Pubdate: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 Source: Charleston Daily Mail (WV) Copyright: 2002 Charleston Daily Mail Contact: http://www.dailymail.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/76 Author: Jim Wallace, Daily Mail Capitol Reporter SENATOR WANTS MORE INFORMATION ON HEMP Proposal To Permit Plant's Growth Will Have To Wait A Week Sen. Karen Facemyer will have to wait at least until next week to get her bill to permit the growing of industrial hemp moving in the Senate. Senate Agriculture Chairman Leonard Anderson wants to hear more about the legal and agricultural consequences of growing hemp, which is related to marijuana, before allowing his committee to take action. Deputy Agriculture Commissioner Steve Hannah told the committee Wednesday that hemp is produced commercially in 22 countries, including Canada, but the obstacles to its production in West Virginia would be law enforcement concerns and a lack of production facilities. David Miller of West Virginia University said he believes a rule of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration prohibits the growing of hemp and that agency might have to issue a waiver for WVU to even research whether it would be feasible and profitable to grow it in West Virginia. Facemyer, R-Jackson, wanted to amend her bill to make federal approval part of the process leading to hemp cultivation in West Virginia, but Miller said state officials should speak with federal officials before going forward with legislation. Although Facemyer was eager to get the bill out of the Agriculture Committee and over to the Judiciary Committee, where she said a staff attorney is already working on it, Anderson, D-Summers, insisted on waiting until next week for the Agriculture Committee to deal with the bill. One concern of some lawmakers is that, even though industrial hemp contains only a fraction of the ingredient that gives marijuana its hallucinatory properties, it looks so much like marijuana that permitting the cultivation of hemp could make law enforcement efforts against marijuana growing more difficult. Bob Williams of the West Virginia Farm Bureau told the committee that the difference between industrial hemp and marijuana is like the difference between grain corn and silage corn: they're just different varieties of the same plant. Facemyer argued that even if the Drug Enforcement Administration currently prohibits the cultivation of hemp, West Virginia could be in the forefront of benefiting from its growth by getting out early with legislation to permit it. Hemp can be used in the manufacture of many things, including rope, sacks, seat belts, oil, fuel and diapers. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D