Harrelson trial highlights benefits of
industrial hemp
By JOHN S. RAUSCH
Special to the National Catholic Reporter Berea,
Ky.
Louie Nunn, Kentuckys former Republican governor, grabbed a
candy bar made of hemp seed. Now a venerable statesman in the commonwealth,
Nunn gave the closing argument in defense of actor Woody Harrelson, accused of
planting hemp seeds in Lee County. By holding this candy bar in my hand I
am in possession of marijuana according to the [Kentucky] statute, Nunn
told the jury. Tearing off the wrapper, he munched a corner of the bar and
continued, Now I got it on me, and I got it in me.
Great theater for a misdemeanor trial that attracted adoring fans,
the national press and advocates of industrial hemp. Most state laws, including
Kentuckys, make no distinction between marijuana and industrial hemp.
Yet, while one gets users high, the other promises to strengthen the economic
base for many rural families and help the environment for all. Hemp, a crop of
myriad uses, represents a viable alternative to tobacco for family farms.
Hemp paper will preserve forests from vast clear-cut logging. Hemp
clothing will spare soil the petrochemical supplements demanded by other fiber
crops. For Appalachia, hemp offers a sustainable direction that promises a
variety of light manufacturing for small communities.
Unfortunately, industrial hemp is illegal.
The Harrelson trial on Aug. 24 in the heart of Appalachia in
Beattyville, Ky., (population 1,131) highlighted the confusion between
marijuana and industrial hemp. Both are part of the genus cannabis. Legally, to
possess industrial hemp is to possess marijuana. On June 1, 1996, Harrelson was
arrested during a test of the laws ambiguity. He planted four certified
industrial hemp seeds in view of the Lee County sheriff and a video camera
crew.
Advocates of hemp say the difference between marijuana and
industrial hemp -- although they are essentially the same plant -- lies in the
psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which produces a drug
high. Whereas street marijuana contains 3 to 15 percent tetrahydrocannabinol,
industrial hemp, which is bred differently, has only 0.3 percent.
The scare of a marijuana epidemic pushed legislators beginning in
the 1930s to gradually prohibit all forms of cannabis. Curiously, several local
folks attending the trial remembered their grandparents growing hemp with
government-issued seeds in the Hemp for Victory campaign during
World War II. Counselor Nunn even reminded the jury that the Declaration of
Independence was written on paper made from hemp.
Harrelson recalled that, in the early 1990s, as an avowed
environmentalist, he was searching for alternatives to National Forestry
Service plans to lease 6 million acres of forests for mining and clear-cut
logging. Old-growth forests would be cut down to make paper. Hemp offered an
alternative. The same paper products currently made from 100-year-old forests
could be made from hemp grown in 120 days.
Appalachias vast stands of forests keep chip mills and paper
plants humming. Hemp could limit the bite of the chainsaw.
Further, industrial hemp grows without the need of fungicides,
herbicides or insecticides. Although it needs some nitrogen fertilizer, its
deep roots can improve the soils structure. Hemp paper is acid-free and
takes less energy and fewer toxic chemicals to produce than wood fiber paper.
For Appalachia, growing and processing industrial hemp would mean less
pollution.
Though still one of the states with the most farms, Kentucky has
seen its farms dwindle from 267,000 in 1940 to 88,000 in 1997. Most small
Kentucky farms, especially those in Appalachia, survive with some tobacco base.
Family farms hold out intangible values such as a sense of place, opportunity
for physical labor, connection to the land. Neighbor helps neighbor;
communities look out for their own. To lose family farms is to forfeit a basic
source of spirituality in the region. But amid concern for public health and a
diminishing domestic market for tobacco, this keystone of the Appalachias
small-farm economy begs for an alternative.
Tobacco gives the farmer roughly $2,000 net per acre. While field
crops like corn or soybeans yield around $70 net an acre, raw hemp returns
about $400 net an acre. Replacing tobacco with industrial hemp means utilizing
five times more land to maintain the income equivalent of tobacco, a difficult
challenge in mountainous Appalachia.
Still, hemp presents numerous possibilities for economic
development beyond the crop itself. With industrial hemp grown in and around
Appalachia, mountain communities could spawn small companies for manufacturing.
Hemp products can include baseball caps, lingerie, jeans, lip balm, veggie
burgers, paper, shoes and building supplies. It can be used in plastics, as a
non-toxic alternative to fiberglass and blended with other textile fibers.
Industrial hemp could comprise part of a potential alternative to the
worlds dependence on petroleum, forest products and toxic chemicals.
In Kentucky, though, where illegal marijuana is arguably the
largest cash crop, it is illegal to wear clothing made from hemp. State law
bars the University of Kentucky from research on uses of hemp.
At the Harrelson trial the prosecution had to prove beyond
reasonable doubt that the defendant had hemp-marijuana in his possession and
that he intended to break the law. Although the prosecution played a 10-second
video showing Harrelson hoeing the seed bed, displaying the seeds and patting
the ground after planting, it neglected one convincing step: it never retrieved
the seed or tested the plant. How do you know they werent pumpkin
seeds? asked Nunn. The failure to test and retrieve physical evidence,
plus the commonsense reasoning of the jurors (I couldnt send
someone to jail for planting four seeds, one juror is reported to have
said), kept this case from becoming a media circus akin to the1925 Scopes
Monkey Trial, in which school teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of
teaching evolution.
The verdict in the Harrelson trial: not guilty.
The Harrelson case did not change the law. Two years ago the
Kentucky Supreme Court ruled the law constitutional with its definition of
marijuana. To change the laws, both state and federal, means educating the
public about how 32 countries throughout the world, including Canada, England
and Germany produce industrial hemp with licenses and safeguards. It means
challenging the official policy of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration:
zero tolerance for THC. And, it probably means fighting the wealth and power of
the petrochemical, timber and fiber lobbies. Only a David with a slingshot
could do that.
Still, smiling Woody Harrelson with hoe in hand might have
prepared a seedbed for new thinking, leading to sprouts of hope in
Appalachia.
Fr. John Rausch, a Glenmary priest, coordinates the Office of
Justice and Peace for the Lexington, Ky., diocese.
National Catholic Reporter, September 8,
2000
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