Express: A Publication of The Washington Post
HEMP: It won’t get you high, but you sure can cook with it. But would you want to? And would you get arrested?

It’s easier now to sample the culinary delights of the leafy green plant — at D.C.’s new Capitol Hemp.  Owned by perennial Green Party candidate and D.C. statehood activist Adam Eidinger and his wife, fellow activist Alexis Baden-Mayer, even the structure itself is made of hemp (in the form of particle board).

There are surprisingly stylish hemp clothes, hemp-related art, hemp shoes and some adults-only products in a room out back. But forget the water pipes — hemp is wholesome. It’s the same species as marijuana — cannabis sativa — but genetic differences mean it won’t get you high.

Up front in the family-friendly part of the store is the food. Hemp’s touted as a great source of protein, essential fatty acids, iron, vitamin E and dietary fiber — which, of course, makes one suspect that it probably tastes terrible. (It doesn’t.)

Best of all, it’s legal to cook and purchase hemp. It’s just not legal, in the U.S., to grow it. Why depends on who you ask. There are conspiracy theories involving paper mills and the suppression of competition. (Hemp makes good paper.) Others believe the plant was outlawed — and continues to be outlawed — because of its link to marijuana.

“Hemp has been misaligned with its cousin marijuana by lawmakers who have waged a cultural battle for years. Hemp has simply been unfairly caught up in the dragnet to ban marijuana,” says Eidinger. “Because the U.S. is the biggest user of hemp products, we send our money to farmers in other countries.”

So, we can’t grow our own hemp but we can eat what’s here, which is mostly imported from Canada, China and Europe. And what’s here are hundreds of edible variations: oil, nuts, flour, chocolate, milk, cheese, bagels and more.

We dig into a healthy sampling of hempy foods, made using the various edible parts of hemp. …We start with homemade guacamole, which is simply regular guac with hemp nuts mixed in. Next is salad with hemp nuts and hemp dressing (two parts hemp oil to three parts vinegar). The nuts add a taste and texture not unlike pine nuts to the salad, and the dressing tastes like regular oil and vinegar.

Hemp veggie burgers on hemp bagels with hemp mustard are the main course. The burgers themselves — made of hemp nuts and hemp oil mixed in with green beans, onion, garlic, ground almonds, bread crumbs and eggs, fried in a pan full of coconut oil — are bright green and dense, and quite tasty when topped with hemp mustard. The hemp bagel is too heavy with such a thick patty; Baden-Mayer suggests using hemp bread instead.

Finally, it’s time for lemon hemparoons — lemon macaroons made with hemp seeds — and big glasses of chocolate hemp milk. The hemparoons are sweet, crunchy, lemony, perfect. The hemp chocolate milk is cold and refreshing. We are quiet and contemplative.

“We eat a lot of hemp,” says Baden-Mayer. “But not usually this much in one meal.”

Regardless what anyone thinks about the wisdom of re-legalizing psychoactive cannabis, there isn’t a single logical reason to outlaw non-psychoactive hemp.  Does it strike anyone as odd that the DEA - the DRUG Enforcement Administration - bans the cultivation of industrial hemp which is not a drug?

The technicality is that even industrial hemp may contain traces of THC, and THC is a controlled substance.  But by the same token, mouthwash contains more than a trace of alcohol, yet kids can buy it at the supermarket.

The micro amounts of THC in industrial hemp are never going to get you high.  Industrial hemp is tall and reedy and very distinguishable from drug cannabis.  You couldn’t hide drug cannabis among industrial hemp because they would cross-pollinate and ruin each other.  There is no public danger from industrial hemp for which the DEA needs to be protecting us!