California governor approves hemp bill

(Editor's note: the article is mistaken about nine states cultivating and processing this plant. That number or more are considering such action, and Colorado farmers did plant hemp this spring.)

San Francisco Bay Guardian Online
28 September 2013

After being stuck in legislative limbo for 14 years, industrial hemp is now a sanctioned agricultural crop in the state of California.
The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act (SB 566) was signed into law on Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown, after years of deliberation dating back to 1999, a process that included multiple gubernatorial vetoes. The freshly signed law will allow approved California residents to grow hemp for industrial purposes by reclassifying the once-felonious plant as a "fiber or oilseed crop."
SB 566, a bill championed since 2005 by Sen. Mark Leno (D), defines industrial hemp as the "nonpsychoactive types of the plant Cannabis saliva L. and the seed produced therefrom, having no more than 3/10 of 1 percent of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) contained in the dried flowering tops."
In simpler terms: It doesn't protect marijuana, but rather marijuana's less mind-bending cousin, which is far more useful as a raw industrial material.
"We are very pleased to have the signature," Sen. Leno told the Guardian. "It's been a 10-year effort to get here. It's a job still, but [the passing of SB 566] will help sustain family farms in California for the future and likely create more job opportunities. Hemp is a $500 million a year industry in California, and it's growing at 10 percent annually."
California now follows in the footsteps of nine other states and 30 other countries that have reclassified the innocuous plant as a crop with agricultural and commercial value. And it is quite valuable.
"This is a miracle plant that has served the planet earth well for, literally, millennia, and that we currently legally manufacture and sell thousands of hemp products including food, clothing, shelter, paper, fuel, all biodegradable products," said Leno. "It's renewable every 90 days, grows without herbicides, pesticides and fungicides, and needs less water than corn. It is the definition of sustainability."
But the reputation of hemp hasn't always had champions like Sen. Leno. Since the initial proposal of HR 32 back in 1999, the bill has been vetoed four times by three different governors. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cited a "false sense of security" he feared would be cultivated amongst the growers of the crop, due to its illegality at a federal level.
Gov. Brown had previously shot down the proposed legislation in 2011, citing a gap in state and federal law as the reason. However, he did remark in his veto message at the time that "it is absurd that hemp is being imported into the state, but our farmers cannot grow it."
And it would seem that Brown's recognition of hemp’s merits finally outweighed his concern over the potential for California growers to face federal prosecution, which is a major relief for the architects of SB 566. Now Californians can stop relying on imported hemp from Mexico and Canada (among other places) and start legally manufacturing their own.
"We currently manufacture literally thousands of [hemp] products — legally — and sell them," said Leno. "This is why this issue has been so nonsensical."
The "nonsensical" issue has had deep roots, given hemp's historically ambiguous federal standing. As Brown’s 2011 veto message noted, "federal law clearly establishes that all cannabis plants, including industrial hemp, are marijuana, which is a federally regulated controlled substance."
But that isn't a universally held assertion. Back in 1970, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970 "explicitly excludes nonpsychoactive hemp from the definition of marijuana," a decision that the federal government never appealed. It's a decision that Sen. Leno agrees with.
"We've always believed that there is no federal preemption, because we believe that that court case ruled that Congress had knowingly exempted industrial hemp from the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 –because it's not a drug," said Leno.
Now the state of California can do what more than 30 countries (including Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany and China) and nine states are already doing: Cultivating and processing a plant that many have touted as the "miracle plant."
Now that SB 566 has passed, however, the looming question still remains as to how the federal government will respond. But Leno is confident that it will respect the will of California lawmakers.
"I have great confidence in a recent statement by Attorney General Eric Holder," said Leno. "He's said that if a state puts into place a legal allowance and regulatory scheme, that the federal government would not interfere with marijuana. Now, we need clarification between hemp and marijuana, but there's no sensical way that that could be interpreted that hemp is excluded, given that hemp's not a drug."
Either way, hemp is on the horizon here in California.

California Hemp Bill passes state senate

After a veto from Governor Jerry Brown in 2011, another hemp legalization bil unanimously passed the California Senate on Tuesday, June 4.
SB 566 was written to acquiesce Governor Brown’s out-of-touch constitutional ignorance. Under the current bill, hemp production would only begin once California receives permission from the federal government.
“We feel confident that California will finally have an industrial hemp law later this year ensuring that California farmers are ready and able to cultivate hemp upon federal approval,” Patrick Goggin, California legal counsel for the industry group Vote Hemp said.
Should SB 566 be construed as some mechanism to make the federal government act? Hardly. But it does indicate the growing support for hemp production, not only in California, but across the United States. According StopTheDrugWar.org, domestic retail sales of hemp food and body care products reached $156 million last year, and the Hemp Industries Association estimates that all hemp products sales, including clothing, auto parts, and building materials, totaled at least $500 million. The continued federal prohibition makes no sense constitutionally or economically.
In a February 2011 Facebook post, Dr. David Bronner, president of the Escondido-based company Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps said, “Dr. Bronner’s currently purchases twenty tons of hemp oil each year from Canada. We look forward to the day that we can meet our supply needs from hemp produced right here in our home state.”
Simply legalizing intrastate production and sale of hemp products would create a boon for companies like Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps.

California hemp bill

A hemp bill has been introduced again in California, David Downs in the East Bay Express gives us the facts:

The legal production of industrial hemp in California made progress in the form of two bills recently introduced in our state legislature.
Sen. Mark Leno drafted SB 566, a revision of a hemp bill that was introduced last year but shot down by Governor Brown. Leno's latest bill does not set up a pilot program, but authorizes general cultivation of industrial hemp.

AB 1137, introduced by Orange County Assemblyman Allan Mansoor, also authorizes industrial hemp cultivation under the state Deptartment of Agriculture, and is based on the 2006 bill AB 1147, which was passed by legislature but vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger.
Both bills would revise the definition of marijuana to exclude industrial hemp and authorize its production with the provision that its potency not exceed 0.3 percent THC.