Pubdate: Sun, 11 Jan 2015
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Brooks Mencher
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hemp.htm (Hemp)

MALIGNED AND BANNED

The American Comeback of Industrial Hemp

After serving nearly 80 years on narcotics charges, hemp is back, 
semi-legalized in the 2014 Farm Bill.

Its new age is a chemical renaissance. Experimental medicines 
extracted from hemp seed oil will treat epilepsy, migraine headaches, 
glaucoma, and diabetic and other nerve pain; there may even be 
applications for multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. The 
plant's rough outer bast fibers, formerly waste, can be used in 
super-capacitors to store energy for electronic devices; these cooked 
carbon nanosheets, at least as efficient as current materials 
including graphene, were unveiled at the annual exposition of the 
American Chemical Society, held last summer in San Francisco.

More, its fibers and the cellulose-rich stem core are already 
producing high-impact car doors, higher-efficiency housing insulation 
and other building materials. And then there are cosmetics, soaps, 
oils, high-protein food and high omega-3 dietary supplements.

But as brilliant and economically viable as its future might be, 
humankind's most ancient cultivated plant has never had an easy time 
in America, and there's no reason to believe that its return is going 
to be accompanied by a red carpet. It's back and it's legal, but 
chances are, as in Colorado, farmers can't legally get the seeds. 
You, as a citizen, can't legally grow it. It would be easier to grow 
medical marijuana, hemp's twin (same species, Cannabis sativa linnaeus).

The Drug Enforcement Agency, a policing arm of the U.S. Department of 
Justice, remains an anti-hemp force to be reckoned with - despite 
federal rules (in the Farm Bill and the Dec. 9 Congressional budget 
bill that cut DOJ enforcement funding) that have purportedly removed 
it from hemp oversight. Nineteen states have declared hemp farming to 
be legal, but state officials can't guarantee there will be no 
federal raids. These contradictions are part of hemp's new world: The 
promise of a brilliant future amid political and regulatory uncertainty.

Re-establishing hemp as a viable American industry will take 
rebuilding, piece by piece, a working infrastructure that would 
include contract farming, growers' associations, trade lines, 
material transportation, research and development and niche 
manufacturing, and, more importantly, further legislation fully 
guaranteeing its legal status as a non-narcotic.

Legality and reality

How could a plant, whose use and cultivation dates back more than 
12,000 years, be so heedlessly shelved in the first place? The 
answer: A bad rap as a perceived narcotic. Hemp's role as an American 
pariah has roots far deeper than the Controlled Substances Act of 
1970, which listed it, with marijuana, as a Schedule I narcotic in 
the company of heroin, crack and meth. It predates the Marihuana Tax 
Act of 1937, which defined hemp and marijuana as the same plant (this 
iron link was only broken in February last year, in the Farm Bill).

Hemp was the victim of anti-drug sentiments dating back more than 150 
years. Its untouchable status derives from the fallout of the Civil 
War, when an estimated 400,000 maimed soldiers returned home addicted 
to a new wonder drug, injectable morphine. Soon, opiates became the 
American physician's panacea. Abuse spread, and it became America's 
new bogey man. Opium dens were banned in San Francisco, smoking-grade 
opium was banned nationally by an act of Congress, and the Harrison 
Anti-Narcotics Act of 1914 restricted what was left. Soon the 
Temperance Movement became active, applying to liquor the same 
strategy of fear that had followed opium, and Prohibition was 
realized in 1920. Successful anti-liquor evangelicals then turned 
their efforts to a great new evil, "marihuana," and ushered in hemp's 
narcotic age. The anti-cannabis, often-racist propaganda (targeting 
Hispanics and urban blacks) that began in the 1930s is unparalleled 
in America for its duration, orchestration and intensity. Hemp didn't 
have a chance.

Alex White Plume

But by the 1990s, American consumers began buying imported hemp seed 
and oil products such as soap, cosmetics and food additives. Perhaps 
the most prominent are Dr. Bronner's soap products, made in America 
from imported, processed hemp. There was a market, after all; there 
was a demand. But there was no domestic farming or raw processing 
because of the Controlled Substances Act. Hemp cloth and fiber were 
imported from China and Europe, and Canada supplied the seed and oil 
products, already processed.

By 1998, the potential market seemed attractive to Alex White Plume 
and the Lakota tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. 
After two false starts, their 2000 crop was planted on the 132nd 
anniversary of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which guaranteed Lakota 
sovereignty, farming, crop choice, and, in White Plume's mind, the 
right to grow super-low THC industrial hemp without Drug Enforcement 
Administration approval. A harvest ceremony was planned, handwritten 
invitations were written and mailed, including to the U.S. attorney. 
And on Aug. 24 that year, Alex White Plume watched, with an M-16 to 
his head, as 30 agents from the DEA, FBI and U.S. Marshals Service 
ripped out four months of his work - an acre and a half of industrial 
hemp. "They came and stole it," he said.

In 2001 no one on Pine Ridge had to plant hemp. The DEA's eradication 
technique had spread enough seed for a crop. This time, White Plume's 
little brother, Percy, supervised the farming. And this time, again, 
the DEA swept in and cut and took the crop.

And they scattered seed in doing so. The third year, White Plume's 
sister, Ramona, supervised. It grew well and 3 acres were harvested. 
And then the DEA seized the yield. The crop was valued by Alex White 
Plume at about $20,000, a very large sum in one of America's highest 
poverty regions.

The White Plumes were tried in civil, not criminal, court. In 2006 
the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against them. A federal 
injunction bans all three siblings from ever growing any kind of 
cannabis again. Can the ban be lifted?

"I think I used up all those attorneys," Alex White Plume said.

State sovereignty

But the decision against the White Plumes also signaled the dawn of 
sovereignty efforts by states. By 2013, nine states had approved 
their own version of law and declared hemp to be separate from 
marijuana - and legal - despite the federal Controlled Substances 
Act. Their rule was this: Hemp, with a THC level of 0.3 percent or 
less, was legal. Marijuana, with a THC level above that, would still 
be under the Controlled Substances Act. It was mutinous. Eleven other 
states passed legislation to lay the groundwork for a new hemp 
industry that could not yet legally exist.

As public sentiment grew, the federal government slowly took notice. 
On Feb. 7, 2014, hemp emerged from the shadow of its narcotic exile 
and became legal once again, albeit with significant restrictions. 
The Farm Bill, signed by President Obama, supplanted the Controlled 
Substances Act and separated hemp from marijuana for the first time 
since the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 - though only under the auspices 
of state-run pilot programs. The critical 0.3 percent THC level 
adopted by mutinous states was now the federal threshold. But for any 
non-sanctioned farming, hemp remains a Schedule I drug, and growing 
it is still a federal offense.

By the time the landmark Farm Bill was signed, 18 states had declared 
hemp legal, 33 states had introduced hemp farming legislation and 22 
had passed other various pro-hemp bills.

The other cannabis, marijuana, also made enormous strides: It is 
considered medically legal in 23 states, including California, plus 
the District of Columbia; Colorado, Washington, Alaska, Oregon and 
the District of Columbia have legalized its recreational use.

Though hemp's path to legalization is the result of a successful 
popular uprising that gained the support of key senators and 
congressmen, it was very likely pushed along by the simple passage of 
time: The dying out of the World War II generation, influenced by 
waves of anti-cannabis propaganda book-ended by the Marihuana Tax Act 
of 1937 and the Controlled Substances Act of 1970; and the coming 
into power of Generation X (President Obama), the Millennial 
generation (his voting bloc) and Baby Boomers (his Cabinet).

Hemp's detractors

While hemp's new American future is bright, its political life 
remains chaotic. Not everyone, it appears, is on board. Its rocky 
road back into American culture was apparent, and confidence in the 
new hemp law was so tentative that on the eve of the Farm Bill's 
passage, the Colorado Agriculture Department warned potential 
pilot-program farmers of the uncertainties they would face. The 
agency said that: Although state research, according to the Farm 
Bill, isn't subject to the Controlled Substance Act or the DEA, hemp 
seed could not be imported across state lines without violating the 
act; federally managed hemp crop insurance could endanger existing 
farm loans; and banks may be hesitant to get involved in hemp-farming 
loans (much as they fear handling the business accounts of growers of 
state-legal medical marijuana) for fear of federal raids, audits and shutdowns.

The Farm Bill passed after years of discussion and failure. But where 
was the USDA, its most likely proponent? In 2000, when Alex White 
Plume planted his first successful hemp crop, the USDA's research 
branch issued its notorious hemp-damning report, "Industrial Hemp in 
the United States: Status and Market Potential." In it, the USDA 
concluded there was little or no viability in a U.S. hemp industry. 
Among a handful of death-knell challenges that hemp would find in the 
United States, hemp markets here "are and will likely remain small, 
thin markets. ... Uncertainty about the longrun demand for hemp 
products and the potential for oversupply discounts the prospects for 
hemp as an economically viable alternative crop for American farmers."

The study was made at the request of then-drug czar Army Gen. Barry 
McCaffrey of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

This is quite the opposite of current thinking, expressed by Hemp 
Industries Association Executive Director Eric Steenstra: "We see 
hemp becoming a standard rotation crop, for example in Kentucky." 
Hemp Inc., a leading force in the nascent industry, expects a 
50,000acre North Carolina crop in 2015.

The study faded into obscurity, and the USDA hasn't tackled the issue 
again. Nevertheless, it's Steenstra's belief that the agency is 
"coming around on this topic."

"The report has been long discredited ... and the USDA appears open 
to hemp, supportive, and there may be ways (it will become involved) 
in the future." Very likely, financially.

The DEA

Still missing from hemp's fan list is the Drug Enforcement Agency. 
Kentucky, anxious to start its hemp research program as authorized by 
the Farm Bill, ordered 250 pounds of certified hemp seed from Italy 
shortly after Obama signed the bill. The Drug Enforcement Agency 
claimed that a DEA application was required, and promptly seized the 
seeds en route. Kentucky challenged the issue in court.

"The federal judge started as a sort of mediator," said Patrick 
Goggin, co-counsel for Hemp Industries Association, which was 
involved in the case. "Finally, the DEA capitulated on the permit to 
farm hemp, but maintained authority over the importation of seed." 
The agreement isn't formal, but it will provide a working structure 
for control during hemp's initial reintroduction.

But does the DEA have legal jurisdiction at all? The Farm Bill places 
pilot program policing in the hands of state departments of 
agriculture or state university systems, and the DEA's parent, the 
Department of Justice, has had its hemp and medical marijuana 
policing funds restricted by Congress.

"It's our position that the DEA has no authority," Goggin said, "but 
the object was to get the seed in the ground" in time for the growing 
season. The bargain was struck. The seeds were released after the 
agreement, but Goggin noted, "I do not feel confident in the DEA."

The following month, the DEA again seized hemp seed bound for the 
newly legalized pilot programs; this time it was bound for Colorado 
from Canada, where supervised hemp farming has been legal since 1998, 
after four years of pilot programs. Colorado's law encourages hemp 
farming under state license, and the state issues research and 
development permits to individuals. No problem there, but farmers 
have to get seed and there's no seed in the state. The import 
question has been skirted there by working under a sort of "don't 
ask, don't tell" system: If farmers can get seed, they can grow it 
under the program. The DEA, however, is like the fox outside the 
fence. As it stands, the federal agency will be working with 
Colorado, California (this year) and other states regarding seed acquisition.

After the seizures, the association attorney Goggin said, "We want to 
remove jurisdiction from the DEA; it inhibits investment for fear of 
prosecution."

After two-handed dealing for more than a decade, and apropos to the 
White Plume family's efforts to grow hemp in defiance of federal 
control efforts, who can wholly trust the Department of Justice's 
announcement in December, declaring that Indian tribes located in 
marijuana-legal states can now grow and sell marijuana on their lands 
- - while warning, in the same breath, that marijuana remains illegal 
under federal law? The writ is the second rehash of the "Cole memo," 
an August 2013 advisory to U.S. attorneys on pot enforcement in light 
of new state laws. Deputy Attorney General James Cole pushed for 
enforcement that focused on cases involving minors, gangs, guns, 
interstate commerce, piggybacking other drugs in marijuana dealing, 
drugged driving and possession or growing marijuana on federal land. 
The inference is that other cases of general use could slide, though 
nothing "precludes investigation or prosecution."

However, a rehash of the memo in February 2014, cautions at length 
about money laundering and banking - a chilling effect already noted 
by those involved in hemp pilot programs.

Alex White Plume, whose dealings with federal authorities cost him 
his ranching livelihood half a generation ago, sees progress in the 
decree, though at present it won't apply to South Dakota, which has 
no state law legalizing marijuana.

"For the Native Americans, it has always been an issue of tribal 
sovereignty," he said. "They (Congress and the Department of Justice) 
are trying to acknowledge the treaties, and I appreciate the attorney 
general in this. We feel that marijuana could be used medically to 
address alcoholism, for example, brought on by conditions of poverty."

Unlike White Plume (and unlike the Pinoleville Pomo tribe near Ukiah, 
who last week announced a large indoor medical marijuana project), 
Oglala Sioux Tribal President John YellowBird-Steele sees no benefit 
in growing marijuana. He was involved in passing an ordinance 
declaring hemp legal on Pine Ridge in 2000 - an ordinance that was 
key to White Plume's federal disobedience that year - and said 
earlier this month that hemp still has a viable future at Pine Ridge.

Hemp has a viable future nationwide as well, including California. 
The ancient plant can adapt, through selective breeding, to many 
environments; this is part of its history with humankind. As the 
Marihuana Tax of 1937 and the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 fade 
into history, and legal inconsistencies are overcome through new 
legislation if not outright disobedience, Cannabis sativa linnaeus is 
poised, once again, to become America's "billion-dollar crop" - a 
crop in need of an industry.

(Continued next week in Insight)

[sidebars]

HEMP'S AMERICAN CENTURY

1914: The Harrison Anti-Narcotics Act is passed. Mandated 
transporters, sellers and possessors of narcotics to pay a tax and 
keep records for the Internal Revenue Service of the Treasury 
Department. The first restriction-by-taxation act.

1916: USDA Bulletin 404 urges use of hemp paper due to the rapid 
cutting of U.S. forests for pulp.

June, 1930: Federal Bureau of Narcotics established within the 
Department of the Treasury; tasked with drug enforcement. Prohibition 
enforcer Harry J. Anslinger appointed director; he initiates a 
lifelong battle against marijuana and hemp: "To legalize marijuana 
would be to legalize slaughter on the highway,"

1937: Marihuana Tax Act, restricting cannabis through taxation and 
IRS (Treasury) mandated record-keeping, using 1914 Harrison Act 
strategy of restriction through taxation

1937: Anslinger's "Marijuana, Assassin of Youth" published

1938: Canada bans hemp production

1941: Henry Ford unveils a car with parts made from hemp that runs on 
hemp ethanol

1942-1945: Hemp for Victory campaign, in which U.S. overlooks 
anti-hemp laws to produce rope for the war effort

1957: America's last hemp producer, Rens Hemp Company of Wisconsin, 
shuttered: oppressive operating regulations

1967: Senate approves international treaty ratifying the Single 
Convention on Narcotics, forcing a ban on marijuana.

1968: Federal Bureau of Narcotics, in the Treasury Department, is 
absorbed by the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, part of the 
Department of Justice

1970: Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act of 1970 becomes law, 
Nixon administration. Expanded federal law (1937 Act), keeping hemp 
within the legal definition of marijuana, making both Schedule I narcotics

1971: President Nixon declares "war on drugs," June 17, creates drug 
abuse prevention office

1973: Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs is absorbed along with 
five other drug-related federal agencies or departments into the DEA, 
Drug Enforcement Administration, under the DOJ

1996: California approves Prop. 215 legalizing, regulating medical marijuana

1998: Canada legalizes controlled hemp cultivation

1999: North Dakota becomes first state since 1937 to legalize and set 
regulations for cultivating hemp

2000: DEA wins case against New Hampshire Hemp Council, can still 
prosecute hemp producers, hemp remains Schedule I narcotic

2004: DEA loses case against Canadian hemp imports to U.S., which it 
seized in 1999, claiming that trace amounts of THC made hemp-food 
imports narcotic

2002: California Gov. Gray Davis vetoes state hemp farming bill

2006, 2007, 2008, 2011: California hemp farming act vetoed by Gov. 
Arnold Schwarzenegger

Sept. 27, 2013: Gov. Jerry Brown signs California bill by state Sen. 
Mark Leno allowing farmers to grow hemp when the federal government 
finally gives the green light

2014: Obama signs the Farm Bill

Hemp isn't marijuana

Hemp and marijuana are cultivars, or selectively bred variations of 
the same species, Cannabis sativa linnaeus. They are visually 
indistinguishable, hence their dual listing in the Marihuana Tax Act 
of 1937 and their definition as a Schedule I narcotic in the 
Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

The only difference between the two is the level of the active 
psychotropic chemical delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. In 
industrial hemp, it is usually (and now, legally) 0.3 percent or 
less. In marijuana, it ranges between 10 and 30 percent. A second 
cannabinoid, cannabidiol or CBD, is also produced in both variants, 
and it counteracts the effects of THC. CBD has potential medical 
applications, especially regarding epileptic seizures. Cannabinoids, 
unique to cannabis plants, may number 60 or more, but THC and CBD are 
the major players.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom