Vote Hemp s Accomplishments: 2000-2004 Vote Hemp has emerged as the unquestionable lead political activist organization of the hemp industry. We have demonstrated that Vote Hemp is a strategic organization working for meaningful change in Washington, a necessary precursor to expanding the hemp industry in the US and worldwide. Founding Vote Hemp was founded in May 2000 by members of the hemp industry, and incorporated in the District of Columbia as a non-profit 501(c) 4 organization. Web Site Since June 2000, Vote Hemp has maintained a Web site that is the hub of the organization s educational and lobbying efforts. In March 2001, the Web site was overhauled and updated for a new, streamlined look. The Web site is currently (November 2004) being reformatted to make it easier to navigate through the large amount of information the site contains. Vote Hemp Web Site: http://www.votehemp.com Voter Guide & Registration For each election since 2000, Vote Hemp has surveyed either congressional candidates (during non-presidential elections) or presidential candidates on their positions on industrial hemp. The results are posted in a searchable database on the web site. Vote Hemp maintains an online voter registration feature and registers hundreds of new voters each election cycle. Vote Hemp Voter Guide: http://www.votehemp.com/voterguide.html Vote Hemp Voter Registration: http://www.votehemp.com/register.html
Federal Lobbying: Hemp Bill to Be Introduced in 2005 Since September 2000, Vote Hemp has maintained an Action Alert feature on its Web site (see http://capwiz.com/votehemp/home/) and built an e-mail list of supporters, presently numbering over 20,000 people in all 50 states. In January 2001, Vote Hemp used this feature to encourage people to write their federal representatives to voice their opposition to the DEA s proposed ban on hemp food and body-care products. Throughout January and February, hundreds of letters poured into congressional offices. In May 2001, Vote Hemp began working with international retailer The Body Shop to collect public comments opposing the DEA ban on hemp food and body-care products. These comments were submitted to the DEA and became part of the public record that the DEA had to review before making its Final Rule. By December 10 th we had collectively submitted more than 115,000 comments! This number of comments is greater than most agencies ever see on a rule and certainly the most DEA had received in its history. Vote Hemp president Eric Steenstra personally visited the DEA to view the comments and found that the DEA had no public support for the new hemp food rule. In 2002, Vote Hemp s intensive lobbying on Capitol Hill resulted in twenty-five members of Congress signing onto a bipartisan letter to the DEA objecting to their hemp food and body-care regulations. This effort included teaming up with the Hemp Industries Association to bring hemp business owners to Washington to meet in person with their senators and representatives. Due to Vote Hemp s efforts, the number of Congressional members on the record in support of hemp grew from five in 2001 to twenty-five in 2002. Letter sent to DEA and signed by 22 members of Congress, March 7, 2002 http://www.votehemp.com/pdf/dear_colleague.pdf Letters were also sent from Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D - NY) http://www.votehemp.com/pdf/hinchey_dea.pdf Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D - IL) http://www.votehemp.com/pdf/schakowsky_dea.pdf Reps. Patsy Mink and Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) http://www.votehemp.com/pdf/mink_aber_dealetter.pdf In 2004, Vote Hemp shifted its lobbying campaign from defensive to offensive and obtained promises from a Democratic Senator and a Republican Member of Congress to sponsor the first-ever federal pro-hemp bills in the 2005-2006 legislative session. Vote Hemp s work on this campaign has been extensive. As of November 2004, our lobbyist Alexis Baden-Mayer had met with 64 congressional offices with an emphasis
on members of the Agriculture Committees. Vote Hemp s biggest challenge is to secure broad bipartisan support for hemp legislation. To this end, Vote Hemp worked to secure official support for industrial hemp among county farm bureaus in Iowa, an important constituency of a key Republican Senator. In the summer of 2004, Vote Hemp joined forces with the Indoor Tanning Association to successfully lobby the Secretary of the Air Force to clarify their policy on the use of hemp personal care products after false reports appeared in an Air Force publication that hemp sun tan lotion could interfere with drug tests and trigger drug dogs. In August 2004, the Air Force confirmed in a letter to Vote Hemp that their guidelines do not prohibit the use of hemp personal care products In August 2004, Eric Steenstra and Alexis Baden-Mayer met with Congressional Research Service (CRS) writers who accepted comments on their report on industrial hemp. CRS is the in-house source the Congressional offices turn to for unbiased factual information on legislative topics. Educational Materials Since October 2000, Vote Hemp has been publishing educational materials available for free on our web site and used as tools for grassroots education and legislative lobbying: A Renewal Of Common Sense, or the Vote Hemp Treatise : A well-researched and footnoted primary educational document making the case for hemp from all social, political, economic, historical, legal and environmental points of view. Written October 2000 and updated March 2001 to reflect new insights and powerful arguments in making the case for hemp in America. See http://www.votehemp.com/issue.html#treatise. 2002/2003 Vote Hemp Report, a comprehensive 28-page magazine summarizing industrial hemp's progress in various seed and fiber markets and detailing the current status of hemp in North America. It continues to serve as a great educational tool, covering the gamut of hemp markets and featuring ads from many of North America's top hemp companies. The Vote Hemp Report was used to educate thousands of farmers, legislators and voters in 2003. See http://www.votehemp.com/report.html. Hemp is Hip, Hot & Happening, So Why Are American farmers Being Left Out?, a special advertising section with 8 pages of editorial content on industrial hemp published in Utne Magazine (circulation 225,000) in 2004. This mini-magazine covers hemp s history and legal status and an overview of each of the major sectors of the hemp industry. These include textiles, biocomposites used in automobiles, biofuels like ethanol, foods, and body care products. See http://www.thehia.org/news_reports/hemp_is_hip.html.
Impact Litigation: DEA Rules Banning Hemp Foods Struck Down In September 2004, the U.S. Solicitor General decided not to appeal the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9 th Circuit ruling in Hemp Industries Association v. DEA that industrial hemp is legal for import and sale in the United States for all its uses, including food, body care products, and dietary supplements. This decision was the culmination of Vote Hemp s efforts since December 2000 when we organized a coalition of affected hemp industry members and retained Washington, D.C. law firm Sandler, Reiff & Young to respond to the DEA s proposed hemp seed and oil products ban. Vote Hemp s legal work and its efforts behind the scenes to help retailers resist pressure from the DEA to voluntarily implement the ban prevented the rule from ever taking effect. Even once the DEA ban was on the books, Vote Hemp made sure hemp food products continued to be 100% legal and sold in thousands of stores across the U.S. To read the February 6 th opinion and other court orders and legal filings, please go to http://www.votehemp.com/news.html#court. In a parallel effort invoking international law, Vote Hemp retained expert international trade lawyers and developed Kenex s $20 million NAFTA case. On March 25, 2002, Vote Hemp educated relevant U.S. government agencies regarding the hemp situation at an all-hands meeting at the Department of State. Vote Hemp worked with our trade attorneys to set up high-level meetings with the Canadian Ministers of Agriculture, Trade and Health, resulting in the Canadian government taking a more active state-to-state role, pressuring the U.S. to develop reasonable regulations. In order to gather relevant government documents to bolster these lawsuits, Vote Hemp filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for information and took federal agencies to court when they refused to provide the documents required by law. The DEA refused to comply with these FOIA requests, and we found that they were withholding important information. We challenged them in federal court and forced them to release files that related to hemp policy. State Legislation Vote Hemp President Eric Steenstra, National Coordinator Tom Murphy, and Board Member Candi Penn have been instrumental in providing accurate and up-to-date information on industrial hemp to state legislatures considering pro-hemp legislation. Vote Hemp has provided educational materials, helped to draft resolutions, testified, hosted hemp dinners, set up hemp product displays, and/or demonstrated the production and use of hemp bio-diesel, at the state legislatures of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Maine, Oregon, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Illinois. Vote Hemp provides an up-to-date list of current and past state hemp legislation at http://www.votehemp.com/state_legis.html.
Industry Self-Regulation Vote Hemp has taken an aggressive approach to providing industry-wide quality assurance on the drug testing issue. In April 2001, Vote Hemp developed the TestPledge concept to refute DEA complaints that hemp products caused false positives on drug tests. See http://www.testpledge.com/. Vote Hemp achieved industry-wide consensus on standards and protocols and the program was launched in August 2001. Vote Hemp contracted with Dr. Gero Leson of Leson Environmental Consulting to conduct 2 scientific studies on THC in foods and body care. Dr. Leson s study of hemp foods and workplace drug testing was published in the Nov./Dec. 2001 of the Journal of Analytical Toxicology. To view a summary of the study, see http://testpledge.com/pdf/thcstudysummary.pdf. Dr. Leson also evaluated the concern that extended topical application of hemp cosmetic products would interfere with workplace drug-testing programs in the United States. This study demonstrated that no significant transdermal uptake of THC would occur even in a worst-case scenario of highly compromised skin, full-body application of hemp oil and 10 ppm THC in the hemp oil, and provided hard proof for hemp body care manufacturers like The Body Shop that their products could not be the cause of a confirmed positive for marijuana See: http://testpledge.com/pdf/transdermal_thc_final.pdf. An article in the April 2004 MRO Update (a publication for medical review officers who conduct drug tests) reviews Dr. Leson s research to confirm that using hemp tanning or body care products cannot cause a false positive for marijuana on a drug test. See: http://www.testpledge.com/pdf/mroupdate.pdf. Earned Media Since 2001, Vote Hemp has retained The Mintwood Media Collective, a public relations firm in Washington, DC to work on a variety of media strategies. Mintwood has maximized press, generated positive stories about hemp and Vote Hemp s efforts in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., and provided rapid response to potentially damaging stories about hemp. Thank to Mintwood s hard work we have generated positive press coverage by the Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters, Time Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Baltimore Sun, San Francisco Chronicle, Financial Times, Corporate Legal Times, ABC and NBC TV affiliates, BBC and over 100 additional media outlets. Additional news stories have appeared in trade publications and in re-prints in many community newspapers. Numerous radio interviews were also arranged for Vote Hemp spokespeople, including a nationally broadcast Public Interest (NPR) debate between Vote Hemp president Eric Steenstra and DEA chief Asa Hutchinson. Steenstra also debated a representative of the Christian right-wing Family Research Council on C-SPAN s
Washington Journal. Vote Hemp s media work has resulted in millions of dollars of free publicity for the hemp industry. To review Vote Hemp s press releases and the best of the over 100 articles Vote Hemp has generated, please visit: http://www.votehemp.com/news.html. Outreach Since May 2000, Vote Hemp Board members have spoken at various hemp industry and other related events to network and develop strategic relationships. Events include: World Ag Expo, Bioneers, Boston Freedom Fest, Hemp Industries Association annual conference, Kentucky Hemp conference, Natural Products Expo, North American Industrial Hemp Council annual conference, Nader super-rallies, Presidential debates, national party conventions, Seattle Hemp Fest, Boston Freedom Fest, Awareness Music Fest, Whole Life Expo, Green Festival, and Santa Cruz Industrial Hemp Expo. Direct Action On December 4, 2001, and again on April 21, 2003, Vote Hemp orchestrated two 76- city Hemp Food Taste Test protests at DEA offices across the country. Activists offered samples of hemp food products and poppy seed bagels to DEA employees and passersby during the lunch hour to educate them on the nutritional benefits of hemp seed and the ridiculous DEA regulations. We received TV and newspaper coverage at scores of these protests. We also coordinated a Congressional Taste Test on February 6, 2002, that delivered literature and hemp products to every House and Senate office. Public Opinion In April of 2003, Vote Hemp commissioned a Zogby poll of 1,000 likely voters that revealed a majority support allowing US farmers to grow industrial hemp under a regulated system. 79% of American voters support allowing US farmers to grow hemp to supply US companies like Ford, Chrysler, and Ralph Lauren.