Congress Expected to Approve Experimental Hemp Cultivation

With the exception of Colorado, Washington, and
Uruguay, cultivation of marijuana for general use is illegal pretty
much everywhere on Earth. That includes Australia, Austria, Canada,
Chile, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great
Britain, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New
Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, South Korea,
Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, and Ukraine. Yet all of those countries allow
cultivation of industrial hemp, a nonpsychoactive version of
cannabis used in textiles, cosmetics, food products, fuel, and
building materials. According to the Hemp Industries Association,
the United States is “the only industrialized nation in the world”
that has not managed to reconcile these two policies—an impossible
feat, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. It looks
like the U.S. will soon lose that dubious distinction. The farm
bill approved
by the House yesterday included a
provision allowing pilot hemp cultivation projects in 10
states.

“This is big,” Vote Hemp
President Eric Steenstra
told the Associated Press. “We’ve been pushing for this a long
time.” The hemp provision, which allows cultivation by colleges,
universities, and state agriculture departments for research
purposes, was introduced in the House by Reps. Jared Polis
(D-Colo.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). Its
main champion in the Senate, which is expected to pass the farm
bill as soon as next week, was Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.), who
took up the cause of farmers in his state who see hemp as a
potentially lucrative business. “In 2011,” A.P. notes, “the U.S.
imported $11.5 million worth of legal hemp products, up from $1.4
million in 2000.”

The 10 states that notionally allow hemp cultivation are
Colorado, Washington, California, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, North
Dakota, Oregon, Vermont, and West Virginia. With the exception of
an experiment in
Hawaii that was abandoned due to DEA resistance, hemp has been
produced only in Colorado, where Amendment 64 legalized it along
with marijuana. Although the Colorado Department of Agriculture has
not gotten around to awarding hemp cultivation licenses yet, a few
farmers went ahead and planted crops anyway. Last October, Baca
County farmer Ryan Loflin
harvested the country’s first quasi-legal hemp crop since the
late 1940s.

Maybe the next time a
hemp flag flies over the Capitol, it will be made of fiber
produced in the USA.
The horror.