I love David and Goliath stories, and the recent news from North Dakota is just that: two farmers and a publicly funded land grant university sticking it to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). As you know from an earlier article on Green Options , and my subsequent podcast Greening the Golden Years Podcast: Hemp, The North Dakota Story, two North Dakota farmers, State Rep. Dave Monson and Wayne Hauge filed a lawsuit to end the DEA’s ban on state-regulated commercial hemp farming in the U.S.

Now comes North Dakota State University, with a current student body of around 12,000, filing an amicus brief in support of the two farmers. And NDSU has its own bone to pick with the DEA: an almost unbelievable snub of the small school.

In 1999, according to a news release from Vote Hemp, the university applied for permission to grow non-drug industrial hemp to create varieties best suited for the North Dakota climate and soil conditions. The DEA, according to the release, has chosen to ignore completely the 8 year old request. How’s that for big brother arrogance?

The DEA still holds that industrial hemp, almost completely bereft of the hallucinogenic compound that produces a "high," can be used as a drug. I read somewhere that smoking industrial hemp would produce nothing more than a bad headache.

According to the news release,

Gold can hypothetically and has in some instances been extracted from seawater, but the minimal concentration makes it technically and economically inefficient and commercially non-viable to do so. There are trace opiates in poppy seeds consumed on bagels, that could also be hypothetically be concentrated; but just as with industrial hemp is not a practical source of drugs for the illicit market

So what’s the big deal, DEA?

The farmers’ case will be heard in federal court on Wednesday, November 14, 2007, in Bismark, North Dakota. A press conference will follow, and I’ll have an article and hopefully an interview that same day.

In any case, let’s hear it loud and clear for the "Davids" of this world who aren’t afraid to stand up and cry "foul." It’s time someone put the DEA’s feet to the fire. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California could have set up the same scenario by signing a bill that passed through the state legislature, asking for approval to grow industrial hemp in four California counties. Arnold obviously didn’t have the stomach for a possible showdown with the DEA, and vetoed the publicly supported legislation. Strange, too, because Schwarzenegger has been a big proponent of environmentalism, but, on the other hand had the temerity to tell a columnist that "marijuana is not a drug, it’s a leaf."

Today’s podcast is a follow-up of my earlier article, Opinion: California Governor Nixes Industrial Hemp While North Dakota Moves On. I felt it necessary to further investigate the North Dakota story and help bring you up to date on other activity around the country.

Twenty-eight states have introduced hemp legislation and fifteen have passed legislation; seven, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, West Virginia and North Dakota have removed barriers to its production or research. Of those five, only North Dakota has set into motion a state regulatory system administered by the state’s agriculture department. It placed into law strict guidelines concerning the cultivation and harvesting of hemp seed and oil, and a licensing process that makes it completely legal under not only North Dakota Law, but federal law as well, to grow industrial hemp and harvest the sterilized seeds and oil for sale in the marketplace.

But no matter what they’ve done, it’s still a catch-22 situation. The farmer’s intent doesn’t matter in the eyes of the DEA, plant one stalk of industrial hemp and the DEA can charge you with growing and possessing a controlled substance, fine you, and possibly take away your property.

Two North Dakota farmers, State Representative David Monson and Wayne Hauge have done something no one else has apparently done in the country, sue the DEA, asking it to make a distincting between industrial hemp and marihuana.

I spoke with the attorney who filed the suit in Federal Court in Bismark, North Dakota, Tim Purdon, a member of the Vogel Law Firm in that city. He explains the lawsuit.

Other sites of interest:

H.B. 1009 in PDF

Vote Hemp

Washingtonwatch