Ultimately, the hemp food industry expects to prevail against the DEA's attempt to ban hemp foods. Congress exempted nutritious hemp seed and oil from regulation (see 21 USC §802(16)), and the trace infinitesimal THC in hemp seed and oil is not psychoactive and does not interfere with workplace drug-testing.
The ten-year-old global hemp market is a thriving commercial success. Unfortunately, because DEA's drug-war approach has confounded the biologically distinct non-psychoactive industrial hemp varieties of cannabis with the psychoactive marijuana varieties, the US is the only major industrialized nation to prohibit the growing and processing of industrial hemp.
Moderator Comment: Should the U.S. government ban products with non-psychoactive hemp?
A growing number of American manufacturing and retail businesses see opportunities for hemp product sales. Across the globe, hemp is being used in everything from non-dairy milk products to clothing; paper products to bird seed. According to t he North American Industrial Hemp Council, over 25,000 products can be made from hemp. Here are some facts we picked up from the NAIHC site.
- At a volume level of 81 percent, hemp oil is the richest known source of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids (the "good" fats). It's quite high in some essential amino acids, including gamma linoleic acid (GLA), a very rare nutrient also found in mother's milk.
- While the original "gruel" was made of hemp seed meal, hemp oil and seed can be made into tasty and nutritional products.
For more information on the uses for hemp and its potential benefits, check out www.naihc.org. [George Anderson - Moderator]