Oregon set to grow hemp

A historic federal decision not to challenge marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington is also a green light for industrial hemp production in Oregon, advocates say.
Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, who co-sponsored a 2009 law legalizing hemp production that has since been on hold, said the new federal stance on marijuana should allow the state to start crafting rules on hemp.
"Sounds like we will be having a conversation with the Department of Agriculture and figuring out what the next steps are," said Prozanski.
And federal authorities appear unlikely to question Prozanski's interpretation of the Aug. 29 memo, written by the Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole, laying out the administration's new approach to state marijuana laws.
Amanda Marshall, the U.S. Attorney for Oregon and the state's highest ranking federal law enforcement official, told The Oregonian that her office would not interfere with hemp production in Oregon as long as the state creates "robust" regulatory controls and well-funded enforcement.
"Hemp is cannabis," Marshall said. "It's marijuana, and under federal law, it's exactly the same thing."
Oregon is one of seven states with laws that permit the production of industrial hemp, a non-intoxicating relative of marijuana grown for its sturdy fiber and seeds. But Oregon agriculture officials have held off implementing the 2009 law, saying they would wait until the federal government reclassified marijuana from a substance prone to abuse and lacking medicinal value.

Sen. Floyd Prozanski Tyler Tjomsland / The Oregonian

Elsewhere in the country, hemp advocates have reacted to the federal government's new position on cannabis by moving ahead with legal hemp production.
Kentucky's top agriculture official said the Cole memo is all he needs to move forward.
James Comer, the elected Republican commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, said U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, also a Republican, plans to fire off a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.'s office making clear that Kentucky will implement its new industrial hemp law.
"We are going to say, 'This is our how our legal counsel interprets it. We are going to proceed unless you specifically tell us otherwise,'" Comer said.
During a break from meeting with Congressional staffers in Washington, D.C. to press his case Tuesday, Comer said Kentucky has a long history of hemp cultivation. It dates to the 1800s through 1920, and then again during World War II, when hemp was a major crop used in rope.
"It grows well in Kentucky," said Comer, who opposes legalization of marijuana and medical marijuana. "We have been looking for an alternative to tobacco."

Hemp history

Hemp and marijuana are different types of the same species, Cannabis sativa.
But hemp lacks marijuana's most coveted component: THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol. In hemp's case, the gene that fires up marijuana's high THC production is essentially turned off. So while hemp's sturdy stalks provide fiber for textiles and its seeds can be added to yogurt and smoothies, the plant is a lousy choice for people seeking marijuana's high.
"Basically, the breeding of hemp has removed the ability to make THC in that plant," said Jon Page, a plant biochemist and adjunct biology professor at Canada's University of Saskatchewan.
For 50 years, growers have bred strains of hemp for its seed and fiber while dramatically reducing the plant's THC content.
Countries that allow hemp production today sanction a select list of well-established strains that have been bred to have exceptionally low THC. Canada and European countries cap hemp's THC level at less than .3 percent.

Amanda Marshall

Industrial hemp in the United States was regulated beginning in 1937, then outlawed with the passage in 1970 of the Controlled Substances Act. Federal law makes no distinction between hemp and marijuana.
Traditionally, opponents of hemp have worried its cultivation would complicate efforts to enforce marijuana laws. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has said any amount of THC is a concern. The agency also has warned hemp production could be used to conceal marijuana production, because it's difficult to tell the difference between the plants, and that state-sanctioned hemp could lead to legalized marijuana.
Kevin Sabet, an outspoken opponent of marijuana legalization, said prevention experts worry acceptance of hemp "softens the attitude" toward marijuana.
But "aside from a core group activists who think hemp can be an economic boon," he said, hemp is a side issue in the marijuana debate.
Advocates envision a vast American market for the crop.
Federal marijuana policy, however, has been a hurdle. The government can file forfeiture proceedings against assets of people suspected of breaking the law.
"The biggest elephant in the room is civil asset forfeiture," said Tom Murphy, national outreach coordinator for Vote Hemp, an advocacy group. "You would literally be betting the farm to find out if you could grow hemp."
Last month's Cole memo, which spelled out eight priorities that will guide the government's approach to marijuana enforcement, changes the equation, hemp activists hope.
Marshall, Oregon's top federal prosecutor, shed some light on the memo's implications for hemp in an interview last week. The government, she said, would require states to provide the same stringent rules for hemp production that federal officials expect of states that allow recreational and medical cannabis.
"And if they fail to do that, then my office would come in and take action, either by criminally prosecuting individuals or civil forfeitures or potentially attacking the regulatory scheme in court," she said.

A new crop?

David Bronner, in a 2012 photograph, stands with a vat that feeds an assembly line for Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, which contains hemp oil as a key ingredient.Associated Press/Lenny Ignelzi

For a glimpse at what hemp production might mean for states like Oregon, look to Canada and China, major international exporters of hemp.
According to data provided to The Oregonian by Statistics Canada, a government agency, India is the largest market for Canadian hemp by weight, though the United States buys more hemp seed than any other country, generally for food and beauty products. China, also a major international exporter of hemp, tends to produce hemp that's used for textiles.
The value of Canadian hemp has mushroomed since 2008, government statistics show. Last year Canada exported about $20.2 million in hemp, $17.7 million of it to the United States.
However, Canadian industrial hemp production, legalized 15 years ago, remains a niche industry dwarfed by conventional crops like wheat, said Anndrea Hermann, who grows hemp in Canada and teaches a course on industrial hemp at Oregon State University.
Even if states move forward with plans for hemp production, the crop faces considerable challenges. A 2013 report by the Congressional Research Service said the international market for hemp remains small and that global competition is bound to be stiff.
And in the Pacific Northwest, hemp farmers may encounter difficulty growing the crop. A 1998 OSU study concluded hemp would likely need irrigation to maximize productivity, putting it in "direct competition with the highest value crops" in the region.

The next steps

Oregon agriculture officials said they plan to research whether the federal memo has implications here. Lindsay Eng, a certification manager with the agency, said officials will seek a legal opinion from the Oregon Department of Justice. The chief concern, she said, is marijuana's outlaw status.
Prozanski, the state lawmaker, said he hopes to arrange a meeting with top agriculture officials this month.
Hemp supporters are watching closely what happens in Oregon and elsewhere.
David Bronner, co-owner of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps and a major financial backer of the hemp lobby, said his Escondido, Calif., company imports 40,000 pounds of unrefined hemp seed oil from Canada each year. Hemp makes Dr. Bronner's soaps smoother and less drying, said Bronner.
Bronner said he hopes the Cole memo clears the way for an American hemp industry to take root.
"There is no way that the feds could justify a hands off approach to recreational marijuana and then interfere with industrial hemp," said Bronner. "It makes no sense."
-- Noelle Crombie

New York Times article on hemp sowing in Colorado

Groundwork Laid, Growers Turn to Hemp in Colorado

Matthew Staver for The New York Times

“I’m not going to hide anymore,” said Ryan Loflin, who sowed hemp on his 60 acres in Springfield, Colo. The state has a hemp commission to write rules.

By JACK HEALY

 

SPRINGFIELD, Colo. — Along the plains of eastern Colorado, on a patch of soil where his father once raised alfalfa, Ryan Loflin is growing a leafy green challenge to the nation’s drug law.

Matthew Staver for The New York Times

As part of regulation, Colorado will be able to randomly test hemp crops to ensure that they have only trace amounts of THC, a chemical in marijuana.

His fields are sown with hemp, a tame cousin of marijuana that was once grown openly in the United States but is now outlawed as a controlled substance. Last year, as Colorado voters legalized marijuana for recreational use, they also approved a measure laying a path for farmers like Mr. Loflin, 40, to once again grow and harvest hemp, a potentially lucrative crop that can be processed into goods as diverse as cooking oil, clothing and building material. This spring, he became the first farmer in Colorado to publicly sow his fields with hemp seed.

“I’m not going to hide anymore,” he said one recent morning after striding through a sea of hip-high plants growing fast under the sun.

Mr. Loflin’s 60-acre experiment is one of an estimated two dozen small hemp plantings sprouting in Colorado. Hemp cultivation presents a vexing problem for the federal government, which draws no distinction between hemp and marijuana, as it decides how to respond to a new era of legalized marijuana in Colorado and Washington State.

State agencies have worked quickly to create new rules, licenses and taxes for hemp and recreational marijuana. Many towns have voted to ban the new retailers; others have decided to regulate them. Denver, for example, is proposing a 5 percent tax on recreational marijuana sales.

Colorado has set up an industrial hemp commission to write rules to register hemp farmers and charge them a fee to grow the crop commercially.

“It’s something that can be copied and used nationally,” said Michael Bowman, a farmer in northeastern Colorado who sits on the state hemp commission. “We’re trying to build a legitimate industry.”

The state will also be able to randomly test crops to ensure that they contain no more than 0.3 percent THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, far below the level found in marijuana.

Opponents say that hemp and marijuana are essentially the same plant and that both contain the same psychoactive substance. But supporters say that comparing hemp with potent strains of marijuana is like comparing a nonalcoholic beer with a bottle of vodka.

Still, farmers and marijuana advocates worry: will drug agents stand on the sidelines and allow Colorado and Washington to pursue their own experiments with legalization? Or will the federal government crack down to assert its authority over drug policies?

A spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Denver said hemp farmers were “not on our radar,” but R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Obama administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, has offered stern words against both marijuana and hemp, saying that no matter what states did, the plants were still illegal in the federal government’s view.

“Hemp and marijuana are part of the same species of cannabis plant,” Mr. Kerlikowske wrote in response to a 2011 petition that sought to legalize hemp cultivation. “While most of the THC in cannabis plants is concentrated in the marijuana, all parts of the plant, including hemp, can contain THC, a Schedule I controlled substance.”

Lately, hemp has been tiptoeing toward the agricultural mainstream, gaining support from farmers’ trade groups and a wide array of politicians in statehouses and in Washington. In the Republican-controlled House, a provision tucked into the farm bill would let universities in hemp-friendly states grow small plots for research.

A handful of states, from liberal Vermont to conservative North Dakota and Kentucky, have voted to allow commercial hemp. In Vermont, any farmers who want to register as hemp growers under a new state program have to sign a form acknowledging that they risk losing their agricultural subsidies, farm equipment and livelihoods if federal agents decide to swoop in.

Every year, the federal authorities seize and destroy millions of marijuana plants — a crackdown that has rattled the medical marijuana industry in California — but the pace of seizures has dropped sharply in recent years. In 2012, federal officials reported that 3.9 million cannabis plants had been destroyed under D.E.A. eradication efforts. A year earlier, officials said they had eradicated 6.7 million plants.

Beyond the risk of federal raids and seizures, Kevin Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Obama administration, said the market for hemp goods is still vanishingly small and questioned whether it could really be a panacea for farmers.

 

Matthew Staver for The New York Times

Ryan Loflin and other hemp farmers walk a precarious line, as the state said it would not authorize planting until next year.                           

“Hemp is the redheaded stepchild of marijuana policy, and probably for good reason,” said Mr. Sabet, who is now the director of the Drug Policy Institute. “In a world with finite capacity to handle drug problems, my advice would be for people to think less about an insignificant issue like hemp and more about the very real issues of drug addiction, marijuana commercialization and glamorization, and how to make our policies work better.”

Even without the threat of federal raids, transforming hemp into a cash crop will be like asking a clear sky for rain. Viable seeds are illegal and scarce. Few working farmers or experts in the United States have any expertise in growing hemp. And there is basically no infrastructure to process the plants into legal components like oil, fibers and proteins.

In Colorado, Jason Lauve, the executive director of Hemp Cleans, an advocacy group, said he has spoken with about two dozen small farmers and landowners who are cautiously growing their first hemp crops.

“We’re really walking gently,” Mr. Lauve said. “We don’t want to put people at risk. We want to see how much states’ rights really protect us, versus the jurisdiction of the federal government.”

Even here, farmers like Mr. Loflin are walking a precarious line. Although Colorado voters opened the door to hemp farming last year, the state warned would-be hemp farmers in May that they would not be authorized to plant until early in 2014.

But this spring, Mr. Loflin decided it was time. For years, he had read about how hemp could replenish undernourished soil and be woven and squeezed into a wide array of products. He drinks a shot of hemp oil for his health every day — “It tastes kind of like grass” — and believes the plant could one day lift the fortunes of struggling small farmers.

He spent the winter assembling a seed collection from suppliers in Britain, Canada, China and Germany, where hemp is legal. They entered the country via U.P.S., labeled “bird seed” or “toasted hemp seed.” One bag was seized by customs officials, he said. Some 1,500 pounds of seeds were not.

At the end of June, with more than $15,000 invested in the venture, he planted his crop. He said he alerted his neighbors and has not gotten any complaints from people around Springfield, or from federal officials.

When Mr. Loflin visits the farm from his home in western Colorado, he half-expects to see D.E.A. cars racing down Highway 160 to burn down his crop before harvest. But he believes he can stake a living in hemp’s oily seeds and versatile fibers. He has gotten tired of his day job building ski homes in the mountains. To him, hemp’s outlaw status is just another hazard of starting a business.

“It’s well worth the risk,” he said. “It’s hemp. Come on, it just needs to be done.”