Agriculture Committee supports hemp farming

by Paul Lefebvre
Barton Chronicle
January 30, 2008
Original Article Here

MONTPELIER — A committee that was once perceived as the most conservative in the Legislature is expected to pass out a bill Wednesday that will enable farmers to grow hemp in the state.

The House Committee on Agriculture finished taking testimony with a telephone conversation Tuesday with the Director of Law Enforcement in North Dakota, the only state that has legalized the growing of industrial hemp.

In fact much of the last-minute tweaking of the bill was fashioning what one member called “a comfort zone” for those who may oppose the bill out of fear that it will make enforcement of laws against marijuana cultivation more difficult.

Committee Chairman David Zuckerman, a Progressive from Burlington, said it likely the bill will come out of his 11-member committee with unanimous support.

Still unclear is whether the bill will have to go before the Judiciary Committee before a vote is taken in the House.

Testimony got under way last year on a hemp bill introduced by Representative Dexter Randall of Troy. On Tuesday Mr. Randall said fears that marijuana cultivators will try to sneak their crop into legitimate hemp growing operations are unfounded.

The two crops are not compatible, he said. Industrial hemp is grown for its fiber and any cross pollination with its budding cousin, marijuana, will yield an inferior grade that won’t do well on the clandestine market that services pot smokers. Only a fool, he said, would try to plant one next to the other.

According to Mr. Randall, industrial hemp is no stranger to Vermont, and for a brief time in history put his own county on the map.

“Orleans County, at one time, was the largest producer of industrial hemp in the state,” he said.

A patriotic poster hanging from the wall in the committee room where lawmakers worked to tighten the bill Tuesday underscores its historic use: “Grow hemp for the war,” the poster proclaims.

Both industrial hemp and marijuana come from the same plant, cannabis sativa. And if the bill is to pass muster on the House floor, lawmakers will have to be convinced that growing industrial hemp can be tightly regulated.

Jerry Kemmet, the North Dakota lawman, told lawmakers that he opposed legalizing industrial hemp in his own state because he feared marijuana cultivators would take unscrupulous advantage of the law. He did not want to be in a position, he said, where he had to confiscate a farmer’s hemp crop because it was found to contain marijuana plants.

Mr. Kemmet testified that he thought the bill passed in North Dakota because wheat and grain prices were down at the time, and farmers were looking for another cash crop. He speculated that because of higher crop prices, the same bill would not pass today.

The bill has support from the Vermont Farm Bureau as well as Rural Vermont, which has been one of the leading advocates for a more diversified agriculture in the state.

Its director, Amy Shollenberger, called the bill a priority issue during an interview late Tuesday. She said that industrial hemp fits into Rural Vermont’s goal to “build a living soil.” Because industrial hemp does not require chemical protection, like pesticides or herbicides, Ms. Shollenberger said it would make for a great rotation crop.

But in defining industrial hemp, the bill spends less time with the crop’s agricultural properties and more on what distinguishes it from the illicit weed. Industrial hemp, for example, is defined as a variety of cannabis sativa with only a small percentage of the active chemical, THC, that enables pot smokers to get high.

Under the committee’s bill, a grower would have to be licensed by the Secretary of Agriculture and his fields open to inspection. A criminal history check, including fingerprinting, would be performed on anyone applying for a license to raise industrial hemp. And anyone convicted of a felony would not be eligible for a hemp growing license.

Mr. Zuckerman said later that about 16 witnesses had given testimony, including a police officer from Saskatchewan, Canada, who said enforcement of the province’s laws on growing hemp had not been difficult.

Part of the difficulty of passing hemp legislations stems from the refusal of the federal government to recognize the crop. In 2000 the Legislature passed a resolution urging federal agencies to review its policies against cultivation and sale.

Products made from industrial hemp include oil, cloth, fiber, and particle board.