Industrial Hemp Making a Comeback

It has been eighty years since United States drug laws made cultivating hemp in the United States illegal. And as a result, today there is less than one percent of Americans cultivating the industrial plant. Before it was made illegal in the late 1930’s, that numbers were instead up to thirty percent and American hemp was considered to be some of the best in the entire world.

But luckily, hemp is finally beginning to make a revival thanks to President Obama. In 2014, Obama signed the farm bill which decided that hemp could be grown for research purposes and removed it from the Controlled Substances Act. The population is finally beginning to see that hemp can help bring America back to a strong agrarian economy, help out the environment, and help out farmers struggling to make money. According to a report in the LA Times, Canada was aware of this and is making a billion annually on its hemp production.

In Nevada, a legislative subcommittee passed a measure that provided final regulations overlooking a pilot project to allow a restricted amount of hemp farming for research purposes. Regardless, Robert Little at the Nevada Department of Agriculture said in an interview that they are very wary of the amount of THC found in the hemp they farm.

“If a crop tests above 0.3, it’s up to us to determine how that crop is destroyed,” Little stated.

Rick Trojan is the founder of Hemp Road Trip, a Colorado-based group that has been advocating for the passage of the Industrial Hemp Farming Act for quite some time now. This week, they are on their way to the statehouse in Kansas to make their case in front of lawmakers. The bill would make it legal to grow hemp for a multitude of products.

“Hemp, as a rotational crop, leaves the ground better than it found it,” Trojan said. “It is also a great alternative for farmers.”