The
process is slow, but hemp is on the march through the USA regulatory
maze while farmers are busy learning how to grow the crop. The point
today is that dawn is creeping over the horizon to the inevitable.
Stevia was way harder when I first wrote about it in 2007.
Marijuana
is quite another matter, and this debate is part of that process of
recognition. However the drive toward legalization has made
opposition to hemp itself look idiotic although the technical reasons
do not change. After all the best place to hide a Marijuana crop is
surely in the middle of a hemp field.
We
will have this important cash crop back in favor soon.
U.S. House of
Representatives Votes to Legalize Industrial Hemp
Thomas R. Eddlem
Friday, 21 June 2013
16:00
The U.S. House of
Representatives voted 225-200 on June 20 to legalize the
industrial farming of hemp fiber. Hemp is the same species as the
marijuana plant, and its fiber has been used to create clothing,
paper, and other industrial products for thousands of years; however,
it has been listed as a “controlled substance” since the
beginning of the drug war in the United States. Unlike marijuana
varieties of the plant, hemp is not bred to create high quantities of
the drug THC.
The amendment's
sponsor, Jared Polis (D-Colo.), noted in congressional
debate that “George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp. The
first American flag was made of hemp. And today, U.S. retailers sell
over $300 million worth of goods containing hemp — but all of that
hemp is imported, since farmers can’t grow it here. The federal
government should clarify that states should have the ability to
regulate academic and agriculture research of industrial hemp without
fear of federal interference. Hemp is not marijuana, and at the very
least, we should allow our universities — the greatest in the world
— to research the potential benefits and downsides of this
important agricultural commodity.”
The
225-200 vote included 62 Republican votes for the Polis
amendment, many of whom were members of Justin Amash's Republican
Liberty Caucus or representatives from farm states. But most
Republicans opposed the amendment, claiming it would make the drug
war more difficult. “When you plant hemp alongside marijuana, you
can't tell the difference,” Representative Steve King
(R-Iowa) said in congressional debate on the amendment to
the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013.
“This is not about a
drugs bill. This is about jobs,” Representative Thomas Massie
(R-Ky.) countered King in House floor debate June 20.
Massie, a key House Republican ally of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky
and a member of the Republican Liberty Caucus,opposes marijuana
legalization but had signed on as a cosponsor of the Polis
amendment.
The amendment
would take industrial hemp off the controlled substances list if it
meets the following classification: “The term ‘industrial hemp’
means the plant Cannabis sativa L. and any part of such plant,
whether growing or not, with a delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol
concentration of not more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis.”
The amendment would allow industrial farming of hemp “if a person
grows or processes Cannabis sativa L. for purposes of making
industrial hemp in accordance with State law.” Most states
have passed laws legalizing industrial hemp, in whole or in
part, but federal prohibitions have kept the plant from legal
cultivation.
However, the annual
agricultural authorization bill subsequently went down to defeat in
the House by a vote of 195 to 234. Sponsors of the
amendment hope that it will be revised in conference committee, where
it has strong support from both Kentucky senators, Rand
Paul and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The legislation,
originally offered as the bill H.R. 525, was sponsored by Jared
Polis (D-Colo.) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who represent states
where voters recently considered ballot measures that legalized
marijuana within their states, a fact King pointed out in House floor
debate. Voters in Colorado and Washington approved the ballot
measures in 2012, but voters in Oregon rejected a ballot measure that
would have legalized cultivation of marijuana.
Recent polls have
indicated that most Americans want legalization of marijuana, as well
as hemp. Though support for marijuana legalization is by only a slim
majority of the public, there's a larger divide among age groups,
with younger voters more heavily favoring legalization.
None of the debate on
the amendment related to the constitutional authority of Congress to
ban substances. Nor did any congressman reference the first time
Congress banned a drug — alcohol. At that time, Congress
followed proper constitutional protocol to amend the U.S.
Constitution first, giving it the legitimate power to ban alcohol
(i.e., the 18th Amendment). No comparable constitutional
amendment has been passed for hemp, marijuana, raw milk, or any
other substance prohibited by the federal government.
