This Bud's Not For You

(3 of 3)

Meanwhile, hemp's defenders crop up everywhere. Three years ago, after a friend convinced former CIA Director James Woolsey of hemp's salubrious ecological profile, Woolsey became a lobbyist for the North American Industrial Hemp Council. Woolsey takes no direct swipes at the DEA, but he impugns its logic. "You'd have to be stark raving mad to try to hide marijuana in the middle of a hemp crop because of cross-pollination," he says. "I'm very proud of the fact that I've been attacked in High Times magazine." A High Times columnist called him a "dirtbag" for promoting hemp's potential to degrade marijuana grown nearby.

Back in Kentucky, Jacob Graves drives out U.S. 60 a little ways east of Leafland. He stops at a historical plaque placed by the state to mark hemp's history. STATE'S LARGEST CASH CROP TILL 1915, it says. "See?" says Graves. "If we get this done, what's old will be new again." Hemp-crust apple pie, anyone?