David Bronner locked himself in a metal cage Monday outside the White House with a stash of hemp plants and equipment, hoping to make enough hemp oil to spread on a piece of French bread. 
 
 Bronner, CEO and president of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, never got to finish the oil-pressing process or to have his usual breakfast. 
 
 Metro police and the D.C. fire department used a chainsaw to cut open the steel cage door and arrest him. Bronner was charged with possession of marijuana and blocking passage. 
 
 Bronner, whose California-based company uses hemp oil in its soap products, pleaded with President Obama — via microphone — to allow hemp harvesting in the U. S. 
 
 Bronner was moved to protest after a recent 28,000-signature petition asking for hemp legalization didn’t get the response he wanted, according to Bronner spokesman Ryan Fletcher. 
 
 The protest began at 8 a.m. when Bronner and his caged trailer was dropped off on H Street next to Lafayette Square. Park police and Secret Service agents joined D.C. police and fire officials, who worked for a couple of hours to open the cage. 
 
 Bronner had designed the trailer so it could not easily be broken into or towed away by police, said Fletcher. 
 
 Atop the trailer was a sign that read “DEAR MR. PRESIDENT. LET U.S. FARMERS GROW HEMP!” 
 
 Bronner’s actions also prompted police to shut down traffic around 16th and H streets at about 10:30 a.m. 
 
 U.S. drug law defines hemp as a controlled substance, the same as marijuana, making the plants inside Bronner’s trailer illegal. Live hemp seeds may not be imported into the country, and hemp may not be grown. However, hemp food, textiles and other products may be imported or produced in the U.S. from non-living hemp material. 
 
 Bronner claims that lab tests confirm the THC levels in his hemp plants is less than .3 percent, the international standard for industrial hemp. THC is the main active chemical in marijuana. 
 
 “We import roughly $100,000 dollars a year of hemp oil from Canada,” said Fletcher. 
 
 “He’s doing this action in part because he wants to be able to source that hemp oil from American farmers, rather than exporting his dollars to Canada.” 
 
 Last week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) introduced a measure that would label hemp as an agricultural crop. The amendment was backed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky). 
 
 Monday’s protest was not Bronner’s first action in favor of hemp cultivation in the U.S. In 2009, Bronner gathered with activists to plant hemp seeds on the front lawn of Drug Enforcement Administration Museum and Visitors Center in Arlington. The protesters, including Bronner, were arrested and charged with trespassing. 
 
 David Bronner’s grandfather, E.H.Bronner, founded Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap in 1948. The company produces some of the top-selling organic soaps in the country. 
 
 David Montgomery contributed to this story. ||||| WASHINGTON -- David Bronner had been camped out in a steel cage in front of Lafayette Park for almost three hours before a truck full of firemen came to remove him forcibly with a chainsaw. 
 
 The long-haired president of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a top-selling natural soap chain based in Escondido, Calif., was holding court in an 64-square-foot cage to draw attention to the federal prohibition on growing industrial hemp, a policy which fails to distinguish between oilseed and fiber varieties of cannabis. 
 
 For Bronner, that means spending over $100,000 a year importing from Canadian farmers the hemp oil he'd rather be buying domestically. "Obama has promised a rational approach to policies," he said into a microphone hooked up to his cage. "So far as president he has blown off the U.S. hemp industry." 
 
 More than a dozen members of the U.S. Park Police stood outside Bronner's cage Monday morning, trying to cut the metal with giant red clippers. They then called a tow truck that was unable to move the cage, and at one point threatened to arrest HuffPost for stepping into the street to take a photo. 
 
 Inside the cage with Bronner were a dozen industrial hemp plants, which, Bronner said, all contained less than 0.3 percent THC, in accordance with Canadian regulations and had no potential use as a drug. He used an oil press in the cage to make fresh hempseed oil, passing out oil-smeared bread through the bars as he informed passersby of the high amounts of nutritious omega-3 fatty acids it contained. (HuffPost was not there in time to sample the bread.) 
 
 "The industrial hemp plants I am harvesting and processing into oil cannot produce a high of any kind, but according to the Obama administration, I'm in possession of approximately 10 pounds of marijuana,” said Bronner. "President Obama's U.S. attorney who handles drug cases in Washington, D.C., will not be able to prove my hemp has any more drug value than a poppyseed bagel.” 
 
 The action comes after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) on Thursday introduced an amendment to the farm bill that would allow farmers to grow industrial hemp. 
 
 The legislation would exclude industrial hemp from the definition of "marihuana," thereby allowing hemp farming to be regulated by state permitting programs, bypassing the federal government's long-standing prohibition of marijuana. 
 
 A sister bill, H.R. 1831, was introduced in the House earlier this session by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). 
 
 Loading Slideshow Dr. Bronner's Hemp Protest 
 
 Dr. Bronner's Hemp Protest 
 
 Dr. Bronner's Hemp Protest 
 
 Dr. Bronner's Hemp Protest 
 
 Dr. Bronner's Hemp Protest 
 
 CORRECTION: This post has been updated to reflect the correct dimensions of Bronner's cage.
– David Bronner knew how to make his arrest a complicated affair. The professional hemp grower locked himself in a 64-foot-square steel cage outside the White House and endured police warnings until firemen finally broke through with a chainsaw, the Washington Post reports. Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, was protesting US policy that conflates hemp with marijuana and forbids the cultivation of either. “The industrial hemp plants I am harvesting and processing into oil cannot produce a high of any kind, but according to the Obama administration I’m in possession of approximately 10 pounds of marijuana,” Bronner said in a statement. He used a big sign and a microphone to make his case to President Obama, but no one has reported on White House residents peeking through the curtains. Huffington Post has video of the arrest. (Click here if you're curious about hemp seed vodka.)