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After having finished reading “Don’t Inhale Just Yet: Budding Hemp Industry Holds Its Breath Over Potential Flower Ban” [June 26, Xpress], I took a deep breath and read it again. Farmers across the nation, including those in North Carolina, continually struggle to survive financially, and hemp is a crop that can assist N.C. farmers to stay out of more debt and perhaps even earn a few dollars.
I found it hard to believe that the State Bureau of Investigation had the nerve to complain to the N.C. legislature that allowing farmers to grow hemp and harvest the plant, including the flowers, is going to make law enforcement more difficult. Has the SBI not yet heard that their “war on drugs” (especially as it pertains to pot), has failed miserably? They have wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer money arresting and prosecuting people for smoking marijuana.
Somebody needs to redirect the SBI into putting their resources toward fighting real crime with real victims. The SBI needs to stop worrying about wasting more time and money pursuing enforcement of laws that will be repealed at some point, hopefully soon. Certainly, the last thing that our N.C. farmers need is for a state agency like the SBI to be complaining that they are going to have a harder time arresting people for violating marijuana laws if farmers are allowed to harvest an otherwise legal crop.
THE ANTIQUE CANNABIS BOOK Chapter 4 - (2nd Edition)
North Carolina -- Industrial Hemp
According to the North Carolina Museum of History: Website: -- http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/nchh/eighteenth.html
- 1650 - “White settlers begin to move into Indian lands along the coastal sounds and rivers of North Carolina.”
- 1705 - “Parliament passes the Naval Stores Act in an effort to cut British dependence on foreign sources of tar, pitch, and other commodities badly needed for sailing ships. The act subsidizes the production of naval stores in the colonies by paying premiums of four pounds sterling per ton on tar and pitch, and six pounds per ton on hemp. North Carolina benefits substantially from this act, and the production of naval stores becomes one of the coastal area’s prime industries.”
Meaning that some 50 years after its founding, Industrial Hemp had already become an important an established factor in the States economy.
- 1791 - “. . . . Flax and hemp are important in the economy of backcountry farms. . . . . ”
According to one blogspot [1] - quoting from the book: "Hemp for Victory: History and Qualities of the World's Most Useful Plant."
HEMP IN NORTH CAROLINA
“Like many southern states, North Carolina at one time grew hemp. There is record of 39 tonnes grown in 1850 and 3,016 tonnes grown in 1860. The Civil War was a factor which stopped much of the US hemp cultivation, so the 1870 record is nil. That same amount is what is grown today . . .”
For centuries, industrial hemp (plant species Cannabis sativa) has been a source of fiber and oilseed used worldwide to produce a variety of industrial and consumer products. Currently, more than 30 nations grow industrial hemp as an agricultural commodity, which is sold on the world market. In the United States, however, production is strictly controlled under existing laws.
The 113th Congress made significant changes to U.S. policies regarding industrial hemp during the omnibus farm bill debate. The Agricultural Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-79) provided that certain research institutions and state departments of agriculture may grow industrial hemp, as part of an agricultural pilot program, if allowed under state laws where the institution or state department of agriculture is located. (From "Hemp as an agricultural commodity," Congressional Research Service)
The 115th Congress made additional significant changes to U.S. policies regarding industrial hemp production through the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has begun the process to gather information for rulemaking.
Thanks again, hope your weekend is fine. I was looking at the heatwave, the Appalachians are the only “cool” place it seems. Stay cool.