Kentuckians push for legalization of hemp on the Hill
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2015 - Advocates for industrial hemp –
the non-hallucinogenic cousin of marijuana – are looking to build on the
progress they made with the passage of the 2014 farm bill with new legalization
bills now pending in the House and Senate.
A farm bill provision made it legal for universities
and state departments of agriculture to sell industrial hemp cultivated on
authorized, state-licensed pilot sites. Hemp was made illegal in the U.S.
during the late 1930s.
Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer held a
briefing for Capitol Hill staffers Monday to drum up support for legislation
that would remove federal restrictions against growing hemp and open up what he
says is a $620 million market
in the U.S.
Importing hemp fiber is legal, and Canada and
countries in Europe and Asia are feeding the U.S. domestic market’s demand for
the product. That could change if industrial hemp was legalized with bipartisan
bills S 134,
sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., or HR 525,
sponsored by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.
Comer said he stuck his neck out politically on
industrial hemp, because he was “very passionate” about it being “the crop of
the future” to “help our family farmers.”
“Kentucky was a very tobacco-dependent state, and we
all know that the tobacco industry is in decline in the U.S., so we’re always
looking for things to replace tobacco,” he said. Industrial hemp “is just
another tool in the toolbox,” another “native crop” to grow that was once a
major component of Kentucky agriculture before World War II, he said.
The state’s climate isn’t suited to vegetable
production, Comer said, and industrial hemp is a “sustainable crop,”
particularly compared to nutrient and pesticide intensive cash crops like corn
and soybeans. It contributes less nutrient and sediment runoff and can be grown
on marginal farmland, he noted. Plus, industrial hemp fiber can replace
products traditionally made with wood and plastics, and maybe even the paper
used for currency.
“Hemp is a win-win situation and one of the few issues
that unites both ends of the political spectrum,” Comer said. “It’s a jobs
bill, a sustainability bill, and a farm groups’ bill.”
Jonathan Miller, formerly Kentucky’s state treasurer and
now a practicing attorney, also spoke at the briefing in favor of creating
nutritional and medicinal opportunities for hemp oil, which is derived from
hemp, but again has none of the hallucinogenic properties of oils produced from
marijuana.
Opportunities are endless, said Miller, and regulators
are already working out the legal and law enforcement kinks that are holding
industrial hemp back.
For instance, Miller said, FDA agents seized hemp
seeds as they entered Kentucky a few years ago, even though they were legally
purchased and were to be cultivated on designated pilot plots. Comer brought
three federal court cases against FDA on the matter, and was able “to get the
FDA to back down,” said Miller. Two years later, Kentucky is home to over 125 hemp
pilot programs covering 1,700 acres.
As for law enforcement, Miller and Comer said that the
threat of cross-pollination between hemp and marijuana crops would keep “bad
actors” from trying to conceal illegal marijuana plants within stands of hemp.
Planting the two together could decrease the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) potency
of the marijuana by half, diminishing its value tremendously. THC is the
substance that gives users a psychoactive effect. In hemp, THC levels are 0.3
percent or lower. In Colorado, which has legalized recreational marijuana use,
the average THC content of the drug is around 18 percent.
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