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might gain from the legal- ization of marijuana ?" Creech asked. Legislators showed no appetite for marijuana this year. A House committee in March unanimously rejected a proposal to legal- ize medical marijuana. Creech said he didn't get a chance to voice his concerns about hemp because the bill surfaced at the end of the legisla- tive session and passed the House and Senate days later. "I think that we should have been asking a lot of questions rather than simply rushing that bill through," he said. Legislators presented the hemp bill as a job - creating measure, but Creech has another theory for the near - unanimous vote. "I think that's the result of Republicans who were too tired to ask the necessary questions or too tired to fight," he said. Even the N.C. Industrial Hemp Association, which was created less than a year ago to lobby for legaliza- tion, was surprised only two senators and seven House members voted no. "It blew our minds," said the group's_ director, Tho- mas Shumaker. "We were expecting it to be close." Shumaker, whose father is longtime Republican strategist Paul Shumaker, said the group deliberately planned the bill to appear late in the session because "we didn't want it to get parked" in committee. Instead, the House Rules Committee released the hemp legislation a few days before the legislative session ended, sticking it in a Senate bill that origi- nally dealt with special license plates. Thomas Shumaker noted that because the March hearing on medical marijuana resulted in a legislator getting assault- ed, "we worried that any- thing that had to do with the cannabis plant would get thrown out because of that reaction." Instead, the Hemp As- sociation's team of four lobbyists quietly worked the halls of the Legislative - Building for months. "They sat down and talked to almost every single legislator and said to them, `hemp isn't mari- juana -we're for rope, not dope, "' Shumaker said. NEW AGENCY If the hemp bill be- comes law, as expected, the association will need to raise $200,000 to fund the creation of the N.C. - Industrial Hemp Commis- sion, to regulate the crop. Requiring private dona- tions to fund a new state agency is unusual, but Shumaker said "that helped get it through the legislature because we .weren't asking govern- ment to put tax dollars behind it." While dozens of farmers have voiced interest in hemp, Shumaker expects production will start small: Fewer than 50 acres are likely in the first year, and about 1,200 acres are expected in the second. "It's hard to convince someone that growing a federally controlled sub- stance in their fields is a good idea," he said. Edwards, the Kinston farmer, says he thinks hemp will prove a profit- able addition to his rota- tion of organic corn, soy- beans and wheat. "There's a strong mar- ket," he said. "We're pull- ing most of what Canada is growing, and they can't keep up with the dema_id." Campbell: 919-829-4698, @a RaleighReporter