Features

SAN DIEGO — The energetic 60-year-old woman with cropped white hair and seagreen eyes wouldn’t fit the usual profile of a drug pusher. But inside her cozy condominium, there’s trouble cooking. 

The Drug Enforcement Administration is steeling itself to put Gertrude Spindler out of business and make sure she keeps her wares away from would-be buyers. 

There’s no meth lab in Spindler’s bath tub, nor an Ecstasy ring based in the garage. But the retired packaging designer from Switzerland is using a family recipe to create her “Alpsnack” snack bars that include hempnuts. And under a recent DEA ruling, she may as well be selling heroin. 

Hempnuts come from hemp, an industrial plant grown outside the United States that is related to marijuana. Fiber from the plant long has been used to make paper, clothing, rope and other products. Its oil is found in body-care products like lotion, soap and cosmetics. 

Entrepreneurs like Spindler argue the nuts and oil from hemp are among nature’s best sources of essential fatty acids — omega-6 and omega-3. Twice a day, the San Diego woman swallows a spoonful of raw hempnuts, which she says improves — no pun intended — her joints. 

“I hate chemicals. I like natural things,” Spindler said. “God has given us those natural things and we should use it.” 

But the DEA is saying no. In October, the agency declared that food products containing even trace amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC — the psychoactive chemical found in marijuana — were banned under the Controlled Substances Act. 

It ordered an immediate halt in the production and distribution of all goods containing THC that were intended for human consumption. It gave until Feb. 6 for all such products to be destroyed or removed from the United States. 

The ruling has galvanized hemp-product manufacturers, who contend the DEA violated the law by failing to hold hearings or accept public comment before issuing its declaration. 

The Hemp Industries Association, which represents U.S. hemp product manufacturers and Canadian hemp exporters, has challenged the ruling in the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco and asked for a stay of the Feb. 6 deadline. 

Meanwhile, association members are continuing to produce and sell their goods, arguing that since the DEA did not issue a standard to measure THC levels they will follow standards set by Canada: By that scale, the THC is so negligible it could be considered undetectable — and certainly far below any level that would produce a “high.” 

“There is no such thing as a true zero in nature. It’s like how the government allows trace levels of arsenic in water or alcohol in orange juice,” said David Bronner, who leads the association’s food and oil committee and is chairman of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, an Escondido-based company. 

Bronner and association members argue that hemp is not marijuana, just as field corn used for livestock feed is not the same as sweet corn eaten by humans. Smoking industrial hemp does not produce a high, just a big headache, he said. 

“But it’s part of this whole drug warrior ideology where they just associate anything that looks like cannabis to drug culture,” Bronner said. “They’re making it a drug-war issue.” 

DEA spokesman Will Glaspy said the agency simply is upholding the law. 

“A lot of people did not understand the law. The clarification says if a substance contains THC and is intended to enter the body then it is an illegal product,” Glaspy said. 

Hemp and marijuana, as the DEA sees it, are different parts of the same plant, he said. And THC in any amount is an illegal drug. 

So far the DEA has not taken enforcement action against people continuing to produce hemp food products, Glaspy said. What will happen after Feb. 6 remains to be seen. 

Hemp activists say Congress intended to exclude hemp products from anti-drug laws. They say the government should treat hempnuts as it does poppy seeds, which are exempted from regulation despite trace levels of opium. 

Moreover, Bronner and others hope the court rules in favor of hemp producers, which would settle the question of legality and allow the hemp market to grow. 

In the United States, hemp is a $100 million industry, mainly in textiles and cosmetics. The food product sector was worth $5 million last year, but has been doubling in size for the past three years, Bronner said. 

Hemp is being used to make energy bars, waffles, tortilla chips, milk-free cheese, veggie burgers, salad oil, bread and other edible goods. A hemp-milk product backed by actor Woody Harrelson is in the wings. 

“It’s just accelerating and the sky’s the limit. ... If we get the DEA out of it, it’s just going to boom,” said Bronner, who compared the hemp industry today to where soy producers were 20 years ago. 

Spindler launched her one-woman Alpsnack business last year. She produces 1,500 bars a month and sends them to distributors in six states. The threat of being shut down just as she’s starting worries her. 

“It hurts. But I have some very strong feelings that it’s going to work. It’s going to be settled,” she said. “It’s a good product. I just believe in it.” 

——— 

On the Net: 

Drug Enforcement Administration: http://www.dea.gov 

Hemp Industries Association: http://www.thehia.org 

Dr. Bronner’s: http://www.drbronner.com 

Alpsnack: http://alpsnack.com/