Stoner logic?

The hemp product industry is booming. Hemp is being used in food, clothing, paper, and cosmetics, and sales are increasing by 50 percent a year. The intense demand for hemp is good news for farmers - unless they live in the U.S. That's because it's legal to import hemp seeds and fiber into the U.S., but it's illegal for U.S. farmers to grow industrial hemp.

Incredibly, the U.S. is the only industrialized nation that has not yet legalized industrial hemp as a crop (although the federal government actually encouraged farmers to grow it during wartime, until 1970). While several states are working to legalize the growing of industrial hemp, the federal government has another view.

"Let's not be naive," 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."

Let's not be naive, Mr. Riley. Marijuana fields are growing everywhere - especially on federal land. Do you really believe that keeping hemp illegal has kept anyone from growing marijuana? Do you really think that keeping hemp and marijuana illegal has solved any problems?

Stoner logic, indeed.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/hemp112205.cfm