Pubdate: Thu, 5 Mar 2009
Source: Providence Journal, The (RI)
Copyright: 2009 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.projo.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/352
Author: Froma Harrop
Note: Froma Harrop is a member of The Journal's editorial board and a 
syndicated columnist.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/industrial+hemp
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Dave+Monson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)

BIZARRE U.S. BANS HELP THE CANADIANS

WHEN A PIZZERIA closes, the pizzeria down the block usually sees a 
surge in business. That principle applies to commerce in the larger 
North American neighborhood. Whenever the United States locks the 
gate on a plausible economic activity, Canadians move in and profit.

The Bush administration's hostility toward embryonic stem-cell 
science created opportunity in Canada. Starved of adequate federal 
support, American labs doing this cutting-edge science shrank or 
closed down, and many of their researchers moved to Canada. Between 
2002 and 2007, the number of American university professors and 
assistants relocating to Canada jumped 27 percent, according to 
Canadian immigration officials. Some were stars in stem-cell research.

The Obama administration has ended that Canadian advantage by 
reversing the Bush policy. Canadians now fear that they might suffer 
their own brain-drain back to the United States -- and not just of 
Americans. European, Asian and other scientists who went to Canada 
rather than the United States may decide to head south.

A recent headline from Toronto's Globe and Mail says it all: "As U.S. 
emerges from Dark Age, Canada's scientific edge fades."

Hemp is a plant used to make paper, oils, textiles and other 
products. American farmers from George Washington on grew it. But 
because hemp is related to marijuana, the U.S. government outlawed 
its cultivation in the '50s.

Now get this: American manufacturers are free to import hemp fibers, 
oil and seed from other countries. For example, U.S. carmakers use 
hemp inside door panels and for insulation in seats.

Industrial hemp doesn't contain enough THC (the euphoric agent in 
marijuana) to get anyone high, but that hasn't stopped the federal 
Drug Enforcement Administration from sending out helicopters to scour 
the land for hemp plants growing wild in ditches.

The sight of waving hemp fields just across the Canadian border 
frustrates many American farmers. One of them, Dave Monson, a 
Republican, is speaker of the North Dakota House.

Monson and other farmers sued the DEA in 2007, demanding the right to 
plant hemp. The case was dismissed by a U.S. District Court judge in 
Bismarck but is now before the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, in St. Paul, Minn.

Monson told me that he tried to reason with the DEA about industrial 
hemp. The federal agency responded that minuscule amounts of THC 
could be processed out of the plants, admittedly with great effort.

"Well, why would anybody do that?" Monson asked, especially now that 
actual marijuana plants are freely grown in California and other 
states that have legalized medical pot.

"The ironic thing is that they may get medical marijuana legalized 
before we can get industrial hemp legalized," Monson said. The Obama 
administration has yet to signal a change in policy toward industrial hemp.

When the United States banned the sale and manufacture of alcoholic 
beverages in 1920, Canadians found another great export market. Rules 
governing alcohol varied from province to province, but Canada's 
generally lighter approach to booze opened new avenues for profit.

Ontario's economy grew off the movement of alcohol into the United 
States. The black market was exploited by gangsters but also by 
ordinary office workers who would row their rum-laden boats across 
the narrow parts of the Detroit River, separating Detroit from 
Windsor, Ontario.

Quebec was the most alcohol-friendly province. During U.S. 
Prohibition, "historic old Quebec" enjoyed a boom off of American 
tourists seeking a good time.

Alcohol prohibition is now far in the misty American past, and the 
anchors on stem-cell research were recently lifted. That would leave 
hemp farming as a surviving example of an irrational U.S. ban. 
Whenever the U.S. government discourages Americans from doing useful 
work, Canadians make hay -- and sell it back to us.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake