The Arizona Republic Monday, April 29, 1996
Navajo's hemp crop may not sprout.
Laws say plant as illegal as growing marijuana.
Bill Donovan Correspondent

WINDOW ROCK - After decades of unemployment rates of more than 50 percent, the small Navajo community of Wide Ruin thinks it finally has found the solution to its economy woes: hemp.

But officials aren't sure they can overcome the legal obstacles that have stopped farmers in several other states from getting into the very profitable business of growing hemp fiber.

The biggest obstacle, said Merwin Lynch, president of the small community 45 miles southwest of Window Rock, is federal laws that lump hemp in the same category as marijuana.

Lynch said several farmers in Wide Ruin with the help of groups that support hemp growing in the United States, plan to plant their first crop in early May if tribal officials approve.

However, Navajo Nation President Albert Hale is awaiting a legal opinion from the tribe's Justice Department, expected to be issued this week, before giving his approval.

Officials for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said Friday that any attempt by Wide Ruin farmers to plant hemp would violate federal prohibitions against growing any members of the cannabis sativa family for purposes other than research.

Hemp and marijuana are two of the 400 or so members of that family.

Dana Seely, a DEA spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said tetrahydracannabinol, the chemical that causes euphoria in marijuana users, also is present in hemp and, therefore, is a controlled substance under DEA jurisdiction.

However, officials for the Coalition for Hemp Awareness, a global group based in Chandler Heights that has been advising Wide Ruin farmers, argue that the hemp the farmers want to grow is so low in THC that a person could smoke a pound of it and get nothing more than a headache.

Kathy Trout, who runs an Apache Junction company that sells clothing and other products made of hemp, said demand for hemp products is growing every yea.

Hemp fiber can be used for more than 2,500 products, including clothes, rope, food products and housing material. For the past three yeas, several Navajo weavers in the Wide Ruin area have been using hemp yarn to produce their rugs.

Trout said she and other sellers of hemp products are forced to use fiber grown in Canada, China, Yugoslavia, Great Britain and other counties to make their products.

"It doesn't make any sense that the federal government will allow us to import hemp from other countries but not grow it here, where it could produce a lot of jobs for American workers," she said.

Legislators in several states, weighing the revenue that could be generated by hemp, have considered proposals in the past two years to establish pilot programs to see whether the crop is feasible in the United States.

However, only Vermont has opted to buck the DEA and move forward, and that legislation is still waiting for approval by the governor.

Christie Bohling of the Coalition for Hemp Awareness said hemp seeds currently are selling for $4,500 a ton and hemp stalks for about $150 a ton.

"This is the most profitable crop now around, outside of wheat," she said.

The coalition is donating the seeds to Wide Ruin farmers to help get them started and will help them sell any crop they produce.

"We already have purchase orders for more than they can produce," Bohling said, adding that hemp grows in almost any environment, s growing it on the semi-arid reservation should be not problem.

"There's hardly any employment here, so we need something like this," Lynch said of Wide Ruin, which has a population of 4,000 or so.

Community members are looking at tribal sovereignty as a way to get around federal prohibitions on hemp.

Officials for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has trust responsibility for land use on the reservation, say they will leave the matter up to the tribal government, at least for now.

DEA officials said they are watching the situation at Wide Ruin closely and may act if any hemp is planted.

Bohling and other hemp supporters, however, still are urging Wide Ruin farmers to go ahead, in part because they're certain that hemp growing eventually will be approved in some states.

EFS

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