A little good news for hemp

[SHRED]

Hemp industry revived with victory over DEA
Bush push to expand drug wars shot down by Ninth Circuit ruling
Bob Egelko, Kathleen Seligman, Chronicle Staff Writers
Saturday, February 7, 2004
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http://sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/02/07/MNGR34RAO51.DTL



The Bush administration's attempt to expand the nation's drug wars to foods and oils containing hemp was shot down Friday by a federal appeals court, which said hemp doesn't get people high and hasn't been outlawed by Congress.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed sales of hemp foods to resume in March 2002, five months after the Drug Enforcement Administration announced an abrupt nationwide ban. On Friday, the court said the DEA had no authority to reclassify hemp as a dangerous drug without first showing that it has a "high potential for abuse.''

The DEA hasn't tried to prove hemp is dangerous but instead argued that consumption of hemp seeds and oil can be outlawed because they contain traces of THC, the active substance in marijuana.

But the court said that under federal law "nonpsychoactive hemp is explicitly excluded from the definition of marijuana.''

DEA spokesman Bill Grant declined comment on the ruling, which could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. For now, it's a relief for the hemp food industry, which saw stores pull its products off shelves in 2001 and is struggling to regain lost ground.

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Now if we can just get it legitimized as an industrial crop:

http://naihc.org/

http://www.votehemp.com/links.html