Industrial Hemp Still Alive in Legislature

[Ganjarden]

State Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, passed out chocolate truffles topped with industrial hemp seeds at the House Agriculture, Rural Economies and Veterans Affairs Committee on Wednesday. The nutritious seeds are legal to buy in Minnesota as food, but once they sprout, they are considered marijuana and subject to harsh legal penalties. A bill Kahn sponsored that would allow for the agricultural production of hemp passed the committee on Wednesday.

“It’s the one product that we can buy here, but we can’t grow it here,” said Thom Peterson of the Minnesota Farmers Union. Peterson hopes that one day farmers will have an alternative crop in industrial hemp.

The chief supporter of industrial hemp in the United States is an unlikely figure: David Monson, the Republican Speaker of the North Dakota House. He’s a farmer near the Canadian border whose neighbors were growing hemp while his barley crop was failing because of a blight. His efforts helped Minnesota’s neighbors to the west move forward with industrial hemp and its production.

Kahn said concerns that hemp farmers would clandestinely grow the similar-looking marijuana plant among fields of hemp were unfounded. “They would both cross-pollinate and ruin each other,” Kahn said, and the marijuana plants would be rendered useless as a drug, she said. “I understand you’d have to smoke an eighth before [feeling any effects].”

One bit of testimony came from the chair of the committee, Rep. Mary Ellen Otremba, DFL-Long Prairie, who said she loves using hemp fibers in her sewing: “I really like hemp fabrics. They are very strong garments. It’s very easy to use.”

She added while laughing, “I just want to say that I do not smoke my fabrics.”

Kahn’s bill would begin the process of setting up a system of regulation for hemp production in Minnesota. But the bill stipulates that nothing can move forward until the Drug Enforcement Agency issues a permit, something the agency has fought in North Dakota.

The bill passed the committee by a voice vote and now heads to the Public Safety Policy and Oversight Committee.


News Hawk- Ganjarden http://www.420Magazine.com
Source: The Minnesota Independent
Author: Andy Birkey
Contact: The Minnesota Independent
Copyright: 2009 The Minnesota Independent
Website: Industrial Hemp Still Alive in Legislature

[Weed420]

It still amazes me that such a nobrainer as legal hemp is still not here. Its amazing that plant of such benefit to society and with no phsycoactive compounds, isn't broadly grown in this country. It still boggels the mind at the ignorance of our elected officials.

[TorturedSoul]

Call me stupid but that line about the woman not smoking her fabrics got me thinking. Aren't many tobacco rolling papers made with hemp? If so it would mean that millions of people are ALREADY smoking "industrial" hemp.

[TorturedSoul]

Originally Posted by Weed420

It still amazes me that such a nobrainer as legal hemp is still not here. Its amazing that plant of such benefit to society

Honestly, why should that amaze anyone? Think about it. Think about all the things that can be done with, all the products that can be made with it, all the (petro-)chemicals that can be replaced with it. And then realize how many of them would cripple so many corporate entities that hemp and hemp-related products would be competing against. And then thiink about three things: greed, lobbyists, and politicians.

Until the public is educated and the politicos are backed into a corner, I do not feel that this will significantly change. I do hope that I am proven wrong. Perhaps the impending depression and economic collapse of this country will be helpful in that regard, I do not know.

[tintala]

I have a 300 acre farm, I was a farmer, now after 20 or so years , still nothing has been farmed on it as there is nothing profitable anymore. Also growing wheat and sorghum takes too much water and pesticides, so now that's not a vaible option, but hemp is. HEMP COULD save my farm! I write this somewhere online everyday!