In Which the good doctor visits our nation's capitol to decide just how we're going to legalize hemp in Canada.
By Dr Alexander Sumach

    Last November, a handful of steadfast Canadian hempsters were invited by Health Canada to meet in a climate of "transparency" with knowledgeable government personnel, in order to draft an initial Hemp Regulatory Agreement. Two days of intense hemp talks followed in Ottawa on March 17-18 of this year.
A sprinkling of autonomous regional hemp activists, people from the newly formed Canadian Industrial Hemp Council (CIHC), experienced hemp farmers, crop agronomists, glib seed growers and anxious hemp entrepreneurs alike were all in attendance.
    I was invited pretty much at the last minute, and caught a lift from Montreal to Ottawa with Larry DuPrey and Jerzy Przytyk of the CIHC. We managed to hang around with many of the hemp ambassadors between rounds at the government sweat lodge, and learned how the federal machinery operates.

A Two-Headed Trojan Horse

    The cannabis plant is a gift from God say some, and only a blockhead would deny that it's worth a pretty penny. You can even weave a dandy noose from its fibres to hang the dope fiends at the other end of the bargain. In spite of what you might otherwise expect, the law will continue to view cannabis as a two-headed Trojan horse. The fact that one man's party is another man's poison will remain.
    There's jaw wagging in the citadels of Ottawa, the nation's capitol, about granting parole for unrepentant hemp. There's noise about letting hemp out of lockup and putting it to work, under proper supervision. Even the feds realize that they will soon have to hand out more than the occasional season's pass to scattered hemp farmers.
    What was once the privilege of government researchers is now the dream of the private sector, who want to grow and process this promising "new" crop to develop an industry of their own making. They are legion, and their flood of requests to obtain permission to grow low THC hemp is like airbags going off every day in the offices of Health Canada.
    Responding to this phenomenon is a headache for the Drug Surveillance Branch, which is responsible for maintaining order in the hemp fields. Their workload concerns dangerous drugs; spooky poisons, body counts, weasel hunting in the sewers of society. They are not exactly overjoyed to monitor the activities of tractor jockeys and underwear manufacturers who have nothing to do with drugs and the laws which forbid certain drugs from circulating.

Billion Dollar Babysitters

    However, news that industrial hemp might become a billion dollar baby has reached the desks of the policy czars in Ottawa. The aromatherapy of fresh revenues has awoken the bosses from their dreams of snuffing out the weed entirely. Now they are busy looking into dividing hemp from marijuana once and for all. Yet they are reluctant to give the green light to hemp, and plan to keep hemp on a short leash until further notice. It's a start, but it's hardly the gesture farmers and processors are willing to accept as remedy for their industry.
The bean counters in the Federal Treasury Department have seen the potential of Industrial Hemp, and noted that Europe is undertaking a vigorous modern hemp industry that is a sharp contrast to the American folly of continuing to wage war on the weed. Treasury has sent directives to Health Canada to measure and weigh the costs and benefits of allowing a full-fledged industrial hemp industry to take shape across the country.
The feds are a little surprised that hemp blew onto the fast track on its own agenda, in spite of all resistance from their programs to frustrate the return of this long-shot fantasy crop to the Canadian farm menu. Now the feds are starting to sing along with the pro-hemp choir, and are eager to run the show as choir masters. They are watching for an opportunity to set the play list, decorate the stage and collect the tickets at the door.
To do this, the feds must first rescue hemp from underneath the blanket prohibition of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the new comprehensive drug law that may yet offer an honourable path for hemp to enter into the industrial mainstream and pump some tax gravy upstairs.

Siamese Twins Separated in Court

    Phase one of the federal response to hemp was the creation of a "Hemp Project" as a side-order salad within the Health Canada cafeteria. Here, it is hoped, the camel will pass through the eye of the needle, and emerge tamed and ready to carry a safe cargo for her new masters waiting on the other side. Hemp will soon be resaddled with legislative seatbelts and permits, and assigned a new speed limit with close scrutiny over diversion of the drug.
    THC, the original sin of cannabis, is regarded as bad news, no matter how tiny the amount. No compromise in this subject is likely to be entertained for quite some time, if ever.
    Even government itself is changing gears to get ready to act as trail masters for the hemp rodeo. Drug Surveillance is hoping to avoid the office workload of regulating industrial hemp, but insist on their privilege to intervene to ensure the health and safety of Canadians. In truth, their mandate should be no more invasive than the sanitation department walking into restaurant kitchens unannounced to make sure the daily special is what it really presents itself to be.

Greetings, Earthlings

    Enter Ms Jean Peart, appointed manager of the government hemp project. Her precise speech outlining a vague acceptance of federal policy at the Commercial Hemp Symposium in Vancouver last February was received with a certain doubt by the audience of Canadian and international hemp hopefuls, who had gathered by the score to catch an eyeful of hempen weather forecasts for the coming season. "We want it!" chirped Peart, a no-nonsense Ottawa civil service hemp hawk, working within the Department of Health, Drug

Surveillance Division.

    Her carefully scripted speech merely hinted that the feds are sniffing around the needle, watching for camels. No doubt a federal hemp policy turn-around has been in the works for some time. The general public has clearly come to recognize hemp as entirely different from marijuana, and remains curious about the hempen industries that have sprung up from the ashes of the drug war.
    Amazingly, regular citizens had managed to distinguish hemp from drugs without any input or propaganda from the government. Popular culture had managed to fence off hemp from drugs all by itself, and done a splendid job of presenting hemp as an innocuous crop that might benefit the nation and the planet.
Regarding the relationship between hemp and marijuana, the Canadian government position seems to be "Just Don't Say It" It's a configuration of sharp policy contrasts, an attempt to mop up after a losing battle and still retain the winning hand at the hemp casino tables.

License in the Real World

    The government grab will eventually take hemp beyond rhetoric and deliver it to revenue-generating status. The real world of legal hemp promises to be awash in permits, compliance and reporting of the hemp harvest to a council of cannaphobes who will continue to regulate the industry as if THC was the original sin.
The day a Canadian adult can apply for and receive the privilege of a hemp growing permit is the day real progress can be measured. Here's hoping obtaining a hemp permit will be no more difficult or expensive than securing a driver's licence or a passport.
    The feds would like the permit process to be streamlined, as much as the hemp farmers want the same sort of thawing out of antique compliance stipulations so they can get on with their business of growing it.
There are murmurs of regulating hemp along the lines of registration of firearms and the licensing of pharmacists, and this may be the only option that will be seriously considered. Cruise the forests with a heater, dispense some powerful drugs, but don't stray from the agreement or you will face some nasty retribution. So it's registration for hemp farmers - apply and comply. Fair enough, let the games begin!
    Gentlemen, start your tractors! It's the Patriots vs the Traitors, and it's anybody's guess as to who is who at this critical point.
    Apparently, everybody is going broke waiting. Poverty, the great equalizer; Desire, the mother of innovation; and Opportunity, the signal for advance; are whistling like a trio of tea kettles at full boil.

A New Way of Looking at Hemp

    Government and their unlikely allies from the pro-hemp hinterland are gathering to smoke the peace pipe, metaphorically speaking, and come to some sort of arrangement that will provide for the industry's immediate concerns without compromising agenda priorities which ensure the health and safety of all Canadians.
The new approach from government is "working together" - which I recognize as the battlecry of those without money. "A new way of looking at hemp" is international office lingo to mask a completely confused perspective with a twist of opportunity implied. However, it is nevertheless a welcome gesture from our civil servants that they too are trapped in a legal cul-de-sac and are running out of gas.
    The Canadian government is to be applauded for waving the white flag and calling for a peace treaty before push comes to shove. All eyes are on this new way of looking at hemp. Maybe Canada will be able to refloat itself after being scuttled on the shoals of public opinion concerning industrial hemp. Maybe now there will be some honourable way out of the labyrinth of fossilized policy and into the jet stream of accommodation for the weed of wonder.

Governing the Forbidden

    Governing the forbidden cannot be an easy task. In order to free up hemp from legislative bondage, a shakedown of several interconnected government departments will be necessary. Health, Justice, Industry, Agriculture and all their subsidiary agencies will have to have their agendas sent to the cleaners, and brought back fresh and pressed.
    The feds are busy right now drafting out a mechanism of procedure that will hopefully permit hemp to advance in Canada beyond a few scattered test plots and into full commercial scale. They're in no hurry.
Despite the fact that hemp is not marijuana, it is still a candidate for legislated chemistry. THC, the sand in the salad.
    Even though low-THC hemp is a very different creature from super-potent illicit marijuana, it will continue to be monitored to thwart criminal diversion. Fat chance of that really happening. Fibre hemp exhibits a mere trace of THC, and although oilseed hemp admittedly develops somewhat higher THC levels at maturity, neither hemp varieties are suited for diversion.
    As potent marijuana is the choice of the illicit market, and high THC varieties are easily available and easily distinguishable from hemp, why would any knucklehead want to bother with hemp as a base material for diversion? Considering the bulk and low concentration of THC in hemp, and high contamination rates by abundant non-active cannabinoids tightly bonded within the chemical makeup of the hemp plant, how could hemp be regarded as a drug? Why would anyone care to divert or convert into what would soon be a black market bankruptcy if they did?
    Here's hoping that the traffic jam can be cleared out, and the road to plenty opened up before this climate of cannabis glasnost is compromised by storms of contention that may push the hemp agenda back into the parking lot.

First Period, No Score

    Jean Peart's slide show in Vancouver and tough stance regarding government policy is only the first round. She concluded her presentation with an offer to listen to suggestions on how some sort of workable regulatory framework might shape up in the near future.
    When Peart predicted a grueling review process, and the necessity of knitting an airtight policy of containment and accountability before there would be any easing up of the hemp licensing process, everyone in the audience was a little shaken, to say the least. Canadians, and the western division in particular, had hoped for an amnesty for hemp, and were a bit surprised that it would take time and effort to deliver hemp to the marketplace.
    This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around - and you better believe it pal.

The Highway to Hemp

    The silver lining within the dark cloud of reluctance was the hemp regulation workshop Health Canada promised to host in Ottawa in the month of March. Here, government officials and what they call "stakeholders" in the hemp debate would be invited to meet for two days of intense opinion exchanges. These would hopefully bring in ideas from the outside world to be used as fuel for the feds to hammer into a comprehensive set of regulations to govern the rapidly emerging hemp industry.
    Ottawa would clearly not be playing footsie with the psychedelically-hearted hemp honchos, or roll over in her commitment to international treaties concerning drugs. Here is the highway to hemp, and the road leads to both American and European policy camps. The American style is to nix hemp because it may be marijuana in disguise. The Europeans, who are actually growing hemp, are making some shrewd choices to allow the crop to show what it really can do on the modern farm.
    The Europeans have managed to separate hemp from marijuana without a lot of fuss. They have laws to spank bad hemp farmers who don't play along, but so far there have been no reports of THC diversion in European hemp operations. They're starting to make money and develop markets for their hemp, and no harm has come of their curious enterprise within their national boundaries.

Our American Cousins

    At the other, more fragrant end of the stick, our American cousins continue to deliberately confuse the obviously great differences between hemp and drugs. TV America still plays dumb, while knowing better. Perhaps the voice of commerce there is not ready to challenge the consumer value index regarding marijuana that has been so carefully orchestrated to reject any surrender to the narcobuckaneers no matter what the facts may be.
    America has never gone for metric or bilingual Spanish. Hemp to the Americans is harder than interplanetary travel, and what they can't win at they tend to disallow to others. Fair was way back there. In Canada however, we're not talking felony anymore when we talk hemp, we're talking destiny. We know the difference between hemp and marijuana and are prepared to demonstrate our hard-won knowledge on the world market.

Hemp Countdown

    In ten years most of the syntax bloopers will have been long gone, and the hectares of hemp will be reaching for the sky. Only certified low THC strains of hemp will be grown, and only registered permit holders will be cultivating hemp.
    The transition to the smooth running of a fully responsible, entirely accountable hemp industry will take time. Some adjustment here and there by everyone involved in the inspection process, to ensure compliance to reasonable regulations, will likely be a task all hemp stakeholders will be living with.
In reality, there is no THC diversion potential with certified hemp varieties, and this opens up a very important concern to debate at the genesis of the Canadian hemp industry: does government aspire to control the hemp plant or the THC molecule?

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

    Hemp breeding aims at developing the lowest possible levels of THC in the plant as can be practically attained. David Watson, director of the International Hemp Association, while presenting his perspective at the Vancouver Hemp Symposium, stated that "THC is not a critical factor in the creation of improved strains of industrial hemp." In other words, hemp exhibiting ultra-low THC levels is possible.
    How will future governments justify such strict controls over hemp if it can be demonstrated that hemp cultivars have become stabilized, and that THC is no longer a point of contention? The hemp of 1997 will not be the hemp growing in Canada in 2017, and possibly undeserving of such constraints that no other natural resource material industry is obliged to comply with.

Zero Point Trois

    Federal eagerness to establish a fixed THC threshold for industrial hemp may prove to be a millstone around Ottawa's neck if Watson's knowledgeable prediction of ultra-low THC hemp pans out. The 0.3% THC ceiling is the arbitrary numeral Health Canada is assigning as the maximum concentration they hope to see passed into law.
    The 0.3% figure is what French breeders are able to achieve in Europe - and so the Europeans peg their hemp to what they can achieve in the field. Yet that's another continent altogether. Hemp has not been grown on a scale or over a sufficient span of time in Canada for anybody to say with certainty that this is what the climate and soil of Canada will induce with our homegrown harvest of fibre and oil seed. Could be even lower, might be somewhat higher - but definitely way below THC levels that would suggest that drugs are being manufactured within hemp tissue.
    As the knowledge of THC development in cannabis varieties is imperfectly understood, and research has been abandoned for 20 years into the effects of THC on human beings, it is simply not a good idea to voodoo up a number that hemp must pass beneath at this point in proceedings. Much preferred is the concept of "acceptable levels of THC" set by Health Canada, with a trespass point clearly established.

Black Tie Optional

    The Hemp Regulations Workshop held in Ottawa in March of Ô97 was by invitation only. The wackos and hotheads were carefully weeded out, and a short list of "at large" hempster stakeholders was drawn up by our hosts, the Bureau of Drug Surveillance.
    It was made clear at the very beginning of the proceedings that we had gathered to talk hemp - to cover their behinds, as commercial licensing was due for some sort of action plan.
It was also made very clear that this was not a semi-formal parlez-vous pot to legalize marijuana, scuffle over the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, or get any bright ideas of transferring final authority governing hemp from Health Canada to the Department of Agriculture.
    We were reminded, however nicely, that what would transpire over the next few days would not necessarily manifest into actuality, and suggestions would only be taken if they could be spot welded onto an agenda that certainly seemed to be in place well before the show began.

The Hemp Bureaucrats

    The bulk of the attendees were representatives from departments within the government which will have some doing or other with hemp. Here, people from Law Enforcement, Agriculture and Health were summoned from their office desks to squeeze off a few rounds of policy for all to behold and take note. It was obvious that nobody wanted to take on the extra duties of hemp patrol, and were anxious to have everybody else deal with it.
    During coffee break, I learned from a Health Canada toxicologist that one THC test costs $150, and takes all day to get a reading. His equipment in Health Canada is way too sensitive to evaluate the low flight paths of THC in hemp. His toys are designed to betray marijuana - from drug seizures and the tissues of autopsy subjects. He carried a briefcase with a skull and crossbones decal on the front, and he wasn't playing around.
A charismatic woman from Justice noted that "the old Narcotic Control Act would not fly if it was presented today." Then she just giggled and went over to the sandwich table.

What, Me Worry?

    The RCMP want nothing to do with hemp it seems. They know it's nothing to worry over, and hope that Health Canada takes over. The RCMP allow that if they receive any reports of hemp diversion, they will investigate. If Health Canada has any suspicions, the Mounties will follow up. However, the RCMP is more interested in going after the proceeds of crime "to recoup costs of enforcement" than in chasing sticks like a dog.
    Health Canada is not exactly anxious to impact itself on hemp, and would prefer to let the seed grower take any heat. It is, after all, the genetic potential of any given sample of hemp seed that is the critical factor in drug/non-drug policy.
    Agriculture Canada will be the main mover in getting hemp airborne, but it will still be Health Canada that will have the final say as to who receives a permit to grow hemp. Agriculture Canada will hover over the seed question and has the honour of maintaining records of registration. Woopee! Office procedures in two languages!
    The lady from Justice pokes her head in the door to remind everyone that "Government is compelled to respond to data they collect" - so they would like to keep that down to a minimum. She mentions that hemp sampling is not mandatory from either Health or Justice, and so please just ask for samples from permit holders. Nevertheless, Health writes down "required hemp sample testing", and would like the hemp farmer to submit a sample and pay for analysis at private laboratories, thus keeping their desks tidy.
    Other chats suggested the farmer could buy and store hemp seed without a licence, and would only require a licence to grow. Once the farmer declares the integrity of the hemp variety he/she plans to sow, Health Canada will assign the necessary permit.

En Garde!

    The workshop itself was a policy swordfight between governmental departments, each hoping to defend neutrality and avoid taking on any extra work. Their passion was in overdrive to avoid hemp, to have as little to do with it as possible. Each sweat drop was the manifestation of inner reluctance... the absolute reverse of how pro-hemp congregations react to the same stimulus.
    To keep hemp away from a backyard business scale, it was proposed that three hectares be the absolute minimum size operation that will be considered for licensing. Sure, why the heck not? Next!

Spin Doctor Bruce

    By far, the most interesting person at the workshop was Dr Bruce Rowsell, director of the Bureau of Drug Surveillance. He called the shots. Jean Peart, so "take charge" in Vancouver, was a faithful and ambitious auxiliary of Dr Rowsell, and spun the proceedings knowing his ever-present eye was fixed upon her.
    Dr Rowsell is not a goof. He's sharp, informed, and deaf to anything but well presented conjectures. He took copious notes and said very little. Though courteous, he was not a politician beaming good vibes. He wasn't selling anything, and he didn't appear to be buying very much either. He leaves his opinions at home, and brings a steely conviction to work everyday.
    I later learned that Rowsell had personally escorted a potential candidate out of the building and onto the street earlier that morning, because he felt that he may be a troublemaker. He then welcomed us into the conference area as if he did this sort of thing all the time. The fact is he does do this sort of thing all the time, and he knows where the lines are drawn in the sand. Comply with good order, you get coffee in a china cup. Fail to comply and you're toast. That's not a bad way to go with growing hemp either. You play, you stay - you stray, no way.

Stairway to Heaven

    Two days later, we shuffled out of the citadel to see the sun go down over the stone fortresses in downtown Ottawa. This was not a wedding we had just left, nor was it an execution. Instead, it was a bit of a surprise to witness and contribute to a process of reality wrestling to dust off hemp, blow away the cobwebs of narrow expectation and play a few riffs with the Federal Symphony Policy Orchestra. There was a fixed script, and no missing your cue.
    This was hardball, pay attention and don't slack off. This was the team playing in a practice game. The big game is coming up - where Canada will be in the world play-offs. In our bid to play fair and true with hemp, can victory be so far away? Stay tuned, for as soon as Health Canada gets a grip on hemp they will pass their framework to the lawyers at the Department of Justice, who will draft legislation. From there, the hemp package will be published in "The Canada Gazette" and then be introduced to the House of Commons for passage into law. That's that!
    It's happening as you read this page. Don't say you weren't invited to get involved. If you won't make the distinction between hemp and marijuana, Dr Rowsell, or one of his staff, will be glad to fix your opinion. They know the difference. Do you?

For More Info
Contact Jean Peart at (613) 954-6524; fax (613) 952-7738; email jean_peart@inet.hwc.ca
Visit the Health Canada hemp web page at
www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hpb-dgps/therapeut/drhtmeng/hemp.html