Pubdate: Sun, 25 Nov 2012
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Copyright: 2012 Lexington Herald-Leader
Contact: http://www.kentucky.com/369/
Website: http://www.kentucky.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240

BACKWARD THINKING ON HEMP; FEDS MUST ALLOW STATES TO RESTART INDUSTRY

On questions surrounding cannabis aka marijuana aka hemp, the states
are light years ahead of the federal government.

The Obama administration and Congress should get out of the way of
state reforms aimed at transforming a vast underground economy into a
regulated source of taxation.

Unlike about half the states, Kentucky has shown little official
interest in legitimizing marijuana for medical or recreational use.

But there is long-standing support in Kentucky for bringing back a
crop that was once common here. Fiber, oil and seed from industrial
hemp are in demand by U.S. manufacturers but now have to be imported.

How ridiculous is this? A hemp stalk grown to make fabric or cosmetics
is classified by federal law as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, the
same as heroin. Cocaine and morphine are Schedule 2 substances,
classified as more useful and less harmful than hemp.

This makes no sense, especially as state legislatures and voters move
to put marijuana on basically the same legal footing as that other
popular intoxicant, alcohol.

We should note that industrial hemp has almost none of the chemical
that produces a high in users. Hemp growers cultivate big, fat stalks,
while pot growers want big, fat buds. Federal law treats them the
same, however, which probably also ties their futures together.

Since voters in Colorado and Washington approved legalizing marijuana
for recreational use, the public has heard nothing from Attorney
General Eric Holder and the Justice Department, the Drug Enforcement
Administration or the president.

In 2010, Holder vowed to continue prosecuting marijuana possession in
California even if voters approved legalization. The measure's defeat
averted a showdown.

But on Nov. 6 more Coloradans voted for legalizing marijuana than for
Obama.

What's at stake is deeper than politics. The law, like government,
derives its authority from the governed. Some in law enforcement say
they would feel wrong enforcing a law that a majority of voters has
rejected, except, of course, to protect rights guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution.

In Kentucky, Republican Agriculture Commissioner James Comer is asking
the legislature to officially urge the federal government to allow
cultivation of industrial hemp.

"We just want the freedom to be able to grow a crop that we know will
grow well in Kentucky," Comer recently told a legislative committee.
Congress should "get out of the way and let the private sector create
jobs in rural communities manufacturing this product."

Two senators who couldn't be further apart politically - Kentucky's
Rand Paul and Vermont's Bernie Sanders - came together to sponsor a
bill legalizing hemp cultivation. That shows how broad support is, and
also that another small-farm state sees hemp as a profitable niche.

While we need uniform national standards in some areas - environmental
laws, for example, because pollution travels across state lines -
states have long been incubators of social policy and innovation.

The war on drugs has largely been a failure, just as alcohol
prohibition was a disaster in the last century.

So, why not free states to try something that just might work better?
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MAP posted-by: Matt