Farmers, Hemp Industry Leaders Arrested for Planting Industrial Hemp at DEA Headquarters in Act of Civil Disobedience to Protest 'Reefer Madness'

Farmers, Hemp Industry Leaders Arrested for Planting Industrial Hemp at DEA
Headquarters in Act of Civil Disobedience to Protest 'Reefer Madness'

Fed Up Captains of Hemp Industry Plant Hemp Seed on DEA's Lawn With Ceremonial
Shovels

DEA's Continued Blockade of State Industrial Hemp Programs Violates Common
Sense as Well as Obama's Presidential Directive to Federal Agencies to Respect
States' Rights

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- At approximately 10 a.m. this
morning, North Dakota farmer Wayne Hauge, Vermont farmer Will Allen, and fed
up American entrepreneurs, who have dedicated their livelihoods to developing
and marketing healthy, environmentally-friendly hemp products, for the first
time turned to public civil disobedience with the planting of industrial hemp
seed at DEA headquarters (700 Army Navy Dr Arlington, VA 22202) to protest the
ban on hemp farming in the United States. Even though the U.S. is the largest
market for hemp products in the world, and industrial hemp is farmed
throughout Europe, Asia and Canada, not a single American farmer has the right
to grow the versatile crop which is used for food, clothing, body care, paper,
building materials, auto paneling and more.

Hoping to focus the attention of the Obama Administration on halting DEA
interference, North Dakota Farmer Wayne Hauge; Founder of Cedar Circle Organic
Farm in Vermont Will Allen; Hemp Industries Association (HIA) President Steve
Levine; Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps President David Bronner; Vote Hemp
Communications Director Adam Eidinger and Founder of Livity Outernational Hemp
Clothing, Issac Nichelson were arrested while digging up the DEA's lawn to
plant industrial hemp seed imported from Canada. At this time, they are
currently being held in Arlington County jail and are awaiting charges. They
are expected to be released later this afternoon and will be available for
interviews upon release. The six protesters planted hemp seeds with ceremonial
chrome shovels engraved with:

Hemp Planting Oct. 2009 ~ DEA Headquarters ~ American Farmers Shall Grow Hemp
Again

Reefer Madness Will Be Buried

Mr. Hauge is licensed by North Dakota to cultivate and process non-drug
industrial hemp, just as Canadian farmers across the border have done
profitably for over ten years supplying the booming U.S. market. However, the
DEA refuses to distinguish non-drug industrial hemp cultivars grown for
millennia for seed and fiber and has unconstitutionally blocked all state hemp
programs such as North Dakota's. Mr. Hauge, along with North Dakota State Rep.
David Monson, sued the DEA in the U.S. District Court of North Dakota in 2007,
and the case is currently before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. "In
recent years there has been strong growth in demand for hemp in the U.S., but
the American farmer is being left out while Canadian, European and Chinese
farmers fill the void created by outdated federal policy," said
fourth-generation farmer Hauge. "When hemp is legalized, land grant
universities across the nation will develop cultivars suitable to different
growing regions to enhance yield and explore innovative uses such as
cellulosic ethanol."

Pictures and video of the action for free and unrestricted use, along with
hemp farming footage and background information are available upon request in
hardcopy and online. An HIA produced video of the action will also be posted,
after 6 p.m. on 10/13 at: www.votehemp.com/DEAhempplanting.html

In the back drop of the spectacle at DEA headquarters, dozens of hemp business
owners in town attending the HIA convention over the weekend fanned out across
Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers in support of hemp legislation introduced by
Representatives Ron Paul (R-TX) and Barney Frank (D-MA) that would permit
states to cultivate non-drug industrial hemp under state industrial hemp
programs. Nine states have such programs, but their implementation has been
blocked by DEA bureaucratic intransigence. This spring, however, President
Obama instructed federal agencies to respect state laws in a presidential
directive on federal pre-emption:

"Executive departments and agencies should be mindful that in our federal
system, the citizens of the several States have distinctive circumstances and
values, and that in many instances it is appropriate for them to apply to
themselves rules and principles that reflect these circumstances and values.
As Justice Brandeis explained more than 70 years ago, 'it is one of the happy
incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its
citizens choose, serve as a laboratory and try novel social and economic
experiments without risk to the rest of the country.'"

- Source:
www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Presidential-Memorandum-Regarding-Preemption/

Vote Hemp and the HIA are dedicated to a free market for low-THC industrial
hemp and to changes in current policy to allow U.S. farmers to once again grow
this agricultural crop. Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps President and Vote Hemp
Director David Bronner stated: "Dr. Bronner's has grown into the leading
natural soap brand in the U.S. since incorporating hemp oil in 1999, due in
significant part to the unsurpassed smoothness it gives our soaps. As an
American business, we want to give our money to American farmers and save on
import and freight costs. In this difficult economy, we can no longer indulge
the DEA's self-serving hemp hysteria."

SOURCE Hemp Industries Association

Ryan Fletcher, +1-202-641-0277, for Hemp Industries Association; or Adam
Eidinger of Hemp Industries Association, +1-202-744-2671