Thursday, Alternet's Dara Colwell published a good expose on industrial hemp, aka agricultural cannabis, and why now is the perfect time to end the idiotic US ban on farming this incredibly versatile crop.
More on the flip.
Colwell starts:
While Uncle Sam's scramble for new revenue sources has recently kicked up the marijuana debate -- to legalize and tax, or not? -- hemp's feasibility as a stimulus plan has received less airtime.
But with a North American market that exceeds $300 million in annual retail sales and continued rising demand, industrial hemp could generate thousands of sustainable new jobs, helping America to get back on track.
I add:
"We're in the midst of a dark economic transition, but I believe hemp is an important facet and has tremendous economic potential," says Patrick Goggin, a board member on the California Council for Vote Hemp, the nation's leading industrial hemp-farming advocacy group. "Economically and environmentally, industrial hemp is an important part of the sustainability pie."
Actually, it's Director and California Counsel for Vote Hemp. In that capacity Thursday, I traveled north from San Francisco to Salem, Oregon to participate in the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee working session on Senate Bill 676 - a Committee vote on the bill will occur in a week or two.
SB 676 is co-sponsored by Floyd Przanski (D-Eugene) and Dave Nelson (R-Pendleton) - a progressive former prosecutor and a conservative farmer. If passed, the bill would essentially re-define industrial hemp - currently defined in the bill as less than 1% THC (but likely to be amended to .3% to come into conformance with Canadian standards) - as an agricultural crop.
This is a fully non-partisan issue and, if SB 676 happens to pass, Oregon will join numerous other states calling for the long overdue end of the federal industrial hemp farming ban.
Indeed, SB 676 appears to have legs. The 2009 version of Oregon's hemp bill is unlike Prozanski's many past legislative attempts. This time he cleverly encouraged a sensible Republican eastern Oregon farmer colleague to join his efforts by selling him on the economic benefits. If yesterday's work session is any indication, when no opposition materialized - perhaps historic - it appears the bill will pass out of Committee unanimously.
Next week, Ron Paul will introduce the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009 in an attempt to once and for all end the federal ban on farming hemp. But, until that fateful day when Congress finally catches up to about 70% of the rest of us who support re-legalizing US industrial hemp farming, it will take states like North Dakota, Hawaii, and Oregon, if SB 676 sails to passage, to push the envelope as states have historically done - all thanks to federalism - by passing laws to regulate hemp farming.
That way, when the dam finally breaks - either in the courts or inside DC's beltway - shifting federal policy on industrial hemp, it will enable states like North Dakota and Oregon to quickly set into motion their regulation systems. Doing so will finally enable US farmers to supply the many thriving US hemp companies that can't wait to keep their money stateside and support US farmers as well as the nation's growing sustainable green economy.