in my entire 
life!"

Enthusiasts also tout the hempseed's health benefits, derived from an 
optimal mix of essential fatty acids omega-3 and omega-6 (those found 
in fish and wheat germ, for example), as well as its high protein 
content. Alternative-health expert Andrew Weil, author of the Self 
Healing newsletter, is a fan of hemp-food products, writing that 
"hemp oil contains more essential fatty acids than flax and actually 
tastes good. It is nutty and free from the objectionable undertones 
of flax oil. I use it on salads, baked potatoes, and other foods."

Cynthia Sass, a nutritionist referred by the American Dietetic 
Association and a professor at the University of South Florida, adds 
that "hempseed also is a good source of vitamin E. It's real high in 
protein. Hemp is equivalent to soy beans in its protein content, 
which is really good." Still, she cautions that while the seed and 
oil have a good "nutritional profile," there aren't any studies that 
indicate whether or not the vitamin E, protein, and essential fatty 
acids actually offer health benefits when ingested via the plant. 
"There hasn't been any research done in which doctors gave people 
hemp and then followed them to see whether their blood pressure or 
something else improved. So there's no connection between consumption 
and health benefits. Even though it has some positive nutrients in 
it, we need to look for some more research and continue to consume 
other nutrients. There's no one super food that everyone needs to be 
eating."

Strong as the hemp-food market may be, it's not the high-powered arm 
of the hemp industry. Apparently, one can fashion more than 25,000 
products out of the stuff, including hammocks, magazines, hacky 
sacks, frisbees, embroidery thread, candles, coffee filters, teddy 
bears, and, of course, lots and lots of elastic-waisted, 
loose-fitting hemp clothes.

As the law currently stands, all that remains legal even if the DEA's 
rule isn't overturned. But industry insiders are nervous that they 
may be headed down a slippery slope. First food, then lip balm, then 
body lotion, they fear - and then the whole shebang. So companies 
other than those that manufacture hemp food have gotten involved. 
"The DEA is just picking on the food industry now," says Roulac. 
"[But] the body-care industry is next."

Some surmise the DEA has bolstered its case against hemp because 
ingested hemp oil can cause a false-positive result on drug tests. In 
1997, the Journal of Analytical Toxicology published a study showing 
that a person who ingested 135 milliliters of hempseed oil twice a 
day for four days tested positive for marijuana in the blood. In 
January 2000, the Air Force banned the oil after a soldier tested 
positive for drug use - and traced it back to a hempseed dietary 
supplement. It may be that government officials fear drug users could 
blame a positive drug-test result on hempseed oil or other hemp 
product, rather than on an illegal substance.

But in October 2000, the Division of Forensic Toxicology at the Armed 
Forces Institute of Pathology found that "the concentration of THC in 
hemp-oil products has been reduced considerably since the publication 
of earlier studies." After volunteers ingested the products, the 
report's authors claimed, "all volunteers were below positive screen 
and confirmation cutoffs within 48 hours after cessation of 
ingestion."

Subsequent studies have also thrown the false-positive fears out the 
window. Most recently, an environmental-consulting firm in Berkeley, 
California, found that THC concentrations from foods containing seeds 
or oil are "sufficiently low to prevent confirmed positives."

Testing aside, the question for the DEA may be why now? With a war 
going on, doesn't the government have better things to worry about?

"The US government has had a war against the hemp industry for a long 
time; this is just another round," explains Nutiva's Roulac. "They 
realized that everyone was distracted with domestic security, they 
could do things like this without much public notice," asserts Don 
Wirthshafter, founder of the Ohio Hempery, a hemp-product 
manufacturer. "The same week, they came down on medical-marijuana 
clubs in California and physician-assisted suicide in Oregon. They 
thought they could get away with it then."

More important, those in the hemp industry believe, the fact that the 
government sat on the issue for a year indicates that the products 
don't pose the critical health threat the DEA posits. "Obviously, 
having waited almost a year to issues these rules," court papers 
read, "DEA does not believe the products in question pose any threat 
to public health or safety, let alone an imminent threat warranting 
immediate placement of these products on Schedule I of the 
[Controlled Substances Act]."

So if it's not a health issue, what's the problem? Some allege that 
the DEA has been pressured into action by the religious right. The 
conservative Family Research Council (FRC) issued an extensive appeal 
to snuff out the hemp industry in December 2000. In an article titled 
"Hemp Is Marijuana: Should Farmers Grow It?", Robert Maginnis, 
vice-president for national security and foreign affairs at the FRC, 
wrote, "legalizing hemp sends the wrong message about its look-alike, 
marijuana.... Selling hemp products is clearly about marijuana 
legalization."

David Bronner disagrees. And as chair of the HIA's food-and-oil 
committee and president of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a personal-care 
company whose products contain hemp and whose packaging (also made of 
hemp) features religious messages, Bronner sits at an intriguing 
intersection of hemp advocacy and Christian morals. "Industrial hemp 
has a phenomenal nutritional profile," he says. "The DEA is trying to 
undercut the most promising growth market in the near future."

But none of the dea documents addresses the crux of the case: can you 
get high from eating hemp-food products? The level of THC in hempseed 
is reportedly so low that, as one hemp advocate huffs, "the products 
don't have a high enough concentration of THC to intoxicate an ant, 
let alone a human being."

Says attorney Michael Cutler, "You can eat hemp pretzels till you 
explode, and you won't get high. It ain't there. You can't stack it 
up and get it in there. What you have in there is not metabolizable 
into something that's psychoactive. There's really no scientific 
dispute about that."

Nutritionist Sass concurs: "I haven't seen any research to show that 
the psychoactive effects of using marijuana plants as a drug would 
have the same effects as eating [hemp foods]. I've never had anyone 
tell me they would eat it for that reason. Everyone I've ever talked 
to who is or who has considered eating hemp is doing it because they 
think it's healthy." Sass pauses, laughing. "And I work at a 
university."

Canada's Hempola even tried an experiment to see whether eating 
enough hemp-food products could possibly turn a test positive. In the 
test, the country's top-ranking masters triathlete ingested hempseed 
oil at six times the typical consumption rate for a series of days. 
"He went in for a drug test," explains Hempola's founder and 
president Greg Herriott, "and he came out negative."

It's been illegal to grow hemp in the US since the 1950s, so most 
hempseed found in this country is imported from Canada and follows 
that country's strict Health Canada Protocol guidelines: a plant must 
contain no more than three-tenths of one percent THC, or five parts 
per million (ppm) for hemp oil and 1.5 ppm for shelled hempseeds.

Here in the US, the DEA claims that hemp foods containing zero 
percent THC are perfectly legal under the new rule. But insiders 
argue that's impossible, because hemp products with zero percent THC 
don't exist. According to them, you can always find trace amounts if 
you look hard enough. But companies currently selling hemp-food 
products have tested below the current THC-detection standards, which 
are set by the Canadian government.

In fact, Richard Rose has pitted his HempNut Inc., based in Santa 
Rosa, California, against its competitors and cozied up to the DEA by 
claiming its products actually do contain zero percent THC. "Cleaning 
THC off of hemp seed is easy, doable," he says. "Just clean off the 
THC." But even Rose worries that appealing the DEA's ruling could 
pave the way for renegotiating testing standards, which could allow 
the DEA to lower the bar to, say, five parts per billion. "This ban 
was a get-out-of-jail-free card for 90 percent of the industry," he 
says.

Others in the hemp industry associated with HIA aren't pleased with 
Rose's public swagger. In retaliation, they tested his products for 
THC, lowering the bar just a wee bit. "HempNut has trace THC in 
there, and we found it using marginally stronger detection 
protocols," says the HIA's Bronner. And that illustrates the 
industry's ultimate point: "It's absolutely impossible to get all the 
THC off the seed," Bronner says. "You can spend an arbitrary amount 
of money to clean [the seeds], but it's only going to go out so many 
zeros. You're always going to have some. You'll always be able to see 
it if you look far enough down."

Zero percent THC, almost zero percent - what's the biggie? It's a big 
deal when you consider that in between zero and teensy amounts of the 
stuff is where the DEA has found a window to prosecute. It doesn't 
matter that you can't get high from trace amounts of THC; the fact 
that the chemical is in there at all has allowed the agency to 
classify the food product as a toxic substance.

Bronner's concerned that Rose's naysaying may invalidate the 
industry's primary legal recourse. "We have to stand and fight now. 
Everyone in the industry realizes that except for this one company."

Whatever the court's decision - which is expected to come down within 
six to nine months - the hemp-food industry has already taken a hit. 
Somewhere in the midst of all the legalese, the slew of articles in 
papers across the country, and the HIA's urgent appeals for action, 
consumers are confused, the industry is splintering, and small 
businesses are hurting.

Natural-food chain Whole Foods (known locally as Bread & Circus) 
removed all hemp-food products from its shelves in February, for 
example, when its suppliers were unable to produce documentation that 
their products were completely THC-free. In mid March, after the stay 
was granted, the chain restocked the items.

As a result of actions like these, hemp companies are reporting 
plummeting sales. "My sales are down 75 to 80 percent across the 
country," says HempNut 's Rose. "I've been managing phone calls from 
Topeka, Kansas, saying, 'Where do I send these hemp foods? They're 
illegal. I don't want the DEA to come in and raid me!' They're 
actually afraid. They're whipped into a tizzy." Adds Hempola's 
Herriott, "Consumers are fearful of purchasing hemp-food products, 
especially if they're obligated to have drug testing at work."

But some other companies are reporting an uptick from the unexpected 
publicity. "We've picked up some new customers," says Nutiva's 
Roulac. "Some of our current retailers are seeing a rush from 
consumers to pick it up."

Rose, however, claims any and all damage is irreparable. "Once you 
destroy the industry, it doesn't matter what the DEA does. People 
misreading the rule have created the very thing the DEA was trying to 
do."

Adds Ohio Hempery's Wirthshafter, "It's discouraging to me because 
the government, just by threatening this a year ago, cut out our 
market. These companies got scared away from hemp. This may come back 
in a year or so, when we finish these court battles, but it was a 
real setback for my business and my industry."

But hemp appreciators aren't giving up any time soon: they'll fight 
to the end for their super herb. "Hemp's one of those things, once 
you get involved in it, it's like jumping into a black hole," says 
Nutiva's Roulac. "The government is very intimidated by hemp. It is 
their mission to destroy the entire hemp industry. But the genie has 
already jumped out of the bottle. The more they try to stop it, the 
more ridiculous they look."

SIDEBAR:

Taster's Choice?

LEGAL ACTION. Industry infighting. Health claims. Drug tests. Okay, 
but what does hemp taste like? I sample a few hemp-food products to 
see what all the fuss is about. At the Hempest, I pick up an Alpsnack 
nutrition bar made of hempnuts, nuts, and fruit. It tastes just like 
any other all-natural, tree-huggin' treat: a little bland. I also try 
a lime-green hemp lollipop. It's pungent and smells like, as a friend 
puts it, a " shwag-pop. " After a few licks, I can't take anymore. 
Hempola sends over some foods to taste - from salad dressings to 
high-protein pancake mix made with organic spelt and hempseed flour. 
For dinner, I pour some honey-Dijon-hempseed dressing on a bed of 
lettuce. It tastes like ... salad dressing.

- - NW

Betcha didn't know that ...

. In the 1930s, Henry Ford made a car from hemp and other crops " 
grown from the soil. " These days, BMW is reportedly working on its 
own set of wheels that replaces fiberglass matte with hemp.

. Christopher Columbus's ships were rigged with industrial hemp ropes 
and sales.

. The original Levi's jeans, made for Sierra Nevada gold rushers, 
were made of rugged hemp sailcloth. A current vintage line includes 
40 percent hemp.

. The Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper.

. Betsy Ross reportedly sewed the first US flag with hemp thread.

. Rembrandt and van Gogh painted on hemp canvas.

Information gathered from the North American Industrial Hemp Counsel, 
MASS CANN, the Hemp Industries Association, and Rowan Robinson's The 
Hemp Manifesto (Park Street Press, 1997).

- - Nina Willdorf
- ---
MAP posted-by: Josh