BILLS WOULD ALLOW HEMP FARM STUDIES

`Make the most of the hemp seed and sow it everywhere.'

-- George Washington, 1794.

Hemp once was one of the nation's vital crops.

Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew cannabis hemp on their plantations.

It was the country's oldest cultivated plant. But Congress outlawed hemp farming in 1937 in an effort to eliminate the use of marijuana as a drug.

Hemp farming was permitted during World War II because of a fiber shortage. The crop was used to make everything from rope to dungarees.

After the war, the nation reinstated the ban on growing hemp.

But hemp farming may return to Missouri.

Two Southeast Missouri lawmakers have introduced legislation to allow the growing and marketing of industrial hemp.

The hemp would be grown on research plots supervised by the Missouri Department of Agriculture.

The goal is to determine the crop's potential in Missouri, said state Sen. Jerry Howard, D-Dexter, who introduced the Senate bill.

State Rep. Larry Thomason, D-Kennett, has introduced similar legislation in the House.

The Senate Agriculture Committee held a hearing on Howard's bill Thursday. A House committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Thomason's bill Monday.

Before any hemp could be grown even at controlled test sites, the Agriculture Department would have to obtain federal approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Howard said Missouri could become the first state in the nation to grow hemp since it was banned decades ago. Some other states, however, are also looking into researching the crop.

There has been no real hemp research in the United States because it has been illegal to grow it, Howard said.

It is legal, however, to import processed hemp and use it to manufacture clothing and other products. It is also legal to buy and sell hemp products in the United States.

If the hemp legislation becomes law in Missouri, the initial crop could be planted this year at the University of Missouri's four agricultural research centers, including the Delta Center at Portageville.

In two to three years, the state's Agriculture Department could expand the program to allow farmers to grow it under controlled conditions, Howard said.

"We are really just going back to our roots," he said.

Howard introduced legislation to allow the farming of industrial hemp last year. But it died because of lack of support in the House, he said.

Both Howard and Thomason said their bills deal only with industrial hemp and not the related marijuana plant.

Industrial hemp has a very low level of the drug found in marijuana plants.

"It is still illegal to grow marijuana under this bill and it will continue to be," Howard said.

Law enforcement officials have expressed some concern about the legislation.

Thomason said he hopes the General Assembly will move beyond the "guilt-by-association" label that hemp has had in the past.

He said industrial hemp might prove a good crop for Bootheel farmers.

Both Thomason and Howard said hemp can be used to make a variety of products from carpet backing to jeans, and ropes to paper.

"Hemp is the strongest natural fiber in the world," Howard said.

It also is environmentally friendly, he said.

"It is renewable, biodegradable," said Howard.

The hemp stalk can be used in cattle feed, he said.

A Poplar Bluff company sells hemp products. The Oxford Hemp Exchange store sells shirts, pants, hats, shoes and other hemp products.

K. Boyd Vancil II said his store buys hemp fabric from abroad and then contracts with a Piedmont firm to cut and sew the material into clothes.

Vancil favors the legislation. He said hemp has long been recognized as a valuable crop in other countries.

"Our competitors in Europe receive $400-an-acre subsidies to raise the crop and we can't even get test plots done at our land-grant university," he said.

HEMP HISTORY

"Hemp is of first necessity to commerce and marine, in other words, to the wealth and protection of the country." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1791

*In the early 1600s, hemp was considered such a vital resource that laws were passed ordering farmers to grow it.

You could even pay your taxes with hemp.

*Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp on their plantations.

*The U.S. Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp plantations growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and other necessities.

*Cannabis extracts were the second and third most prescribed medicines in the U.S. from 1842 until the 1890s.

*Hemp grows about four times mpore fiber per acre than an acre of trees.

*Congress banned the growing of hemp in 1937 in an effort to limit the use of marijuana as a drug.

*Today, it is legal to make clothes and other products from hemp, but not to grow it. The raw material must be imported from other countries.