Pubdate: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 Source: Daily Press (VA) Copyright: 2001 The Daily Press Contact: http://www.dailypress.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/585 Author: Carolyn Shapiro THIS ROAD TRIP HAS A CAUSE: TOUTING BENEFITS OF LEGAL HEMP Grayson Sigler has never considered himself an activist. He's just a classical pianist and composer from Hampton with a penchant for environmental causes and a brother who owned a 1983 Mercedes with a diesel engine. Sigler's brother generously loaned him the vehicle, which has become known in cities from Washington, D.C., to Watertown, S.D., as the Hemp Car. In July, 33-year-old Sigler turned a trip across the country to visit a friend in Seattle into a public-awareness campaign touting the benefits of legal hemp. Hemp, from the same plant as marijuana, remains illegal to grow in the United States. But the hemp seed also can be turned into industrial- grade oil and blended with petroleum to make biodiesel fuel, similar to that made from soybean or peanut oils, to run a diesel engine. The Hemp Car gets 27 miles to the gallon -- the same as it does on regular diesel gas -- and had traveled, as of Tuesday, 4,300 miles to Regina, Saskatchewan, using a now-banned plant that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew. With about $30,000 from several sponsors and a load of 500 pounds of hemp biodiesel fuel, much of it donated from producers in the United States and Canada, Sigler travels with his wife, Kellie, and Hampton pals Scott Furr and Charles Ruchalski, who are filming a documentary about them. Folks across America's heartland have noticed the white station wagon emblazoned with multicolored banners. "I do think we're making an impact," Sigler said Tuesday via cell phone from the Hemp Car, somewhere in central Canada. "Americans love cars. Americans don't know anything about hemp." Sigler argues the cost of industrial hemp oil per gallon would drop from about $4 wholesale now to about 30 cents if U.S. farmers could legally grow the plant. Companies can process the oil under current laws but must import the sterilized hemp seed from other countries, usually Canada and China, which adds to its expense and becomes cost- prohibitive to sell to the average driver. Environmentalists consider the legalization of hemp a no-brainer. It's a renewable source of fuel that involves none of the environmental impacts of petroleum, which is limited in supply and dependent on foreign providers. Hemp biodiesel burns cleaner, emitting about 10 percent of the carbon dioxide that gasoline-fueled vehicles do and none of the hydrocarbons released by petroleum-based diesel. It's one of the best sources of nutrition, according to its proponents, sold in many health food stores at about $75 a gallon. Hemp fibers weave into extremely strong rope and durable clothing. "It's a wonderful thing," Sigler said. Some farmers have rallied around the hemp cause, seeing the many products derived from the plant as a source of needed revenue and a savior for land damaged by chemically grown grain crops, not to mention a fuel for their own diesel-powered equipment. The nation's colonists depended on it, Sigler said, for everything from food to clothing to heat. Nine states, including Virginia, have passed resolutions allowing for hemp production if Congress ever lifts the federal ban. "Canadian hemp is being trucked past dying South Dakota farms," said Bob Newland, a founder of the South Dakota Industrial Hemp Council, who traveled across his state to see the Hemp Car. "Seventy-five percent of its potential is in its use as a food for humans and animals and in its biomass, for fuel, and its oil." But hemp also carries the political and moral taint of marijuana, one of the major obstacles to its legalization. Law enforcement groups, such as police officers and prison guards, continue to lobby against it. "The two are associated in the American psyche," Sigler said. "It's called the rope-versus-dope debate." Hemp and marijuana both come from the cannabis plant but are different variations of it. Hemp has few, if any, of the psychotropic properties of its sister weed and would typically make people sick if they smoked it, Sigler said. The American Farm Bureau remains neutral on the hemp issue, said group spokesman Don Lipton. Many farmers support the legalization, he said, but others have bent to the argument of opponents who believe it would weaken the war on drugs. That didn't stop Sigler and his Hemp Car crew from accepting sponsorship from prominent pro-pot lobby group NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Sigler does believe the prosecution of pot-smokers is "unjust" but, more importantly, sees the power of that movement's tens of millions of supporters. "No one at all has come up to me and expressed any discontent with the project," he said. "I challenge so many people who support the ban to come out and debate this, and they will not do it. I would love it because I've done my research. And I know what's right and wrong." - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D