(editor's note- this article covers a protest action conducted late last year, but due to the DEA having extended the grace period for manufacturers of hemp foods to destroy or discard their inventories, pushing the deadline back to March 18, 2002, this article is posted for background. Contact your Representatives and the DEA to protest this latest
Drug War inspired stupidity.)

"…once they banned this, I said to myself this is crazy, we should go there and get video and pictures of these DEA people eating hemp food. They can’t arrest people when they see them doing the exact same thing." Shawn Heller, National Director of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

Unidentified DEA employee cheerfully posing with a bag of Hempzels during her lunch break on Nov. 8, 2001- photo Valerie Vannde Panne

 

DEA Heads Off Hemp At National Headquarters

by Preston Peet

Appalled at recent DEA moves to ban hemp food products, a small group of 12 students, activists, and citizens gave away free samples of hemp food outside DEA National Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, on Nov. 8, 2001.

Gathering at noon that Thursday to catch the beginning of the lunch rush, the protesters included hard working drug policy reformers like Dave Borden of DRCNet; Shawn Heller, National Director of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy; Eric Steenstra of VoteHemp Inc.; Jennifer Landis, founder of the SSDP chapter at Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts; Valerie Vande Panne, activist and contributor to High Times; Darryl Rodgers of Amnesty International, and Adam Eidinger, Director of the Mintwood Media Collective, a worker owned and operated public relations firm specializing in representing non-profit and progressive political organizations and causes. Organized by SSDP and VoteHemp Inc, the protest was small but elicited strong reactions from DEA building security.

The Plan

Calling all the hemp food manufacturers and shippers they could find, SSDP explained what they wanted to do, convincing various hemp food producers to send them free samples of their products. Although hesitant at first, the manufacturers finally felt that "it would be important to experiment with such an action like giving away free hemp foods to DEA employees," Eidinger said.

"We managed to get a hold of about 30 pounds of free hemp food, everything from Hempzels, (hemp pretzels), corn chips, to [Nutiva and Hemp End Trail] energy bars, we had a few different products. We set up a table outside of the DEA and handed out the food as politely as we could. Initially in most cases the people did not take the food, but eventually we did get people to take the food and try it on camera, who were DEA."

The Action

"At first we were doing a food marketing spiel, handing out food and also information about hemp," Landis said. "Usually we would approach the people and give them the food, then ask them if they’d like some information about hemp. Sometimes they would realize it was hemp food and put it back down on the table or hand it back to us and say, ‘do you know where you are?’ We’d say, ‘of course we do, that’s why we’re here.’ Then we did a bit of a protest holding signs and marching around DEA headquarters. They started to get upset with that."

"If you had people demonstrating out front it wasn’t much of a demonstration," DEA spokesperson Will Glaspy said. "I mean, if there are 12 people, because of where the office is, I don’t think that would’ve, that wouldn’t stick out unless they were doing something to gain notice. They weren’t on the federal property here so I don’t know where they would have been that they were demonstrating." Reminded that DEA is renting their office space, Glaspy replied, "Doesn’t matter if a federal agency is renting or owns, if you’re occupying it’s federal property."

"I believe this is like the new government type of thing, that the government doesn’t own the building it just leases the space in it. That gives the government a lot more flexibility to keep demonstrations away because it’s private property," said Eidinger.

The Reaction

Apparently, the protesters did begin their action on the property housing DEA headquarters, and were forced off in degrees.

"It’s set up like the World Trade Center was," Vande Panne said. "Imagine 3 corners of a square, and the corridor we were set up in was right between the US Marshal Service and the DEA. Then they pushed us back to the property line which separates MCI WorldCom from the DEA building, down the corridor further."

"At this point they didn’t manhandle us because we walking, backwards. But then when Jenny and Adam tried to go around and go to the other side of the perimeter, Jenny was pushed by one of the people," said Heller.

"We had actually set up before they asked us to move our table, initially by only 15 feet, because we were only 15 feet or so from the property line," said Eidinger. "So we moved it onto what is essentially MCI WorldCom, onto their property. MCI, a big corporation, didn’t have a problem with it, but DEA did. Now in order to get us off the property without any sort of legal repercussions, because I think they realized we might be suing them at some point in the future, they declared a 9-11 security sweep. This is what really took us by surprise. They swept the whole land clean of people that surrounds the property. They told people to go inside or get off the property. So lots of people who probably walk everyday on their lunch hour down that sidewalk to the DEA campus were told they had to go around to the other side of the building where there’d be a security guard who’d let them in there. We were talking to people and saying this is bullshit. It was really funny because when they found out there was interruption going on in their work because of security, people who were initially like, ‘ahhh, I don’t have time to take the taste test, I already ate lunch,’ now they were like, ‘shit, I have to walk a quarter mile around the building, I might as well take the taste test,’ and they did."

So Just What Was the Emergency?

What the "emergency" was that caused all this ruckus Glaspy couldn’t say. "None of that sounds familiar. I’m not saying it didn’t happen but I certainly didn’t know it. Except for going to lunch though, I don’t typically leave the building, but I think I would have known about some emergency, but that was just a week ago, and that’s all post anthrax-scare, so it wasn’t an anthrax scare. I’m just not familiar with it."

Can People Really Get Arrested Handing Out Free Hemp Food?

"No," said Glaspy when asked if it were legal for people to go to DEA headquarters and hand out free samples of hemp foods. "If there’s a food product or a product that’s designed for human consumption and it contains THC, it’s an illegal product." But what about hemp food that is alleged to contain no THC, or nearly undetectable levels of THC? "If there’s no THC in it then it’s not an illegal product. I’m not going to make a distinction between what someone is calling hemp food and what they’re not. I can call a hamburger I get at McDonald’s a Hemp burger if I want, but see what I’m saying, that doesn’t mean it’s got THC in it, and it wouldn’t," said Glaspy, seemingly implying that Hemp foods that contain no THC must not be hemp foods. "THC is the illegal ingredient. If there’s a product designed for human consumption and it has THC in it, then it’s an illegal product," Glaspy reiterated.

Is there currently a way that DEA is testing to determine whether the products do or don’t contain THC? "I’d have to check and get back to you. I could do like I do with any drug and send it to my lab and they would tell me if there was THC in it." Glaspy isn’t sure if this is actually being done by DEA with any of the hemp food products currently on the US market. "Because, as you’re aware, the guidelines and regulations have just changed. I’m not sure at what stage they’re at right now because there was a window there, and you may know better than I do, I haven’t looked at the regulations lately, but there was a window there that allowed for some feedback [from hemp food manufacturers] and possible change. I don’t know if we’re still in that window or not."

The DEA has given manufacturers of hemp food products and anyone who feels their hemp business might be impacted by the new interpretive rules until December 10 to submit comments and requests for exemptions.

So, is the act of handing out hemp food samples itself illegal? "Again, if it contains THC. THC is a controlled substance. So if it contains THC, that would be the illegal act." Does Glaspy think these people could be arrested for handing out hemp food samples, and held until a test result came back showing THC? "If there’s a belief that it contained THC they could. I mean, it would be, what would be the difference in me giving you white powder saying that it’s cocaine if I say that it’s cocaine, and it’s still going to go to the lab to get tested. Now if it comes back later and it’s not cocaine it’s flour, uh, then I guess the charges go away. Does that make sense?"

Just Who Makes US Law?

"Hemp foods are legal whether the DEA says they are or not," says Heller. "The law cannot simply be reinterpreted after a 30-year interim. You can’t just say, ‘oh no, that’s not how it works,’ you need a Congressional bill. This isn’t the way to go about law changing. This is something that shows their complete disregard for the American businessman, especially at a time when we are entering into a recession. They’re targeting these people who are simply trying to market food products. [Hemp food producers] aren’t disguising what’s in it, they’re not trying to hide it, it’s just a food product. They’re taking out their aggression on businessmen."