President George Bush does not favor lifting Congress’s embargo on the domestic cultivation of industrial hemp for the purposes of fuel or fiber, according to comments from his spokesman Ari Fleischer at a July 16 White House press briefing.
Fleischer responded to the question: “Does the President favor the legalization of industrial hemp?” by stating that Bush has not made “any statements … that would lend one to reach that conclusion.”
Presently, some 30 nations – including Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Japan – license farmers to grow hemp. Since 1996, twelve states have passed laws or resolutions endorsing hemp, which belongs to the genus Cannabis sativa, but contains only negligible amounts of THC.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director of The NORML Foundation, at (202) 483-8751.
