Source: Courier-Journal (KY) Contact: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 Author: Bob Hill HIGH HOPE UNREALISTIC, BUT HEMP'S WORTH A TRY The fun thing for the Louisville Forum to have done yesterday would have been to cut to the chase: Open it up by asking for a show of hands by everyone who had ever used marijuana. Smoke'em out early. Look around at the squirmers who had gathered to hear the debate on industrial hemp. Watch the 40- to 50-something men and women in business suits unconsciously raise their hands a few millimeters, then jerk them down. See the media representatives suddenly busy with their notebooks and cameras, maybe even blank stares from a few of the law-enforcement types now leading the good fight against cannibis sativa. WHAT COULD have better represented our confused, complex, uninformed, hypocritical and emotional attitudes about hemp and marijuana than a room full of well-dressed, well-heeled Louisville leaders sitting in embarrassed silence? The advertised Louisville Forum debate was supposed to be on a more intellectual level 96 93Industrial Hemp: Boon or Bust for Kentucky Farmers?94 But in one way or another, consciously and subconsciously, it kept coming back to marijuana. We have spent billions of dollars in a largely unsuccessful war against drugs. We have spent millions of hours in classrooms steering our children from them. So even industrial hemp cuts deeply against the grain. The hemp-draped standard bearer is actor Woody Harrelson. He calls for hemp to replace raw materials now taken from the ground and trees. In many minds he came tainted: He admits having smoked marijuana. But at least he is willing to raise his hand. Harrelson headlined a Louisville Forum lineup that included the strongest and most articulate voices in the debate: the president of the Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association; a Canadian farmer now legally growing 2,000 acres of hemp; professors from Indiana University and the University of Kentucky who have studied the economic value and chemical properties of hemp; and a retired agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Kentucky. The pro-hemp forces, with reason, have grown weary of the demonization of their crop. Harrelson looking fit, tanned, and very Woodyish in boots, pants, and shirt made of hemp products - offered to "get out of the way" if his very famous presence was a detriment to the debate. He seemed sincere, but he answered a few questions anyway. And he'd better not stray too far; you'd never get every television station, radio station and newspaper in the area to attend a hemp debate involving two professors, a DEA agent and a Canadian farmer. When it was all said and done that farmer- Jean Laprise-who had the most compelling arguments for at least planting trail hemp plots in Kentucky. His product is limited by law to about 0.3 of 1 percent THC- the chemical agent that produces the high. Dr. Paul Mahlberg an Indiana University professor who studies such things, said good street marijuana must be at least 30 percent THC. "Anyone who tried to sell hemp as marijuana wouldn't last long," Mahlberg said smiling. Laprise said he has never used marijuana and never will: he is a closely regulated businessman trying to make money. The DEA argument was the party line: Any THC level is illegal; allowing hemp fields will lead to more marijuana fields. So it goes. An argument in a time warp-with the media there mostly because Woody was here. I can't see hemp as the savior of Kentucky's small farmers. If it's that good, monster agribusiness companies will move in to grow and process it, not small farmers. Hemp-which is very easy to grow-may not even be a part of the agricultural answer. But if Kentucky farms are disappearing- and if the government will grow test plots seeking even lower THC levels-shouldn't we at lest find out? - --- Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)