Balmer said the price she gets for tobacco has dropped from $1.60 per pound to $.60 per pound during the last two years. Decrease in the overall demand for tobacco is responsible for the price decline, Balmer added.

States that set tobacco quotas have reduced their production by 35 to 40 percent recently, she said. Pennsylvania does not have quotas, and this has dropped the market price for tobacco.

Balmer said she does not know exactly how much revenue could be generated by hemp, but estimates are at about $700 per acre.

"If I can make the money to match my tobacco crops, and (if it were) legal, why wouldn't I?" she said.

In the 1930s, hemp was a potential $1 billion industry, Balmer said. The federal government made it illegal to grow hemp and has not changed its position in the past 60 years despite its potential benefits.

Centre County farmers who raise tobacco also have seen prices drop, said John Ishler, president of the Centre County Farmers Bureau, although he is not familiar with a movement to grow hemp within Centre County.

Because hemp cannot be grown legally in the United States, vendors who sell hemp products must import them from other countries, such as Canada.

Jeremiah Lambo, co-owner of Simply Kind, 224 W. College Ave., said the store only carries a few hemp products but used to carry more before import taxes made them too expensive.

Lambo said many hemp products, such as paper, fiber wood and cardboard, are superior to their counterparts.

"The reason it isn't (legal to grow hemp) is because it could kill three big industries," he said.

The fuel, cotton and paper industries all would be threatened by hemp, Lambo said.

Hemp has a higher yield-per-acre than trees, does not require harmful chemicals as cotton does and can be used to produce fuel, he added.

Federal law, however, prohibits the growth of hemp because the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) considers hemp too closely related to marijuana.

The DEA groups hemp along with Indian Hemp and cannabis as other names for the Schedule I substance marijuana. Since marijuana is a Schedule I substance, cultivation, importation, exportation and distribution are regulated strictly in the United States, according to a DEA press release.

Lambo said hemp plants are sterile and therefore do not bud, so they could not be useful to smoke in order to get high because the THC in marijuana is found in the flowering part of the plant.

Another reason the DEA opposes hemp farming, he said, is to prevent farmers from hiding marijuana in hemp fields, since the plants look identical from the air.