Pubdate: Mon, 14 Jan 2013
Source: Denver Post ( CO )
Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Steve Raabe

HARD-WORKING HEMP POISED FOR HOT GROWTH, BACKERS SAY

New Industry Could Take Off in Colorado With Legal Status

Passage of Amendment 64 has given life to a group of zealous 
enthusiasts who can barely contain their passion for the leafy green 
substance.

No, not pot.  The fanatics get their kicks from buzz-free hemp.

A genetic cousin to marijuana, hemp is a lookalike plant with one key 
difference.  It contains almost no THC, the psychoactive ingredient 
in marijuana that makes users high.

But what hemp lacks in THC, it makes up for by being a remarkable 
workhorse of industrial utility.  From auto bodies to textile fibers 
to nutrition bars - even as a cleaner of toxic contamination-hemp 
struts its stuff.

Boosters say hempis poised to become a big industry in Colorado 
because Amendment 64 allows its legal cultivation pending legislative 
authorization.

Lynda Parker's eyes light up, the all-natural way, when she talks about it.

"My friends tell me I'm too evangelical," says the retired Dex 
saleswoman.  "But there's hardly a problem in the world that can't be 
solved with hemp."

She ticks off an abbreviated list, just a tantalizing hint, of the 
practical applications.

"Hemp is food, animal feed, fiber, fuel, shelter," she says.  "It 
cleans the air, the water, the soil.  Hemp could be enormous for 
Colorado because we're the first state to legalize it."

Hemp's most common uses are food products derived from seeds and seed 
oil.  Fiber from the stalks of hemp plants are used in clothing and 
industrial applications, including as a strengthening agent in concrete.

Parker is part of an early-stage, loose-knit coalition formed to 
raise hemp's profile.  Other members range from a medical-marijuana 
activist to a Ph.D.  candidate at Colorado School of Mines.  Their 
common thread is a belief that hemp is going to be big - bigger, 
perhaps, than legal marijuana.

The Colorado Center on Law & Policy estimates that state sanctioned 
marijuana sales initially could be as much as $270 million a year, 
producing state and local taxes of $47 million a year.

Yet a mature hemp industry - from farm to factory to storefront-might 
be 10 times larger than legal marijuana, backers project.

Could anything possibly dampen the potential of this beneficial botanical?

Well, yes.  The federal government for one.

Like marijuana, hemp is still illegal in the eyes of the feds, 
despite Colorado's clear electoral mandate to legalize it.

Federal officials have said little about how they will react to 
Colorado's new law.  Some analysts say it's unlikely they will target 
individual users, but the outlook is less certain for federal 
crackdowns on larger enterprises, such as farm-scale growing.

Hemp backers say thatwould be an extreme injustice, given that hemp 
has no narcotic properties.  But federal law does not differentiate 
between the cultivation of hemp and marijuana.

Even in Colorado, the Amendment 64 implementation task force is 
unlikely to set up hemp regulations until next year because it has 
its hands full with the complexities of marijuana rule-making.

Test crop planned

There are plenty of hemp products on the market - clothing, food, 
beverages, construction materials.  But because of the federal 
prohibition on growing, all hemp must come from imported 
sources.  Canada is the largest supplier to the U.S.

If Colorado were to establish a hemp-farming industry, it would be 
limited by a federal ban on interstate transportation of the 
crop.  The harvested hemp would need to stay inside Colorado, where 
currently there are few major industrial customers.

That limitation does not deter Mike Bowman, a Yuma County farmer and 
alternative-energy activist.  He plans to plant a test crop of 100 
acres of hemp, possibly as early as this year, on land typically 
reserved for corn.

Hemp requires much less water than corn, Bowman notes, thus providing 
a potential solution to over-pumped aquifers on the eastern plains.

In Canada, he said, hemp is a more profitable crop than 
wheat.  According to the Alberta provincial government, hemp seed 
production can yield up to $1,000 per acre.  Canadian wheat in 2012 
yielded an average of $315 an acre.

But the threat of federal intervention in the U.S.  and the 
misperception that equates hemp to marijuana are formidable hurdles.

"If hemp had a different name, it would be a lot easier," Bowman says.

Parker and other hemp proponents plan to visit eastern Colorado farm 
towns this week to talk up the potential.

Supplies of Colorado-grown hemp would be welcome by Ari Sherman, 
president of Boulderbased Evo Hemp.  In a small commercial kitchen, 
Sherman and his four associates make nutrition bars containing hemp 
seed, fruits and nuts.

The company imports several hundred pounds of seed each month from 
Canadian suppliers.

"The transportation costs are huge," Sherman says.  "It definitely 
would help us to have supplies from Colorado.  And to create a 
product where the majority of the ingredients are from Colorado would 
be great."

The 11/2-year-old company distributes about 700 bars a week to small 
grocers.  It recently signed a deal to supply Whole Foods stores in 
the Rocky Mountain region and is talking with King Soopers parent Kroger Co.

There's money to be made in hemp, but that's not what drives industry 
proponent Parker.

"I'm a product of the '60s," she says.  "If we make some money, I 
won't reject it, but I do this out of my passion for hemp." 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D