The CEO of the celebrated U.S. hygiene products company Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps was arrested outside of the White House on Monday protesting the U.S. ban on industrial hemp farming. David Bronner locked himself inside a steel cage along with several hemp plants that he harvested for oil.

David Bronner: “We spend over $100,000 a year buying hemp seed oil from Canadians, from Canadian farmers. We’ve been trying over 10 years to be able to grow and purchase hemp seed oil from American farmers, and we’re just getting really frustrated with Obama, who as a state senator from Illinois voted twice for industrial hemp cultivation, but as a president has ignored us completely. This is not a drug. This is like a poppy seed bagel. You know the poppy seed comes from the bread seed poppy, a non-drug cultivar of the opium poppy. It’s the same thing with industrial hemp. The rest of the world is moving on — Canada, China, Europe — and American farmers are just cut out.”

Bronner was detained after several hours inside the cage when police broke open the lock.