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While the type of Colorado weed that gets you stoned has been getting all the attention this week, it’s fibrous cousin hemp also saw some major changes in the Centennial State.
The Colorado Department of Agriculture yesterday announced farmers can register for industrial hemp production starting March 1. Registration as a grower will cost a farmer $200 plus $1 an acre. Research licenses will be granted for $100 plus $5 an acre.
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| Hemp Industries Association |
Back in October, we shared with you the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s draft regulations for the growing of industrial hemp. Now, those regulations are official — with one change. Instead of facing a registration suspension or revocation if testing reveals that a grower’s plants exceed 0.3 percent THC, the final rules say that a grower will not be subject to any penalty as long as the “crop is destroyed or utilized in a manner approved of and verified by” the state agriculture commissioner.
Denver Westword has the full story.
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America’s first (known) hemp harvest in more than fifty years began this month in southeastern Colorado. This past spring, following last year’s passage of Amendment 64, which legalized small amounts of marijuana for adults and paved the way for industrial hemp production, farmer Ryan Loflin planted 55 acres of marijuana’s sober sister. Last week, hemp advocates from across the country came to watch as Loflin and others harvested the first plants by hand. Denver Westword has the full story.
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The Colorado-made hemp flag that flew over the Capitol in Washington on the Fourth of July has made its way back to the Centennial State. And today — which is known as Colorado Day, in commemoration of the day on which the state officially joined the union in 1876 — the hemp flag flew at the Colorado Capitol.
The goal, says hemp advocate Mike Bowman, is to have the flag travel around the United States and fly at the capitol buildings of every state that wants it. “Maybe it’ll end up at the Smithsonian,” he says. Denver Westword has the rest.
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San Diego based Medical Marijuana Inc. (MJNA) is commonly regarded as being the first publicly held company to deal openly in the hemp and marijuana markets. Promoted as a sort of ‘one-stop-shop’ for marijuana, hemp, and hempseed oil based products, services, and development, their product line focuses primarily on the benefits of CBDs, or cannabinoids, and what they hope are new, innovative, and popular ways to ingest them. MJNA prides itself on its “range of over 85 proprietary and patented cannabinoid ‘delivery methods’ that are more ‘socially and medically acceptable’ than typical industry methods.”
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| Hemp, lots of hemp. |
Before Colorado farmers can plant industrial hemp, the state Department of Agriculture must come up with a way to register and inspect their crops. To help establish those regulations, lawmakers authorized the creation of a nine-member advisory committee.
The members of that committee have been chosen, and the group met for the first time in mid-July. Farmer-turned-political-activist Mike Bowman was there and we caught up with him about the group’s progress. Denver Westword has the full story.
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Hemp advocate Jason Lauve has a new endeavor: Team Hemp House, the goal of which is to build a hemp demonstration house in Colorado. “The intent is to show that we can use hemp to build the foundation and the walls and the tiles, but also the furnishings in the house, including the food in the fridge,” says Lauve, who’s helped legalize the crop.
There’s a bigger goal, too, he adds: “The Team Hemp House project is the foundation that we need to get the whole industry excited and get it off the ground.” Denver Westword has the full story.
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| Hemp plant growing in front of a police station in Göttingen, Germany. |
Beautiful Göttingen, Germany has become a lot more beautiful over the last few weeks as hundreds of cannabis plants have begun sprouting in flower boxes, gardens and street sides all over the small college town.
No, the town isn’t a legal haven for cannabis – though Germans tend to be relatively tolerant about personal cannabis use. It’s a protest from the group “A Few Autonomous Flower Children” who say it’s high time Germany legalized cannabis outright.
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Update 6/21/2013: Well, it seems the small success that hemp advocates saw yesterday was short lived. The House rejected the farm bill with the hemp amendment that would have allowed for universities to grow and study the plant.
Not only that, but it seems it was purely symbolic, considering Colorado Rep. Jared Polis – who sponsored the amendment – ended up voting against the farm bill as a whole. Don’t you just love the American government system sometimes?
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| Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon. |
After his federal industrial hemp bill failed to move forward late last week, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden wagged his finger in shame not at the closed-minded Senate that wouldn’t work with Wyden, but at marijuana users.
See, Wyden thinks that because marijuana users are prone to being pro-hemp that the two issues are seen as one in the same. And it’s clearly the pot smoker’s fault according to Wyden, not the ignorant elected officials.