Minot woman promotes ‘industrial hemp’

MINOT — Generally, it’s not too hard to make a selectman squirm. 

There are certain issues they just don’t want to discuss, and, even though they say they believe in inclusiveness, there are messengers they are never terribly excited to hear from.  It’s fairly easy to spot when a municipal officer is being forced to debate an issue that makes them personally uncomfortable.  There’s a shuffling of papers, a shake of the head, a glance at either the floor or the ceiling — sometimes accompanied by an indiscreet roll of the eyes — and an almost constant shifting of weight in the chair. 

And, when the messenger is a pretty and petite 24-year old woman waxing poetic on the benefits of growing hemp, it’s just about all the town fathers can do to keep from squiggling right out of their seats and sliding softly under the table.

Such was the case recently when Jessica Larlee addressed the Minot board of selectmen regarding her cause to promote the local growth of what she terms, “industrial hemp.”

Larlee was quick to point out that hemp, despite common belief, is not the same thing as marijuana.  She is not promoting drug use, or cultivation of narcotics, she said.

What Larlee is interested in promoting is the freedom of choice for local farmers to grow a cash crop that she says is used in manufacturing worldwide, including right here in the United States.

“American’s consume it every day in all sorts of things,” Larlee said.  “It’s used in rope, clothing, paper, make-up, lipstick, lotions, shampoos.  The majority of us have hemp products all throughout our households that we don’t even know about.

“The dashboard of your car, the fabric in the seats, could be made of hemp and you wouldn’t know,” she continued.  “It [hemp] is way less expensive than the plastics they [automobile manufacturers] are using.

“Right now 60 percent of the hemp grown in the world is consumed by Americans, but Americans are not allowed to partake in the economy of this resource.” said Larlee.  “You are able to import it, but you are not able to grow it.”

Larlee’s cause is bolstered by changes to Maine statutes made effective in September, 2003.  Those updates to Title 17-A, M.R.S.A., Sections 1101-1117, state that industrial hemp is “an affirmative defense to prosecution” from Maine drug laws.  Or, in layman’s terms, the stuff is not illegal.

“If I was to grow hemp in this field out here,” Larlee said in an interview, gesturing behind her Center Minot Hill Road apartment.  “The State of Maine would not say, ‘Oh, you’re growing weed.’  The feds could, but Maine no longer recognizes it as marijuana.”

According to Larlee, hemp only ended up being declared illegal at all due to “overzealous anti-drug laws” of the 1940s. 

“They just lumped it all together and said, ‘Oh, it’s marijuana, you can’t have it,’” said Larlee.  “Nobody decided that there would be a difference between hemp and marijuana, because it’s related and it [the plant] looks the same.”

“It’s not anything like marijuana,” Larlee stressed.  “It’s a totally different thing. It’s like saying ‘You are not allowed to grow potatoes because they could be turned into alcohol’’ or, ‘You can’t have poppy seeds because they are opium.’”

Industrial hemp is now defined in Maine statute as “any variety of Cannabis sativa L. with a delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol concentration that does not exceed 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis and that is grown under federal permit in compliance with the conditions of that permit.”

“The amount of the psychoactive chemical is so low that you could smoke it all day [and not get high,]” Larlee clarified.

However, it is with the requirement of “federal permit compliance” that the real issues begin to arise. 

The law states that the “Director of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station may develop a study to explore the feasibility and desirability of industrial hemp production in this State.”

“It authorizes but does not require...” noted Larlee. 

Larlee enumerated those states reported to have performed similar studies, including Kentucky, Missouri and “either New Mexico or Arizona.” 

“They found that it would be desirable, and profitable, and feasible, to have hemp grown by their local farmers,” she said.  “The only studies that have ever been done that have found it to not be favorable have been [conducted by] the federal government.”

And so, with more than a year having gone by, and no study having been undertaken — and Larlee contacted the Department of Agriculture to verify that no attempt at a study had begun, that it was not just a case of the federal government “stalling” in granting permits — Larlee approached the Minot selectmen with a request.  Would they be willing, she inquired, to simply write a letter to Robert Spears, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture, requesting that the lawfully permissible study be completed.

Selectmen were not enthusiastic, to say the least, in their response.

“I just don’t think that we, as a board, should be taking the lead on that,” said Selectman Eda Tripp.

“I can just see Hempstock coming to Minot,” intoned Chairman Dean Campbell.

“Hempstock is a place where they all smoke weed, or whatever,” said Larlee, derisively.  “They [selectmen] are still thinking that it [hemp] is marijuana. 

“I am not asking to hold a rock and roll concert.  I am asking to grow a valuable crop on my land that every other industrialized nation in the world allows to be grown.”

However, as she sat in her apartment, where a computer, a printer, and a myriad of literature sit on the kitchen table as a sort of ad hoc campaign headquarters, Larlee does strike the stereotypical hippy pose.  With a “granny-sweater” pulled around her lithe form, and her long blond hair pulled back in a kerchief, Larlee would not look at all out of place at Hempstock, a Phish concert, or on a tour chase after the Grateful Dead. 

But appearances can be deceiving.  Larlee is not just another free-spirit college student knocking out a liberal arts degree that may never be put to practical use.  Currently, she is pursuing a Leadership and Organizational Studies degree at the Lewiston/Auburn campus of the University of Maine.  And rather than being a liberal Democrat, or some third party activist, Larlee is, perhaps ironically, a registered Republican who has performed an internship with Senator Susan Collins.

Still, despite her credentials, Larlee does not feel that she was treated well by the selectmen.

“I felt like I was not well received by the select board as a resident of Minot,” she reports.  “I feel like I am their constituent and I should be respected.  But they don’t want to do anything.  They don’t want to simply write a letter saying ‘One of our residents would like you to conduct a study.’”

Larlee was discouraged by this perceived lack of support from her elected representatives.  She noted that, during her internship with Sen. Collins, one of her responsibilities had been to draft letters to various departments on behalf of constituents “whatever their problem was.”

Larlee is also concerned that one of the selectmen saw fit to contact her landlord, whom she also works for as a nanny.  Although Larlee was careful not to cite names, her use of gender did, by process of elimination, narrow down the caller to only one possible candidate on the board.

Larlee then launches into an imitation of the call, as reported to her.

“Is that girl crazy?  What is she talking about!” she mimicked, employing her best ‘crazy old lady’ voice. 

But Larlee does not think she is crazy at all.  To the contrary, she feels that hemp makes perfect economic and environmental sense for both Maine and the nation.

“On a national level, the prohibition is increasing our trade deficit every day that Wal-Mart orders a million pounds of hemp from Turkey, or wherever it’s grown,” she said.

“Just for Maine residents, if we could use more hemp, and less pulp, in the papermaking process in that mill up in Rumford, that would eliminate all that green sludge that gets dumped in the Androscoggin [and] all the air pollution that gives one in 50 Rumford residents cancer before they are 50-years old.” 

“It makes stronger rope, stronger fabric,” Larlee said.  “As far as paper, it’s just the same, but it’s easier, it’s cheaper, and it requires no chlorine bleaching.”

When selectmen met a second time to address the subject, it was decided that they would not be writing any letters to the Department of Agriculture.

This leaves Larlee with the option of circulating a petition in order to get the matter before Minot voters.  For this project, Larlee will need to collect a number of signatures equal to 10 percent of the town vote in the last gubernatorial election.

According to Minot Town Clerk Nikki Verrill, 972 people from Minot voted in 2002.  This means Larlee will need to collect signatures from 98 voters registered in that town.

Larlee has already drafted the wording for that petition:

“Do you want to require the Minot Selectboard to petition Robert Spears, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture, to seek necessary federal permits to implement a study on the desirability and feasibility of industrial hemp, as allowed by Maine Public Law, Chapter 61?”

According to Larlee, a drive to get as many towns in Maine as possible to petition Spears is beginning to take off.  Already, working with the activist group Maine-ly NORMAL (national organization for the reform of marijuana access laws), she has seen a commitment for similar petition drives launched in Paris and Hartford.

“We’re taking a small approach,” said Larlee.  “Basically, we’re starting in our towns, branching out to our counties and [then to] the State.”

It is by this method, Larlee feels, that enough pressure can eventually be brought to bear on the federal government “to address this issue and look at it in a new light.”  Still, Larlee is quick to acknowledge that the federal government is likely to, at first anyway, resist issuing the required permits.  But the battle, she says, is worth the effort.

Even though Larlee does not yet own any land of her own, and so will not benefit directly from this fight, she is nonetheless passionate about the cause.

“It’s an economic issue, it’s a state’s rights issue, it’s a personal property rights issue,” said Larlee, ticking the relative points off on her fingers.  “It is the right of Americans to have a fair advantage with this product that is sold every day but we are denied [the right to grow it.]

“I think that these people who make a living farming should have the right to grow hemp,” Larlee declared.  “It’s more productive than pumpkins.”

By Larlee’s calculations, hay only brings in $125 per acre for local farmers.  She believes that hemp, when used just for seed, could net those same farmers $600 per acre.  And, when sold for fiber, Larlee believes the going rate would soar to more than $800 an acre.

“And it’s just as easy to [cultivate] as hay,” she claimed.

Already seeing the main argument coming against local fields wafting green in waves of hemp, Larlee was ready with a rebuttal.  She stated that trying to hide marijuana in a field of hemp would be the worst thing, due to cross-pollination, that a farmer could do for either crop.

Larlee makes clear that, only with the public’s help, will hemp ever get consideration as a domestic agricultural product.  In that regard, if nothing else, selectmen are in perfect agreement with her.

“I am comfortable in saying that I don’t think that I’m in a position to inquire to the Department of Agriculture about that,” said Selectman Ralph Gilpatrick.  “However, I would encourage them to continue with the petition process, and put it on the warrant, and explain to the townsfolk what this all means.

“And if the town votes for it, I would be more than happy to sign.”

That statement, being remade into a motion, was unanimously approved by the selectmen.

And so, Commissioner Spears may yet hear from the town of Minot.  But first, Larlee will need to convince a majority of the entire town, not just three of five selectmen.

That story will play out over the next few months, before eventually coming to a head at the annual town meeting in March.

“I just look at all these empty fields.  Every window I look out, there are all these biiiiiiig empty fields.  I just think that something could be planted there,” concluded Larlee.