Lumber Company High On Hemp

C&S Building Supply, Harrisburg, Or., hopes soon to introduce composite building products produced from a novel wood substitute: hemp.

Owner William Conde sees the strong, fast-growing fiber crop as a remedy to the dwindling supply of harvestable timber. '"The truth of the matter is that we're running out of tr@s, and hemp is the best fiber plant on the face of the earth," he told the Multnamah County Businc ss Journal.

The company hopes to import hemp fiber from Hawaii. An undisclosed Oregon manufacturer would then process the materid into particleboard.

So far, C&S has imported about 1,500 pounds of hemp from France. Washington State University researchers have turned the material into prototype building materials. The hemp particleboard is just as durable as wood counterparts, WSU said.

The stalky plant grows well in the Northwest, and mills would not require extensive retooling to use hemp in composite building materials, WSU added. For years, former Eastern Bloc countries have used hemp in paper and building materials. Since England lifted its 30-year-old ban on growing hemp in February, a consortium of 20 English farmers planted 1,500 acres of hemp, mostly to be sold to paper mills.

The main obstacle is that hemp fiber comes from marijuana plants, banned in the U.S. since the late 1940s. Although hemp is the same genus and species as the illegal wee( industrial varieties of hemp have low concentrations of marijuana's intoxicating drug THC. And special permits from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency are still required to grow even industrial hemp.

The other problem is the price. Unprocessed hemp fiber can be imported for $200 to $250 a ton, said C&S. The cheapest wood fiber costs less than $50 a ton.

Growing hemp in the Northwest would slash the cost of the material and quicken the commercialization of hemp-based products, said C&S. Hemp famring requires less labor and fewer agricultural chemicals than a grass seed oop.

Hemp's future as building products in the U.S. will depend on finding an affordable source of raw materials. "We have everything in place. All we need is the hemp," said Conde.

C&S hopes to purchase up to 20 tons of hemp fiber from Hawaiian broker Roger Christie, who is working to obtain a special permit from the DEA.

Though Christie has been trying to bring commercial hemp production !o Hawaii for six years, he sees opportunity in the local sugar industry's devashtion by foreign competition.

"The major landowners are bankrupt or near bankrupt and they're looking for new crops," said a local agronomist, who said hemp could grow year-round in Hawaii's ropical climate.

Meantime, C&S will continue its campaign, touting its message on a lumber truck adorned with drawings of cannabis leaves, peace signs and the slogan "Yes Trees are Renewable, but Hemp is Sustainable."

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