Full list: Hemp News

by Andrew Stein
April 29, 2013
Full Article

Last week, the House Agriculture and Forest Products Committee unanimously voted to create a state-sanctioned process to grow hemp, despite federal regulations essentially prohibiting the action.

Under the bill, hemp is defined as Cannabis Sativa with a tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, concentration of 0.3 percent or less. The low-potency form of marijuana is touted in the bill for its long-standing market presence and strength in industries like textiles, clothing, bio-fuel, paper, cosmetics and more.

Rep. Teo Zagar, D-Barnard, supports the bill. “The governor likes to say we have an agricultural renaissance happening, and I think this bill could accelerate that,” Zagar said. “Hemp is an amazingly versatile, valuable and productive crop that could serve a number of needs in Vermont and give farmers a bunch of new tools.”

The House Agriculture Committee re-drafted S.157, which passed out of the Senate at the end of March. The bill would replace a Vermont statute that permits the growing of industrial hemp, but only when federal regulation permits it.

The new provision, however, runs afoul of federal regulations, and House members say Congress must step in to legalize hemp.

“We’ve got to send a message,” said Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham, who chairs the House Agriculture Committee. “This is the kind of message I think will mean something to the federal delegation, and Sen. Leahy’s committee has a hemp bill before them.”

In January, Sen. Patrick Leahy wrote to the Drug Enforcement Administration asking for information about the way in which the agency regulates hemp. Last week, Leahy received a response from Eric Akers, deputy chief of the DEA, reiterating that cannabis is an illegal, controlled substance.

“Under the Controlled Substances Act, cannabis is a Schedule I controlled substance regardless of potency,” Akers wrote. The DEA allows growers to register for the the legal cultivation of cannabis with a long list of requirements.

Akers wrote that he couldn’t tell the senator how many people had sought to cultivate cannabis for industrial purposes because the administration doesn’t track the information. Since 2000, three of eight applicants were granted permission to grow hemp, according to Akers, and one of the registrations is pending until “required security measures” are taken. The other four applicants were denied because they would not install the feds’ security measures.

The registration process that the State of Vermont would impose under the House bill would be much more lax than the federal law. It would require the grower to submit to the Secretary of Agriculture his or her name and address, a statement that the cannabis variety does not exceed the state potency threshold, and the location and acreage of the hemp parcels. The bill would give the Agriculture Secretary the power to leverage an annual $25 registration fee for administration purposes.

The Vermont registration literature would also come with the following caveat: “Federal prosecution for growing hemp in violation of federal law may include criminal penalties, forfeiture of property, and loss of access to federal agricultural benefits, including agricultural loans, conservation programs, and insurance programs.”

One person who might be willing to risk such penalties is Rep. Will Stevens, I-Shoreham, who owns Golden Russet Farm.

“I’ll look into the option as part of my management plan,” Stevens said. “I’d be happy to look at it as part of our crop rotation. If hemp fits into that, fine. And if we can figure out ways to harvest it and market it, even better.”

Robb Kidd, an organizer for the advocacy group Rural Vermont, said he knows numerous farmers who are interested in the prospect. Rural Vermont has been advocating for the legalization of industrial hemp production for almost a decade. He says the bill that passed out of the House Agriculture Committee is the group’s “ideal, dream bill.”

“Times have changed dramatically,” he said. “Everybody has realized the economic opportunity. They have realized we need to get this moving, and the federal government delay is not helping.”

Correction: Rep. Teo Zagar represents Barnard, not Woodstock.

4/29/30
Charlotte Albright
Full Article and Audio

It’s been five years since hemp was declared a legal crop in Vermont. But there’s a catch. The law takes effect only if the feds declassify the plant—which is related to marijuana—as a controlled substance.

Federal law still forbids growing hemp. But a new bill with wide support would legalize hemp in Vermont, despite the federal ban.

East Thetford farm manager Will Allen has his fingers crossed.

A Willie Nelson song spills out of a boom box as a worker tends one of  fourteen greenhouses at Cedar Circle farm, where Allen works.  It sits on 40 organic acres along the river in East Thetford.

The choice of music is not surprising, because Allen says the musician is one of a handful of supporters willing to help him buy another plot of land to plant hemp. He says the group would even help pay legal bills if he gets busted by the feds.

“So as soon as the state says go for it, we’re gonna go for it. And if we don’t have to go through the Ag  department, that makes it all easier for everybody,” Allen said.

But chances are hemp growers would at least have to register with  the state  Department of Agriculture.

Allen says high-protein hemp has many healthful uses—as a nutritious oil, a sustainably grown fiber for clothing and paper, a building material, a plastic substitute, even a bio fuel.  And he notes, Canada is already tapping those markets.

“It’s grown in Montreal. I mean, hello!,” an exasperated Allen said.  “Why can’t we grow it here in the United States, right? And the reason we can’t grow it in the United States is it’s tied in with the Drug Enforcement Agency’s belief that it’s a relative of marijuana, it’s a drug.”

Under the Vermont measure likely to come up for a vote this week, to be certified as hemp, a plant could contain no more than 0.3 percent of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

That’s why Allen says hemp is not a drug and that farmers are unlikely to hide marijuana in hemp fields. He says cross pollination would weaken the THC in pot, making it less marketable. Still, he expects a visit from the DEA if he grows hemp in East Thetford.

“We know that the federal government is probably going to seize that land, and then it will be in litigation,” Allen said.

But Allen’s state representative hopes drug enforcement agents have more important things to do than to go after hemp farmers. Teo  Zagar, of Barnard, sponsored the House hemp bill that has since been expanded and approved by the Senate.  Although the Department of Public Safety warns that farmers could be put at risk of federal prosecution, the measure has drawn tri-partisan support for a crop that used to be promoted, not prohibited, by the American government.

“And so on my first day in the committee room I saw a poster on the wall. It said, ‘Grow Hemp for the War.’ It was an old World War II poster. And so I asked the committee what the status of hemp was in Vermont,” Zagar recalled.

He expects to get his answer if the industrial hemp bill passes and the governor signs it.

Zagar  knows that time is running out this session, but he believes that planting will start–if not this season, then next year.

Apr. 17, 2013
By DAVE GRAM
Full Article

MONTPELIER — Members of the state House Agriculture Committee appeared Wednesday to support allowing Vermont’s farmers to grow hemp — legislation that could put any farmers who plant it on a collision course with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The committee heard testimony on a measure that already passed the Senate in March that would give farmers the option of growing the same plant that produces marijuana.

Although plants grown for hemp are raised differently and contain very low levels of pot’s active ingredient, it remains illegal under federal law. But supporters of the bill say there’s little risk hemp plants would be diverted for the drug trade.

Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham and chairwoman of the committee, said she supports the legalization of hemp.

“I think all we’re up against is that the DEA feels this is a dangerous crop, which we’ve discovered as a committee it just is not,” she said.

Hemp is widely praised for its multiple uses as a heating fuel, provider of fabric for cloth and rope, construction material, paint and other purposes. It can grow well in Vermont’s climate with its short growing season and long, cold winters, said Ben Falk of Whole Systems Design, a farm specializing in test crops and public education about agriculture in Moretown.

With the current federal ban on hemp, “we’re tossing that agricultural option out the window. The diversification possibility that hemp offers to the state’s agricultural economy and land base are enormous,” he told the committee.

Vermont passed a law in 2008 that called on the state Agency of Agriculture to begin issuing hemp growing permits to farmers seeking them as soon as the federal government lifted its prohibition on the crop. The new legislation would have Vermont wait no longer: Farmers could begin growing the crop under state law. But the bill makes clear that they still could face federal prosecution.

“(F)ederal prosecution for growing hemp in violation of federal law 20 may include criminal penalties, forfeiture of property, and loss of access to federal agricultural benefits, including agricultural loans, conservation programs, and insurance programs,” it says.

Partridge said a few Vermont farmers may try to defy the federal law, setting up a possible court battle, but she said they should know the risks.

Lawmakers said hemp comes from the stalks of the cannabis plant and hemp plants are raised for long, tall stalk. Plants grown for marijuana, which comes from cannabis flowers, leaves and resin, are grown to be shorter and bushier.

The DEA historically has made no distinction between the two.

By Beth Musgrave
April 6, 2013
Full Article

By Kathryn Flagg
March 29, 2013
Full Article

In 2008, Vermont lawmakers threw their support behind the industrial production of hemp, a variety of cannabis that can be refined into food, fuel and fiber. The only problem? The so-called hemp bill made abundantly clear that Vermont would hold off on licensing or permitting any hemp farming until federal laws no longer prohibited the practice.

Five years later, federal law hasn’t changed, but that isn’t stopping some Vermont legislators and lobbyists from reviving the hemp bill. S. 157, which passed on a voice vote in the Senate yesterday and now heads to the House, strips out some of the language and restrictions that proponents say too closely conflated hemp with its controversial cousin marijuana. More significantly, though, the updated bill would allow the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets to begin issuing permits to raise hemp without any change in federal law.

Even with a state permit in hand, farmers would run the risk of federal prosecution for growing hemp. Their property could be seized, and they could lose federal aid under the Farm Bill. But Robb Kidd, an organizer with Rural Vermont who is pushing hard for hemp production in the state, says that hasn’t dissuaded a few farmers from telling him they’d be lined up on day one for their permits.

“There are folks out there who will take the risk,” says Kidd.

Sen. David Zuckerman (P/D-Chittenden), the vice-chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, warns that farmers would have to think carefully — and probably set up legal barriers — before planting hemp. But then again, he says, “The federal government is facing budget cuts, the state government is facing tight budgets, and law enforcement as far as I would gather are going to be focused on actual drug problems.”

Proponents say agricultural hemp could be a boon for Vermont farmers. Rural Vermont and the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund estimate the crop could bring in between $2000 and $3000 an acre for farmers. Hemp is a good crop to use in rotation with corn, a crop grown extensively by dairy farmers in Vermont for feed, and can help kill weeds in fields naturally, without the use of herbicides.

For farmers who want to transition to organic certification, hemp could serve as a transition crop during the three years fields need to be free of chemical herbicides and pesticides. Hemp also makes sense in fields prone to flooding; while hemp can’t be used for food products after being contaminated by flood waters, it can have a useful — and profitable — life as other, non-edible products. Traditional food crops, by contrast, can be a total loss after flooding.

The crop could also be turned into a profitable value-added product: hempseed oil. Farmers who are equipped to make sunflower or canola oil already have the equipment necessary to produce hempseed oil.

The concentration of THC, the principle psychoactive compound in marijuana, exists in such low concentrations in hemp that the plant can’t be used to get high.

Even so, Kidd says that Vermont’s original hemp bill — in an effort to appease opponents — didn’t make that distinction between pot and hemp clear enough. The bill calls for criminal background checks for any farmers who wish to grow hemp, and would have required farmers to register the exact coordinates of their farm fields. The result, Kidd says, is that even though hemp isn’t a drug, it was treated like one.

Netaka White, the bioenergy program director with VSJF, says S. 157 is a big improvement in that regard. “It places hemp where it really is, or where it needs to be, which is as an agricultural crop, not a drug,” he says.

The Senate ag committee, which introduced S. 157, took testimony from the Department of Public Safety on the legislation. While DPS neither supported nor opposed the legislation, Commissioner Keith Flynn did indicate to lawmakers that law enforcement officials in Vermont have bigger fish to fry — for example, crimes related to opiate abuse.

Vermont isn’t alone in investigating hemp production, and nationwide the push for growing hemp has bipartisan support. Kentucky legislators earlier this week approved a bill that would establish a framework for a legal hemp industry in the Bluegrass State, and Republican Sen. Rand Paul is promising to seek a wavier from the Drug Enforcement Administration in order to speed along hemp development in his home state.

If anything, hemp is a throwback crop rather than a trailblazing new addition to the ag landscape. During World War II, the U.S. Department of Agriculture rolled out a film called “Hemp for Victory” extolling the virtues of the crop. Domestic hemp production was crucial after war with Japan cut off Asian supplies to the United States. At one point U.S. farmers cultivated an estimated 400,000 acres of hemp. Today more than 30 countries produce industrial hemp, including Canada.

Zuckerman, Kidd and White all say they’re moderately optimistic about S. 157’s odds as it heads to the House. As the debate over decriminalization of marijuana continues in Vermont, Kidd says it’s only common sense to forge ahead with hemp cultivation. “If you’re going to allow folks to smoke marijuana, why don’t we allow farmers to grow hemp that will bring an economic benefit to the state?”

Some Vermont farmers are eager to grow hemp—once they’re allowed
By Rural Vermont Organizer Robb Kidd
Full Article

“Hemp For Victory!” the poster reads.

Hanging in the House Agriculture Committee’s hearing room in the Vermont Statehouse, and put there by who knows who, it’s a poster that to some would be more appropriate in a college dorm room 30 years ago. In reality, it’s from 1942 and was produced by the United States Department of Agriculture to promote a film encouraging U.S. farmers to grow hemp to support the war effort.

But it’s a poster that has relevance today, as Vermont farmers who believe in the economic and agricultural benefits of growing hemp seek a victory in their longstanding push to grow industrial hemp.

In 2008, advocates led by Rural Vermont and the national organization Vote Hemp celebrated the tri-partisan passage of Vermont’s Industrial Hemp Bill, Act 212. The bill calls for a regulatory framework for growing industrial hemp in Vermont. However, it can only take effect once the federal government—either Congress or the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration—takes an active step in the permitting of hemp. In the meantime, the hemp export industry is thriving in Canada and China, primarily supplying the U.S. demand for hemp products.

Why the prohibition in America? Hemp’s cousin is the marijuana plant. The two plants look similar; however the hemp plant contains minimal traces of the psychoactive drug associated with the marijuana plant, tetrahydracannabinol (THC). The hemp plant contains .3 percent THC concentration as compared to marijuana, which contains anywhere from 2 percent THC to the modern levels of 20 percent THC. If a person were to smoke hemp they would most likely achieve a bad headache rather than obtain any intoxicating effects.

There are many theories as to why the hemp plant became illegal to grow in the U.S., including allegations that it was competing with the Hearst family’s newspaper interests, as hemp can be turned into paper very efficiently compared to wood. But today, the biggest resistance to hemp comes from the law enforcement community, concerned by its association with marijuana.

So it is still illegal for Vermont farmers to grow hemp, but that is not stopping some from planning on it.

Will Allen, of Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford, wants to grow hemp because “it’s a miraculous crop that can provide wood, cordage, high-protein seeds, fabric, medicines, large amounts of organic matter, bio plastics, animal feed….” In an interview with WCAX-TV last August, Will commented on its prohibition: “Yeah, it’s related to marijuana, but poppies are related to opium poppies—it’s the same issue. We don’t stop growing poppies because they are related to opium poppies. We grow poppies because they are beautiful, and we should grow hemp because it’s useful.” Should the federal government pave the way for Vermont’s law to take effect, Will plans on becoming one of the first Vermont farmers to grow hemp.

John Vitko, who runs a small-scale diversified farm in Warren, says hemp “is proven by our forefathers to be a very productive and manageable plant for a small farm, and denying farms this tool is a crime.” His farm provides eggs for his local ice cream business, and his “main reason to grow hemp is to supply a feed for my chickens that is high in omega 3-6, a complete protein, and loaded with amino acids; this feed will make my chickens healthier and in turn make healthier eggs and healthier humans.” Furthermore, John points out that “a farm could improve hard clay soil [common in Vermont] with its tap root, and it could be grown in areas where other crops have difficulty, feed and bed the livestock, fuel the tractor, warm the farmhouse, and clothe the farmer.” He acknowledges that hemp is not the “holy grail” but is quite versatile and “should be in every farmer’s fields.”

Aspiring farmer Ben Brown of South Burlington envisions growing hemp on land he is looking to purchase. “I intend to use hemp on my [future] homestead to feed animals, sequester carbon, fix nitrogen in the soil, and hopefully sell the residual byproducts of my uses to other local industries such as textiles, building materials, etc.”

Full Sun, a new Vermont startup in the midst of building a commercial oilseed processing facility in Addison County, is also hoping to one day source local hemp. At first, “our business model is to purchase non-GMO and organic specialty oil crops [such as canola, sunflower, and soybean] from Vermont farmers and others in the region, and market the oil and meal for food and feed ingredients,” says Netaka White, cofounder of Full Sun along with his business partner, David McManus. “We can’t wait to set contracts with our farmer/partners to grow hemp seed. Farm gate prices are around $1.00 per pound now, with 800 to 1,200 pounds of seed per acre, so it’s a solid cash crop for the grower, and the hemp oil, the meal, and the hulled seed are all going to be important products for Full Sun. But unfortunately, until the federal government reclassifies hemp, we’re forced to buy from Canadian growers.”

Hempfully Green of Poultney is planning on developing “sustainable, clean, carbon-reducing, fuel-reducing, fire-proof, mold-proof housing made from locally grown hemp.” Forming hemp into a concrete-like substance called “hempcrete” is highly efficient and is currently being used in Quebec. Tom Simon, a partner in the business, is working on a business proposal to sell the equipment, know-how, and building needed to grow and harvest—on 45 acres—all the seed stock to fulfill all the energy needs of a farm, from electric to auto/tractor fuel to home fuel.

Where does hemp stand, legislatively? Last year, Vermont Senator Vince Illuzi attached an amendment to a relatively minor bill that would have given the Vermont Agency of Agriculture the power to issue hemp permits and symbolically challenge current federal policy. Instead, a compromise was struck that authorized the agency to create rules for the permitting process and hold a public comment period (but the agency cannot issue a permit until the DEA or Congress acts on federal policy). Once this state-permitting process is developed by the agency, Vermont farmers would be a step closer to being able to plant hemp; they’d be “shovel ready” should the federal government act, and would not have to be delayed while Vermont engaged in a rule-making process.

On the national level, Vermont is not in a bubble. Vote Hemp, a national hemp advocacy organization, notes that “to date, thirty-one states have introduced pro-hemp legislation and nineteen have passed pro-hemp legislation.” Rural Vermont and the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund have collaborated on a public education campaign to drive the Vermont Congressional delegation to action, which they have taken. Vermont Rep. Peter Welch was a co-sponsor of Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2010, which gives authority to the states to regulate hemp as they see fit. And this past summer, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders joined Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley in co-sponsoring Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden’s Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2012, which would do the same as the House bill. Neither bill has come up for a vote yet.

In late January of this year, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, sent a letter to DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart declaring that the “Senate Judiciary Committee has an interest in the DEA’s regulation of industrial hemp and its effect on the ability of hemp producers to operate in states like Vermont.” The Senator’s letter questions why there has been no progress in the agency’s evaluation of hemp. “Has the DEA reconsidered any aspect of its regulation of hemp in light of these developments?” Sen. Leahy wrote, using his power as the Judiciary Committee chair to address these concerns. But he was not alone, and not simply acting within his own party. A week after Sen. Leahy’s letter was sent to the DEA, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, senator from Kentucky, issued a statement declaring his support of the industrial hemp movement, to allow hemp farming in his home state.

In the near future, Vermont farmers such as Will, John, and Ben may be allowed to grow hemp, and businesses such as Full Sun and Hempfully Green may be able to source hemp locally and create an added economic opportunity for farmers and entrepreneurs. When might this happen? It’s hard to be sure, for watching the political process unfold is like watching grass grow. However, given our country’s divisive political climate, hemp could become a unifying force for nonpartisan politics. As the USDA stated in 1942, hemp could mean victory.

Robb Kidd is an activist based in Montpelier and the organizer for Rural Vermont, a statewide farmers’ advocacy organization.

By TRIP GABRIEL
February 12, 2013
Full Article

FRANKFORT, Ky. — In 1996 the actor Woody Harrelson, who has a sideline as an activist for legalizing marijuana, was arrested in Kentucky for planting four hemp seeds.

Last month Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, announced his support for growing hemp in Kentucky, his home state.

Between those jarringly disparate events lies the evolution of hemp from a countercultural cause to an issue championed by farmers in the heartland and conservative lawmakers.

On Monday, a panel of the Republican-controlled Kentucky State Senate unanimously approved a bill to license hemp growers. It was promoted by the state agriculture commissioner and three members of the state’s Congressional delegation, including Senator Rand Paul, who removed his jacket to testify in a white shirt that he announced was made of hemp fibers.

If the bill is approved by the full Legislature, Kentucky will join eight other states that have adopted laws to allow commercial hemp growing, although the practice is effectively blocked by federal law that makes no distinction between hemp and marijuana.

Mr. Paul, a Republican, said he would seek a waiver from the Obama administration for Kentucky hemp growers, while pressing Congress to delist hemp as a controlled substance, which hemp supporters say is a legacy of antidrug hysteria.

Both plants are the same species, Cannabis sativa, but hemp has only a trace of the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Hemp’s champions see it as a source of agricultural jobs, an alternative for struggling tobacco farmers and a wonder plant with uses from bluejeans to building materials.

Attitudes are changing in surprising places. At a hearing on Monday in Frankfort, the Kentucky capital, the state police commissioner’s opposition to hemp growing was challenged by a former C.I.A. director, R. James Woolsey.

“The specter of people getting high on industrial hemp,” Mr. Woolsey said, “is pretty much exactly like saying you can get drunk on O’Doul’s.”

Hemp supporters say it is only a matter of time before legalization comes as people more fully understand the plant. They also point to states where voters legalized recreational marijuana in November — Colorado and Washington — as inevitably forcing a change in priorities in the Obama administration.

“The demonology of hemp is exposed as being not valid,” said Representative John Yarmuth, Democrat of Kentucky, a sponsor of a bill in the House to allow hemp cultivation. He said the movement to accept hemp has the same inevitability that he attributed to acceptance of same-sex marriage.

Still, the federal government has been unyielding. Farmers in states that allow hemp must seek a waiver from the Drug Enforcement Administration or risk being raided by federal agents and losing their farms.

Dave Monson, a North Dakota wheat farmer and Republican state representative, has held a state hemp license since 2007, when North Dakota legalized cultivation. But he has no plans to plant. “I applied for a D.E.A. license, never got one,” he said.

A spokesman for the drug agency said it did not keep statistics on permits to grow hemp, which it does not distinguish from marijuana under the Controlled Substance Act of 1970.

Mr. Monson knows farmers just north of the Canadian border who profitably grow hemp, and he argues that it can be an economic boon. “The more states that do what we have done in North Dakota, if we can keep the pressure on, I think we’re going to see some movement at the federal level,” he said.

Hemp supporters claim a total retail value of products containing hemp at more than $400 million in the United States. But a Congressional Research Service report last year found that imported hemp raw materials was small, only $11.5 million. All hemp used in United States today — such as in Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps sold at Whole Foods — is imported, mostly from China.

Rodney Brewer, the commissioner of the Kentucky State Police, said that if hemp farming were legal, marijuana growers would hide their plants in hemp fields and the police could not tell them apart.

But Mr. Woolsey, who said he favored hemp because of “my interest in prosperity for rural America,” argued that no pot farmer would hide plants in a hemp field for fear that low-potency hemp would cross-pollinate with marijuana and lower the concentration of THC, its psychoactive ingredient.

Marijuana growers “hate the idea of having industrial hemp anywhere near,” he said.

The Kentucky bill faces resistance from some lawmakers, including the speaker of the State House.

Mr. Paul, after calling attention to his hemp shirt at the hearing in Frankfort, seemed to roll his eyes when he said, “You’d think you’re at a D.E.A. hearing.”

“This is a hearing about a crop,” he said. “It’s a crop that’s legal everywhere else in the world except the United States.”

Mr. Paul, elected in 2010 with Tea Party support, promised to introduce a Senate bill as a companion to the pro-hemp bill in the House, which has 28 co-sponsors. He is following in the family footsteps, since the first House bill allowing hemp was introduced several years ago by his father, Ron Paul, a former Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate.

Those positions placed hemp far outside the mainstream in many lawmakers’ minds, just as the image of its products — soaps, sandals and natural foods sold at co-ops — placed it in a counterculture.

But no better sign exists that hemp’s image is changing than its embrace by Mr. McConnell, the minority leader, who said in a statement last month that his mind had been changed “after long discussions” with Rand Paul and the Kentucky agriculture commissioner, James Comer, a Republican.

“The utilization of hemp to produce everything from clothing to paper is real,” Mr. McConnell said.

FRANKFORT, Ky. — With support from some of the state’s top politicians and claims that it would create thousands of jobs, an effort to legalize industrial hemp — the less-potent cousin of marijuana — may have its best chance of passing the Kentucky General Assembly.

Opposition from the Kentucky State Police helped kill earlier efforts to legalize hemp, which can be processed into fiber for clothing or provide an oil used in skin- and hair-care products. Once legal, hemp production in the United States was centered in Kentucky. Production fell nationally after the mid-1800s, as cotton surged.

State police still oppose legalizing hemp, arguing in part that because the plants look virtually the same as marijuana it could impede drug enforcement efforts.

But the proposal to legalize hemp has gained momentum from the alliance of Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, state Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Paul Hornback, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.

“This is something that you don’t have to borrow any money (for) that will have an immediate impact of thousands of jobs,” Comer said, based on an assumption that processors and manufacturers would locate in Kentucky if it is one of the first states to approve it. “We’re ahead at something that relates to economic development for once, so let’s pursue it.”

Comer and Paul say the state police concerns are unfounded because growers of industrial hemp would be licensed and global-positioning system devices would identify legal crops and reveal others as illegal.

Comer’s Senate Bill 50, sponsored by Hornback, a Republican from Shelbyville, was filed earlier this month just before the legislature adjourned until February.

The bill would require growers to be licensed annually and have their backgrounds checked by the Agriculture Department. Each licensee would be required to plant a minimum of 10 acres to eliminate people who aren’t serious from getting licenses.

Growers would have to keep sales contracts for three years and provide names of hemp buyers to the department.

Even if an industrial hemp bill passed in Kentucky, it would still need federal approval. Federal drug policy effectively bans growing it, although other countries, such as Canada, allow it.

Paul, a Bowling Green Republican, has supported federal legislation to enable hemp production by classifying it separately from marijuana. Paul and Comer appeared together at the Kentucky State Fair last year to talk about their support for industrial hemp.

If legalized, Comer said he doesn’t see corn and soybean growers in Western Kentucky switching to industrial hemp, but he said it would be a profitable alternative for growers in hillier areas whose land is now used for grazing and pasture.

Letter to the Editor by Lea Wood
Originally printed in the Times Argus. Used by permission.

by Phillip Smith
August 07, 2012
Full Article

A bipartisan group of senators has introduced a bill that would exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana. The bill, if passed, would get around the DEA’s refusal to differentiate hemp from marijuana and could result in American farmers being allowed to grow the industrial crop.

The bill, Senate Bill 3501, was introduced last week by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and cosponsored by Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR). It would amend the Controlled Substances Act to make clear that hemp is not a drug, even though it is part of the cannabis family. Hemp has much lower levels of THC than marijuana grown for recreational or medicinal purposes.

The bill marks Wyden’s second attempt this year to get hemp delisted. He tried to offer an amendment to the farm bill the Senate passed in June to do just that, but the Senate leadership ruled the amendment was not germane.

“I firmly believe that American farmers should not be denied an opportunity to grow and sell a legitimate crop simply because it resembles an illegal one,” Wyden said. “Raising this issue has sparked a growing awareness of exactly how ridiculous the US’s ban on industrial hemp is. I’m confident that if grassroots support continues to grow and Members of Congress continue to hear from voters then common sense hemp legislation can move through Congress in the near future.”

Meanwhile, another hemp bill, House Resolution 1831, which would also clarify that hemp is not marijuana for the purposes of the Controlled Substances Act, languishes in the Republican-controlled House.