Pubdate: Tue, 09 Oct 2012
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2012 Associated Press
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388

VOTERS IN 3 STATES COULD LEGALIZE POT, HEMP FARMING

SEATTLE - Residents of Washington, Oregon and Colorado won't just be 
considering whether to let adults buy pot at state-sanctioned shops 
when they vote next month on legalizing and taxing marijuana.

They'll also be voting on whether to let farmers grow marijuana's far 
less potent cousin - hemp - for clothing, food, biofuel and 
construction materials among other uses.

But don't expect farmers to start growing it, at least not 
immediately. The passage of the measures would create the familiar 
clash with federal law, which prohibits growing the plant for 
industrial, recreational or medicinal purposes.

Farmers who say they have enough to worry about with drought and crop 
diseases don't want to also be left wondering whether federal drug 
agents will come knocking. The three ballot initiatives to regulate 
pot like alcohol have garnered much attention, in part for the 
hundreds of millions of dollars they could bring in to state coffers 
and for the showdown it could set up with the federal government.

No state has made recreational pot legal, and these measures would be 
the first to set up state-sanctioned pot sales. The Justice 
Department could try to block them in court under the argument they 
frustrate federal antidrug law enforcement efforts.

Less well known is the effect the measures would have on hemp and the 
possibilities they create for another fight with the federal government.

Nine states - Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North 
Dakota, Oregon, Vermont and West Virginia - have passed laws allowing 
hemp cultivation or research, and supporters of the latest measures 
say they would be another shot across the federal government's bow.

Oregon's earlier law, passed in 2009, allows the state to regulate 
hemp production; the initiative on the ballot next month, Measure 80, 
would allow unregulated hemp production.

Hemp and marijuana are the same species, cannabis sativa, but are 
genetically distinct. Hemp has a negligible content of THC, the 
psychoactive compound that gives marijuana users a high. It's also 
grown differently, in tightly packed plots to maximize stalk height 
rather than widely spaced to maximize branching and flowering.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom