Contributor's note: The following is reprinted from the Thursday, May 2, 1991 issue of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. It is a front page article by Sonia L. Nazario, Staff Reporter of The Wall St. Journal. -=[*]=- WHAT IS AS VERSATILE AS THE SOYBEAN BUT ILLEGAL ANYWAY? Hemp Plants Yield Marijuana But Guru Jack Herer Sees Lots of Commercial Uses. Marijuana isn't just for smoking anymore. The hemp plant has about as many uses as the soybean. It can be made into a food something like tofu, or into a fabric not unlike linen. It can fire the pistons in your Ford. It can be made into plumbing and paper. It has medicinal properties. Indeed, the many real and conceivable uses of hemp strike some people as new and sufficient grounds to legalize marijuana. More than 20 years of failed efforts to legalize the drug call for new tactics, enthusiasts say. Time has pretty much passed the legalize-pot movement by. Alaska, which decriminalized the possession for personal use of small amounts of marijuana in 1975, decided last fall to recriminalize. As of March 3, possession isn't legal any longer in the 49th state; it's a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. BUDDING RENAISSANCE But Jack Herer, leaning back in his Venice, Calif. bungalow to light his marijuana pipe, continues to believe in hemp. He as much as anyone else is responsible for its budding renaissance. Mr. Herer, 51, has inspired more than 20 grass roots across the country that proselytize hemp. Cannabis Sativa, hempsters say, can "save the world" and thus should be legalized. The flowering tops and leaves are the parts of the hemp plant people smoke. Mr. Herer spent 17 years researching the uses of the fibrous stalks and oily seeds of the plant native to Asia, which historically has been used to produce fiber and pulp for cordage, canvas and paper. It still is cultivated legally in such countries as Italy and Yugoslavia. Mr. Herer has documents purporting to prove that the real reason the U.S. outlawed marijuana in 1937 was that a new hemp-harvesting machine had so enhanced the plant's commercial possibilities that it threatened the politically powerful producers of wood pulp. During one of his eight stays in jail (a two-week sojourn in 1983 on a civil-disobedience charge), Mr. Herer turned his body of hemp lore into a 181-page manifesto, "THE EMPEROR WEARS NO CLOTHES," which since its 1990 reprinting has sold 35,000 copies at $12.95. He also has filed 36,000 signatures on petitions to get a hemp initiative on the California ballot next year. (Needed: 385,000 signatures by July 20.) 2nd part of front page article...POT GURU JACK HERER HAS NEW REASONS TO PROMOTE THE HEMP PLANT: FOOD, FUEL AND FASHIONABLE ATTIRE In recent months hemp groups inspired by Mr. Herer have begun turning up on college campuses, trying to rework hemp's image. "We realized that smoking pot [while] dressed in tie-dies in front of the White House wasn't getting us anywhere," concedes Chris Conrad, founder of the Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp. Believers in San Francisco scrawl "burn pot, not oil" graffiti, even though the line has a whiff of the '60s about it. And from Washington to Los Angels, activists hoist "Hemp for Fuel" signs at rallies. Kentucky lawyer Gatewood Galbraith, a professed prolific pot smoker, hopes to ride his Hempmobile, a 1980 Mercedes- Benz that runs on hemp seed oil, to victory in this month's Kentucky Democratic gubernatorial primary. He isn't expected to win. Country star Willie Nelson, before his recent "HempAid" concert for Mr. Gailbraith in Louisville, remarked:"It's a shame farmers can't grow hemp." He says he's concerned about the family farm. The hemp lobby reveres history. Columbus trusted hempen sails. The founding fathers did their rough drafts of the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper. Hemp "is as much a part of the human condition as walking upright," insists Ronald Miller, a tool grinder in the aerospace industry who greases his long gray hair with oil pressed from hemp seeds. Advocates calculate that by planting 6% of the U.S. in hemp, enough oil could be produced to meet the country's energy needs. Hemp "tofu" ["hempfu"] and hemp gruel could help end world hunger. Hemp-based paper could save entire forests. (The argument here is that hemp plants yield four times the pulp of forested acreage.) Kimberly-Clark Corp. confirms that its French unit harvest hemp to make paper for Bibles and cigarettes. Experts in fuel and fiber (unlike enthusiasts) aren't all that high on hemp, however; they say it costs too much to use. Fiber importer says that hemp costs three times as much as wood pulp for paper production. But Mr. Herer, calling himself a "hemp savant," in his book offers $10,000 to anyone who can prove him wrong about Cannabis. SOURCE OF FINANCING In the 1970s Mr. Herer sold his Los Angeles sign-lighting maintenance business and opened and acquired two head shops, stores that sell drug paraphernalia. He used some of his profits to finance never successful attempts in California and Oregon to legalize marijuana. Mr. Herer, who says he smokes four joints a day, has protested marijuana laws by smoking grass outside the Los Angeles offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration. He and fellow advocates march in parades wearing tri-cornered hats and playing fife and drum to recall Colonial days when hemp was freely grown. Some of Mr. Herer's friends defected along the way, but he has remained true to his cause. Take, for instance, the matter of "Hemp for Victory," a 1942 film produced by the Agriculture Department that urged patriotic farmers to cultivate hemp for wartime (nonsmoking) uses. When the USDA a few years back denied that any such film existed, Mr. Herer journeyed to Washington and found an uncataloged copy at the Library of Congress. READING MATTER "This is a bigger cover-up than Iran-Contra," growls artist Genie Brittingham-Erstad, a husky-voiced San Gabriel, Calif., hempster sitting outside the main federal building in downtown Los Angeles at a table heaped high with Hungarian hemp twine and copies of Mr. Herer's book. Mr. Herer has some authoritative backing when he talks up the medicinal benefits of marijuana, which have nothing to do with drug abuse. Cancer specialists say that tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana, can be helpful in treating nausea and in stimulating patients' appetites. According to a survey reported this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, nearly half of doctors polled said they prescribe marijuana if it were legal. (There are rare legal exceptions.) HEMP SHIRTS Hemp has so many commercial possibilities. Sativa Creations Inc., of Vancouver, sells Stoned Wear shorts and shirts, in the popular 45% cotton, 55% imported hemp blend. They come with or without the marijuana leaf logo prominently displayed, for customers who do or don't wear their sentiments on their sleeves. "Wrap yourself up in marijuana legally," the company advertises. Theodora Kerry, a California masseuse who says she has smoked bud and leaf for 25 years, is another die-hard, still optimistic about legalization. Her town, Santa Cruz, was once "hemp ignorant," she says. So she helped found Cannabis Conversations and the Holy Hemp Sisters, which sponsored the recent Great Santa Cruz Hemp Revival and Community Extrava-Ganja. Hundreds of locals gathered in the town community center, forming a sacred circle as the Holy Hemp Sisters, beat drums and recited the virtues of hemp in producing food, fuel and clothing for a cold and hungry world. -=[*]=- END Contributor's Note: The detractors in the above article claiming that hemp is not an economical alternative to wood pulp are basing their claim on the price of IMPORTED hemp-hurds, not U.S. grown hemp!