Search Results: industrial-hemp (19)

As with many emerging industries, getting ahead in the industrial-hemp industry often involves hiring the people who created the original regulations. In legal marijuana, for example, everyone from former state legislators to past Marijuana Enforcement Division officials have moved to the business side, helping companies and clients stay on top of Colorado’s strict cannabis laws.

One of the largest moves from government to the hemp industry (so far, at least) came last month, when Maureen West jumped from managing the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Industrial Hemp Program to take a job as compliance officer for hemp-oil company Functional Remedies.

The moment the hemp industry has been waiting for finally happened: President Donald Trump just signed the 2018 Farm Bill, legalizing industrial hemp in the United States.

Although highly anticipated after congressional approval last week, full-scale hemp legalization wasn’t official until Trump signed the Farm Bill, a set of agricultural policies voted on every five years or so. Spurred by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the 2018 bill’s hemp provisions catapult the plant’s farming opportunities from state pilot programs to a nationwide scale by removing hemp from the Controlled Substances Act and treating it like an agricultural product.

Amendment X, a ballot measure that takes industrial hemp out of the Colorado Constitution, passed by a narrow margin on Tuesday, November 6. The proposal needed 55 percent approval from voters to succeed, and it currently sits at slightly over 60 percent, with more than 90 percent of the state’s votes counted.

Colorado was the only state in the country to have industrial hemp defined in its constitution, but a large portion of the hemp industry believed that definition was going to prove more of a hindrance than a help. The Colorado Constitution currently defines hemp as a marijuana plant containing no more than 0.3 percent THC; anything over that threshold is considered marijuana by the State of Colorado.

The industrial-hemp industry may have gotten a nod of approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration in late May, when the agency clarified that not all compounds of cannabis fall under the Controlled Substances Act. Referencing a 2004 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that excluded non-psychoactive cannabinoids from the federal government’s definition of marijuana, the announcement came after the DEA says it had received numerous inquiries on the matter.

On July 20, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the Energy and Water Development appropriations bill for fiscal year 2018, authorizing $38.4 billion in spending. Wedged into this bill was the Industrial Hemp Water Rights Act, a piece of bipartisan legislation introduced in part by Colorado senators Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner.

The Colorado Department of Agriculture has not only created the first hemp-seed certification program in the country, but it just certified its first three seed varieties. Passing state-regulated THC and observation trials, these industrial hemp seeds are now eligible to be grown by the Colorado Seed Growers Association for production as a “CDA Approved Certified Seed.”

“This moves hemp toward mainstream agriculture and the same practices of other crops,” says Duane Sinning, assistant director of the CDA’s division of plant industry.

The flag of New Mexico

It’s for her sick child.

The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

New Mexico mom Nicole Nuñez is suing the state over “arbitrary” supply limits. Nuñez’s eight month old daughter has a seizure disorder. A Michigan judge ruled that seedlings count as plants.

The four Colorado doctors suspended for overprescribing large plant counts will have to go through administrative hearings to try and get their licenses reinstated.  A judge tossed out a lawsuit they filed.

The South Carolina legislature has cannabis on their minds and seem to be okay with industrial hemp, but don’t think they are coming close to actually legalizing pot anytime soon.
A bill allowing South Carolina farmers to grow industrial hemp moved through a state Senate agriculture panel Thursday with little opposition and a lot of support. Meanwhile, state Sen. Tom Davis filed a bill that would allow doctors to recommend CBD-rich oil to patients with seizure disorders.

Currently Colorado, Washington, California, West Virginia, Vermont, Kentucky, North Dakota, Oregon, Montana and Maine all have hemp farming laws in place, but farmers for years have been barred by federal law from cultivating the non-psychoactive cousin cannabis.
But a Republican-backed, 959-page farm bill that is quickly working its way to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives would allow for hemp cultivation in ten states under federal pilot programs.

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