Reply #20: Six U.S. states have passed laws to allow farmers to grow ind. hemp

[Cerridwen]

'Industrial' hemp support takes root

By Donna Leinwand

USA TODAY
November 22, 2005

David Monson is a conservative Republican in North Dakota's legislature.
He's also a farmer who believes that a new cash crop could revitalize his
state's agricultural industry, which has been suffering from poor harvests
and depressed soy and corn prices.

<snip>

Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Montana and West Virginia also have passed
hemp-farming bills. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, introduced such a bill in
Congress in June, but it hasn't advanced in the face of opposition by the
Drug Enforcement Administration and the White House's anti-drug office.

<snip>

(poster's note: and the U.S. Fed's argument?)"Let's not be naïve," says Tom Riley of the White House Office on National
Drug Control Policy. "The pro-dope people have been pushing hemp for 20
years because they know that if they can have hemp fields, then they can
have marijuana fields. It's ... stoner logic."

<snip>

Other North Dakotans say they resent attempts to cast an agricultural and
economic issue as a "pothead" movement. "It's a silly argument," says North
Dakota Agricultural Commissioner Roger Johnson. "Does (Monson) sound like a
druggie?"

<snip>

link to USA Today article posted at organicconsumers.org