cannabisnews.com: Hemp Oil Sales in Jeopardy Hemp Oil Sales in Jeopardy Posted by FoM on January 04, 2001 at 16:57:14 PT By Roberta Rampton, Winnipeg Bureau Source: Western Producer It took almost a year of persistent selling for Martine Carlina to convince a well-known American lip balm maker to use her company's organic hemp oil instead of a cheaper European variety.When the vice-president of Biohemp Technologies in Regina closed the deal for a dozen 204-litre drums with the Merry Hempsters of Eugene, Ore., she felt she was making inroads into established bulk hemp oil markets. But this spring, the Canadian government put a big detour sign in front of Carlina's marketing plans.Customs officials started stopping U.S.-made hemp cosmetic products at the border because they didn't come with documentation showing their levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.Health Canada regulations state hemp products must not contain more than 10 parts per million of THC, which is the psychoactive element in marijuana, the illegal cousin of hemp.THC levels in the Merry Hempsters' fruit-flavored lip balms are well under 10 ppm, said company president Gerry Shapiro, because they are made with Canadian hemp oil, which must also be under 10 ppm THC.He was surprised when his shipments of lip balms, which are sold in Canadian grocery and health food stores, were turned back at the border this spring.Shapiro had been exporting the lip balms to Canada without incident for more than four years.He said he can't afford to have every batch of each of his 23 products tested for THC, at a cost of $150 to $200 (US) per test.It doesn't make sense to test twice, added Carlina, noting Biohemp Technologies tests its oil for THC.Carlina and Shapiro believe Health Canada should accept imported products made with Canadian hemp oil providing a paper trail and affidavits accompany them."We don't understand why something can't be worked out."She is lobbying Health Canada with the help of other hemp oil producers, cosmetics makers, distributors, retailers, and the Canadian Health Food Association.Health Canada spokesperson Roslynne Tremblay said the testing regulation has been in place since 1998.She said that without it, officials wouldn't know what's in the products. Hemp is still a "controlled substance," she added.Tremblay said she doesn't know regulatory enforcement seems to have changed this spring."It sounds as though there was a period of tolerance, maybe that could be it."Shapiro said government officials seem to be worried about THC accumulating in the body through lip balm, which he calls "bad science.""There is a lot of misinformation that rolls around bureaucratic circles regarding hemp." Source: Western Producer (CN SN)Author: Roberta Rampton, Winnipeg BureauPublished: January 4, 2001Copyright: 2001 The Western ProducerAddress: Box 2500, Saskatoon, SK, Canada S7K 2C4Fax: (306) 934-2401Contact: newsroom producer.comWebsite: http://www.producer.com/CannabisNews Hemp Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/hemp.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #5 posted by Dan Hillman on January 05, 2001 at 10:55:10 PT What about Americans overseas? Suppose the DOJ and DEA join forces successfully and manage to ban ingestible hemp products. Will they say "now our cannabis drug-testing will be sacrosanct and beyond taint by those druggie hemp products."??? Amusing if they do, because the US will then become the only nation in which hemp products are so banned. Will DEALandians returning to our great, pure, republic from those nasty overseas places be able to say to the drug testers: "the positive results for my cannabis test are a result of the hemp-oil salad dressing that I ate on my trip. Yessiree."??? Thanks for the excuse, DEA! [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Morgan on January 05, 2001 at 07:49:39 PT Huh? What are you saying Kap? That the real reason marijuana is illegal, is that it's just a government conspiracy to keep Hemp and it's many products out of the market so it won't compete with fossil fuel based synthetic products? Why, that's proposterous! That's absurd! You're a crackpot! A conspiracy theorist! Do you also believe the government is hiding little green men down in Area 51? That Kennedy wasn't shot by a lone gunman with magic bullits?Sorry Kap, just some of the responses I've gotten when proposing the same idea. I'm glad to see a thinker of your caliber sees this issue so clearly. I no longer feel so alone. ___________________________________________________ [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by sm247 on January 05, 2001 at 05:07:47 PT hemp oil Products If i have a choice between a hemp based product and a synthetic or otherwise product. I will buy hemp. Next year all my christmas gifts will be a hemp based product shirts,body oils, whatever i find. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by MikeEEEEE on January 04, 2001 at 19:09:32 PT Hey Kap Your great.By the way,They will lose this time.They will continue to lose. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on January 04, 2001 at 18:21:18 PT: Pathetic tit-for-tat Sometimes I think that governments everywhere are composed of the grown-up versions of the snivelling little playground brats who, at any perceived slight, real or imagined, threaten to 'take their ball and go home'.This move by the Canadian government is an obvious retaliation for the ONDCP/DEA/Customs machinations in trying to destroy the hemp industry in Canada...and by derivation, in the US.But what is at stake here is much more important than two punks having a spat.The benefits of a hemp-augmented economy are so numerous that we'd be all month detailling them. The antis petro industry backers are well aware of this, as they have been for 63 years. Hence their hush-hush effort to quietly strangle the hemp industry in it's cradle, rather than to wait until it is big enough to defend itself.They know that any big announcements against the hemp industry in the major news organs would only elicit the kind of inquiries that they would rather not have to answer. Hence their cowardly attempt at 'legislation-by-regulation', when this is a matter of such importance, it *should* be properly debated in Congress, or submitted for referendum.Imagine: family farmers returning to their ancestral lands, not impoverished but thriving... while growing hemp. The clothing industry, all but vanished here, makes a comeback. Houses and other shelters built from hemp, while 'clear-cutting' old growth forrests becomes a rapidly receding nightmare. Diesel powered hybrid/electric vehicles, fueled by hemp oils, getting 60 mpg...and running much cleaner than petrochemical fuels ever could. All that and more is waiting.Which is making a very small group of very wealthy people secretly sweating bullets.That's what's really behind all of this, friends. Always follow the money. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: