Huffington Post and the liberals embrace hemp

Hemp is starting to go viral: Doonesbury characters, top GOP leaders, green gurus, yoga practicioners, you name it - this is the year for hemp. The left almost got left out - while the GOP took the lead - and is now trying to jump back in; Jonathan Miller has this to say on the Huffington Post, Ms. Huffington is just now getting on the bandwagon - another rich lefty from the wine and cheese circuit - whose $ ironically comes from oil - after divorcing her rich husband - so I might have some ironic comments after so many years of campaigning so hard and seeing the lefties wait and wait till they can make some $ off of it and try to take credit for what they did not support till others came along and did it. But for what it's worth, here is their rant as another log on the fire, and I welcome it, even if with sceptisism - note that Ms Huffington is NOT wearing any hemp - most of these lefties talk a lot and do nothing. Not that I am in the right - consider me a plain talking take-no-nonsense centrist:



This week, I have the honor and pleasure of joining Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer as we meet in Washington, D.C. with an impressive swath of Obama Administration officials — from the White House to the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy to the Environmental Protection Agency — to seek their help in securing the federal legalization of industrial hemp.
Think the pairing of this proud progressive and the conservative Comer to be somewhat unusual? Let me further blow your political assumptions: We will be joined in our advocacy by the unlikely alliance of GOP Establishment favorite Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Tea Party poster child Senator Rand Paul, and liberal Democratic stalwart Congressman John Yarmuth.
This rare burst of No Labels-style Washington bi-partisanship is merely a reflection of the broad, deep and diverse support for hemp’s legalization among Kentuckians of all political persuasions. This March, the Kentucky General Assembly overwhelmingly passed Senate Bill 50 — sponsored by GOP Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Paul Hornback, and strongly championed by Democratic House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins — that establishes an administrative and law enforcement structure for hemp growers should the crop be legalized at the federal level, and would empower Kentucky to jump to the front of the line and establish itself as the national leader on the crop once federal approval was granted.
How have liberals, conservatives and everyone in between found such common ground? It’s because the case for hemp legalization is so compelling:

• While support for legalizing hemp’s distant cousin, marijuana, remains controversial (I support legal pot; Comer does not), hemp is not marijuana. The two plants are quite distinct in the way that they appear physically and are cultivated agriculturally. Moreover, smoking hemp can’t get you high; it just might make you feel a little stupid that you tried. Industrial hemp has less than one percent THC, while marijuana ranges from 5 to 20 percent THC content.
• Legalized industrial hemp production could emerge as a prolific cash crop that could bring hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue to Kentucky, and many billions of dollars to the United States. There are more than 25,000 uses for the crop, including rope, clothing, automotive paneling and door installation — even makeup.
• Most exciting to me — as a clean energy advocate — is hemp’s application as a clean-burning alternative fuel. Hemp burns with no carbon emissions and produces twice as much ethanol per acre as corn. While bio-fuels critics have raised alarms at the diversion of food products into fuel production — causing spikes in food prices — hemp has no such negative economic side effects. As the U.S. struggles with the dual enormous challenges of climate change and dependence on foreign oil, industrial hemp could become a powerful weapon in America’s energy independence arsenal.

Only one thing stands in the way of this exciting economic and environmental progress: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) continues to classify hemp as an illegal, controlled substance, regardless of its THC potency.
Accordingly, Comer and I — and our bipartisan federal delegation — will be lobbying Obama Administration officials this week to provide Kentucky a waiver from the federal regulations; or better yet, to encourage the DEA to reclassify industrial hemp as legal, regulated agricultural crop.
But while our lobbying efforts will hopefully produce some progress, the key power is in your hands. While a majority of Americans now support legalized marijuana — and presumably a much larger majority supports legal hemp — only when you share your support with your elected officials will they feel the political pressure to take action.
Here are three very simple things that you can do — right now, at your computer — to register your support for legalized industrial hemp and pressure Washington to fulfill the people’s will:

1. Contact your Senators to urge them to co-sponsor and support S. 359, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013. introduced by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) that would exclude hemp from the definition of marijuana and allow states to legalize and regulate the product.
2. Contact your Congressman and urge him or her to co-sponsor the companion bill in the House, H.R. 525, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013, introduced by Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY).
3. Sign the following petition to President Obama, urging his Administration to lift the barriers to legalized hemp: www.minawear.com/about-us/

Warm welcome in Washington for hemp

A top Kentucky official on a mission to legalize industrial hemp said Wednesday he got a warm Washington welcome from both administration officials and House Speaker John Boehner.
Kentucky Agricultural Commissioner James Comer told POLITICO both Boehner and officials from the White House and Agricultural and Energy departments seemed open to legalizing the plant, which is a close cousin of marijuana and whose growth is outlawed in the United States.


“I just think if more and more people studied this issue they would realize this is a no-brainer,” said Comer, a Republican who used a similar economy-focused message to push hemp legalization through the state’s general assembly earlier this year. “This is a way to create jobs.”

The centrist nature of the commissioner’s pitch won him establishment support in Kentucky, including endorsements from the state’s Chamber of Commerce and the Louisville Courier-Journal. Comer and other backers, including both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul, market hemp as a economic and environmental wonder plant that can be used to build everything from clothes to car doors.
The bill eventually passed with overwhelming margins in both Kentucky’s Democratic House and Republican Senate, but won’t allow Kentucky farmers to grow hemp until the federal government gives them the go-ahead. Hence the trip to D.C.

Comer is traveling with Jonathan Miller, a former Kentucky treasurer and Clinton administration official who was able to broker meetings with Obama administration officials. So far, the pair have met with Agricultural Department officials, who said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was “open to the idea and very receptive to it,” as well as Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency staffers, one of whom wore a hemp dress for the occasion. They also met with a White House staffer who was “somewhere above the janitor and somewhere below the chief of staff,” Comer said.
Comer also scored a 20-minute meeting with House Speaker John Boehner after meeting him at a private party during last week’s Kentucky Derby.
“He seemed very open to the idea,” Comer said.
But the duo couldn’t score a meeting with the Drug Enforcement Agency. Comer said the DEA told him they didn’t “meet with third parties,” and wouldn’t have met with the state’s Democratic governor, Steve Beshear, either. Comer chalked the decision up to the DEA protecting their turf — and their cash.
“I know there’s a lot of money appropriated for marijuana eradication,” he said.
Eight other states also allow the cultivation of commercial hemp, which lacks the THC necessary to produce the high a marijuana smoker typically gets. It is already legal to import hemp, but the size of the market isn’t clear.
There are three ways the plant could be legalized: as a stand-alone bill, which Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie have introduced; as an amendment to the farm bill; or with an executive order from President Obama. Comer said he was hopeful the plant would be legal by the end of the year.
“I think so,” he said. “Why not? This is something that united people from the far left and the far right and even a lot of moderate

James Comer goes to Washington

Agriculture Commissioner James Comer will lead a bipartisan delegation on a three-day trip to Washington, D.C., this week to urge the federal government to allow industrial hemp production in Kentucky. The group will meet with White House officials, representatives of federal agencies, members of Congress and others.


“My colleagues and I will make the case that industrial hemp has the potential to create revenue and jobs,” Commissioner Comer said. “Thanks to the efforts of the General Assembly, we also can say that Kentucky is ready to set up a regulatory framework that will enable us to not only revive our hemp industry but do it in the right way.”

Comer will be joined by state Sen. Paul Hornback and former state treasurer Jonathan Miller (see Miller’s take on the trip here. Comer and Miller are scheduled to meet with representatives of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and hold a series of meetings with members of Congress, including Kentucky Reps. John Yarmuth and Thomas Massie.

Sen. Hornback is scheduled to join Comer and Miller for meetings with representatives of the White House, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, and Reps. Ed Whitfield, Andy Barr, and Brett Guthrie.

Members of Kentucky’s congressional delegation have signed a letter asking the federal Drug Enforcement Administration for clarification of regulations regarding industrial hemp.

Hornback sponsored the legislation that creates an administrative framework, to be managed by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, for industrial hemp production in Kentucky. The legislation calls for hemp demonstration projects by the University of Kentucky and other public universities that choose to participate. Under the bill, the Kentucky State Police are required to conduct background checks on applicants for licenses to grow industrial hemp.

The bill passed in the final hour of this year’s legislative session in March.

From Kentucky Department of Agriculture