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THE WAR AGAINST HEMP
by Nina Willdorf
04 Apr 2002
Boston Phoenix
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
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