US
Drug
Czar
Commands
Customs
to
Seize
All
Hemp
Seed
Imports
That
Contain
Any
THC
1/21/00
(NORML and DRCNet contributed to this article, which was accidentally omitted from last week's issue due to an e-mail breakdown.) The embargo on sterilized hemp seeds entering the United States that was lifted in December has once again been reinstated on order of U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey, because it goes against his office's "zero tolerance policy." Tom Corwin, of the U.S. Customs Department of Trade Programs, said that when the hemp seed embargo was lifted in December, Customs looked at other country's limits for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and decided that 0.3 percent THC should be the limit. He said this decision was made without the knowledge of the drug czar's office. Corwin said McCaffrey was "offended" by this decision because it went against the Office of National Drug Control Policy's National Drug Control Strategy. A Jan. 5 memorandum from Robert McNamara, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Office of Field Operations, instructed U.S. Customs to "suspend the policy that allows for the legal importation into the United States of sterilized hemp seed or other hemp products which contain an amount not in excess of 0.3 percent tetrahydrocannabinol." But Bob Wiener, spokesman for ONDCP, told The Week Online that the guidelines announced in December were arbitrary, and that ONDCP was not satisfied with them. "You don't just base it on some random number that some other country comes up with," Wiener said. "Now we're back to square one." Corwin said that according to the drug czar's orders, every hemp seed shipment arriving from Canada will be detained, and a sample will be taken to a lab to determine if there is any trace of THC. This process takes 30 days. If there is any trace of THC, the shipment will be seized. Corwin said another of McCaffrey's concerns is that even trace amounts of THC in hemp seed products could cause a false positive drug test. In August, the DEA instructed U.S. Customs to stop the importation of all hemp seed products into the U.S. The first seizure was a 53,000-pound load of sterilized birdseed imported by Kenex Ltd. In November, the DEA lifted the embargo and allowed sterilized seeds to enter the country. "The hemp industry suffered a huge loss of momentum when Customs illegally cut off our supplies for four months," said Don Wirtshafter of the Ohio Hempery. "We finally were getting back on our feet when the drug czar did this about-face on us. Any new regulations should come only after rule making procedures, not on some bureaucrat's whim." Background on the current situation may be read at http://www.hempembargo.com, a site maintained by the Hemp Industries Association. The Hemp Industries Association's main web site can be found at http://thehia.org. Previous DRCNet coverage of the Hemp Embargo can be found at http://www.drcnet.org/wol/110.html#hempwar and http://www.drcnet.org/wol/116.html#embargolifted in the Week Online archives.
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