A new group of supporters for hemp agriculture will be asking state lawmakers to loosen regulations restricting the hemp industry in Oregon. The Oregon Industrial Hemp Farmers Association will be persuading hemp-friendly legislators to resolve issues that Oregon’s nine hemp farmers had to deal with during the first growing season of 2015, Bend Bulletin reported.
“Right now, the biggest changes to the legislation that we need is regarding greenhouses and propagation freedom,” Courtney Moran, an attorney gathering the group, said. “This is the only crop in Oregon that you cannot grow in a greenhouse or use cuttings or clone.”
Up to now, the group has asked Grants Pass Republican Rep. Carl Wilson and a few others for help with their five goals, one of which is stricter testing hemp products that consumers are going to digest or apply to their skin.
“We also want mandatory testing for any industrial hemp intended for human consumption,” Moran said.
She stated that hemp could remove heavy metals from soil. In 2009, the legislature voted to legalize hemp, however, it was not until 2014 that Congress decided to add this to the farm bill, which allowed states to permit hemp farming. Also, Oregon agricultural officials did not give out hemp growing licenses until early in 2015.
Hemp is still illegal under federal law because it has some levels of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. However, it only contains 0.3%, which is not enough to impair someone. Oregon’s new rules did not comply with legal frameworks, therefore, agrarians had a difficult time entering the hemp industry. Officials from the Department of Agriculture say that cannot reply to all of the cultivators’ concerns because they are constrained by state and federal laws.
MAPH Enterprises, LLC | (305) 414-0128 | 1501 Venera Ave, Coral Gables, FL 33146 | new@marijuanastocks.com
