By Lesley Weidenbener
TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS – The House approved a bill Monday that would allow farmers to grow hemp – a non-hallucinogenic cousin of marijuana – if the federal government lifts restrictions on the crop.
Senate Bill 357 passed 93-4 and moves back to the Senate where it has already passed. The Senate can now accept the changes made by the House or send it to a conference committee for further consideration.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany, said hemp has more than 25,000 different uses. It’s used to make textiles, rope, medicines and other products.
But Clere said the hemp is not a plant that people can use to get high.
“This is not a marijuana bill,†Clere said. “That’s a discussion for another day. This is a discussion about agriculture.â€
Industrial hemp production is still not authorized by federal law. But the farm bill passed recently by Congress would allow universities and agriculture departments to research it in states where lawmakers have legalized it. The goal would be that commercial production could follow later.
Hemp can be harvested just 120 days after planting and it doesn’t require any particular climate to grow. It is a hardy plant and naturally resistant to pests, eliminating the need for pesticides and herbicides, supporters say.
Southern Indiana produced industrial hemp rope as part of the war effort during World War II when the United States encouraged all farmers to grow hemp. However, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 lumped industrial hemp with marijuana and outlawed production of either, despite their differences.
I understand hemp doesn’t contain THC but I would assume it otherwise looks exactly like it’s sister the “marijuana” plant.
This will hurt law enforcement’s efforts to spot marijuana from the air because there will be so much LEO may assume it’s “probably” hemp & leave alone.
Do they check every line of every field? Bet not.
Marijuana will boldly (you know it will)be grown in open fields either by itself or mixed in with hemp. The result will mean an almost endless supply of MJ. The laws of supply & demand mean the prices would then drop.
I wonder if quality will be improved?
Just stay out of my kitchen!
WW
Everything that you have said about hemp and marijuana is incorrect. The hemp plant does not look like the marijuana plant. It is taller, slimmer and has a different count of petals on its leaves. It will not hurt law enforcements efforts to spot marijuana from the air because hemp plants are grown just inches a part from one another and marijuana plants need at least 3 feet of space to bush out.
If anything, growing hemp will destroy the potential for growing marijuana anywhere within a few miles of hemp field. Those who claim to be against marijuana should welcome hemp growing in their communities, because when the hemp plants cross-pollinate with a marijuana plant, it ruins the marijuana plants psychoactive abilities. Making it a plant that produces no “high” effect. And so therefore, your ASSumptions that marijuana growers are going to start camouflaging their grow operations in hemp fields is unfounded and more fear mongering that is typical of the marijuana hyperbole.
Resources: http://hempethics.weebly.com/industrial-hemp-vs-cannabis.html
http://rediscoverhemp.com/inform/the-difference-between-hemp-and-marijuana/
Brent
If Hemp was not related to Pot, nobody would care. If it was the miracle plant that some promise, then some nation where it’s legal would be killing it economically.
It’s a moderately useful plant that pot heads have dreams of.
Drugs are bad, mmmkay. = enough to convince sheeple that MJ is going to make you go on a murderous rampage.
As starkly illustrated in that cinematic classic “Reefer Madness”. Oh, the humanity…
George Carlin once opined that world peace could be achieved if we all sat down & passed a doobie around. Unfortunately, he neglected to consider the chaos resulting from running out of Cheetos afterward…
Hang in there, y’all!
Comments are closed.