Pubdate: Mon, 07 Jan 2002 Source: Athens News, The (OH) Copyright: 2002, Athens News Contact: http://www.athensnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1603 Author: Jim Phillips, Athens NEWS Senior Writer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hemp.htm (Hemp) DEA RULES THREATEN TO STRANGLE HEMP BUSINESS If the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has its way, Athens County retailer Don Wirtshafter could soon be out of business. "On Oct. 9, I went from being a entrepreneur to being one of the biggest drug dealers in the U.S.," complained Wirtshafter, who runs the Ohio Hempery, a Guysville company that sells hemp-based products including food and clothing items. It's the food products that have become a problem since a decision last year by the DEA to change how it looks at hemp merchandise. On Oct. 9, the DEA announced it was "clarifying" its interpretation of its rules on the legality of hemp-based products. Until then, the drug agency had focused enforcement efforts on the parts of the cannabis plant -- buds, leaves and resins -- that produce marijuana. The "hemp" parts of the plant (stalks and sterilized seeds), which contain very little of marijuana's active ingredient THC, were not specifically outlawed. With its new "interpretive rule," however, the DEA says that if a hemp product contains even minute amounts of marijuana's active ingredient THC, and if using the product introduces THC into the user's body, then it is illegal to sell. While the new interpretation was adopted without public input, the DEA also has begun official rule-adoption procedures, including soliciting public comment, on a new rule that would formalize the outlawing of hemp food products. The comment period closed Dec. 10. According to a DEA press release, products that are now illegal if they contain even trace amounts of THC include hemp-based varities of beer, cheese, coffee, corn chips, energy drinks, flour, ice cream, snack bars, salad oil, soda and veggie burgers. Exempted are bird seed mixtures with sterilized cannabis seeds, clothing items, cosmetics, lotion, paper, rope, twine and yarn, shampoo and soap. Agency administrator Asa Hutchinson is quoted as warning that "many Americans do not know that hemp and marijuana are both parts of the same plant and that hemp cannot be produced without producing marijuana." The agency advises consumers who are uncertain of whether a hemp product they want to buy is legal to check the ingredient label, or ask the manufacturer or distributor, to find out if the product contains THC. "If it does, it is illegal," the DEA warns. Until Feb. 6, it is not against the law to possess consumable hemp products, only to sell them. By that date, however, the DEA wants those in possession of such products to dispose of them. Anyone who doesn't will be subject to charges of possessing illegal drugs, confirmed DEA spokesperson Susan Feld from the agency's Detroit field division, which covers Ohio. The aggressiveness of enforcement, she said, will be "really up to the individual offices." The Ohio Hempery markets hemp products ranging from candles to wallets to shampoo to twine, and including consumables such as coffee, brownies and toasted hemp seeds. According to Wirtshafter, two of his biggest-selling items are hemp seeds and hemp seed oil, which are both now technically illegal. He said he currently has about $800,000 worth of inventory in such products sitting in Canada, and that "according to the DEA, we're supposed to throw it away." Wirtshafter said the DEA has caused trouble for his business before. Two years ago, for instance, the agency seized a load of birdseed mix containing hemp seed and held it for months, during which time it became contaminated and worthless. The Ohio Hempery has had to move its operations that handle hemp seed products to Canada, a friendlier legal environment, and now maintains only a shoestring operation in Athens County. "We've been forced out of the county," Wirtshafter said. And though the hemp products industry is mounting a legal challenge to the new DEA rules, he added, if the DEA manages to make the rules stick, the Ohio Hempery may have to shut down. Feld of the Detroit DEA office said Friday that the rule change by the DEA merely "clarified the difference between hemp and marijuana." Though hemp industry advocates argue that hemp products contain so little THC they could never induce a marijuana "high," Feld said that "it doesn't matter. As long as it has a trace of THC, then it's considered a product that is illegal." Asked whether the DEA has any suggestions on how distributors should best dispose of hemp products they already have, Feld replied, "It doesn't matter. Just so they dispose of them." The DEA's new rule announcement triggered quick reaction from the industry, including public demonstrations outside DEA headquarters in 22 U.S. cities on Dec. 4. The Hemp Industries Association, along with a number of hemp companies, is fighting the DEA rule change in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and has asked for a stay of its enforcement. Arguments the industry group has used in its written comments on the rule change include claims that: * Consumption of hemp products, "even in amounts vastly exceeding normal use, cannot possibly have any psychoactive effect," and won't even raise a person's THC levels enough to affect a drug screening. * Adoption of the rules would threaten the existence of numerous companies marketing hemp-based products and "would also harm environmentalists, farmers and others who have spent years to research, develop and commercialize industrial hemp food and beverage products, and create markets for these products." * The new rules would probably violate international trade agreements such as NAFTA and the WTO, because the United States' trading partners and foreign companies had no chance to offer input. The DEA has responded in a court filing that its new reading of the rules on hemp is not, as its critics claim, an illegally adopted legislative rule, but rather, an "interpretive rule" that doesn't require a formal adoption process. The agency also notes that none of the hemp companies opposing the rule has suffered any injury, because the DEA has not yet seized any of their products. Wirtshafter, meanwhile, says with all the continued attention from the federal government, he's seriously thinking of getting out of the hemp industry. "We've been battered by this thing over the last three or four years," he said. "But this is the final blow." - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl