Posted for Patrick Goggin of Vote Hemp.
In a statement released last Sunday, Governor Jerry Brown expressed his support for the return of industrial hemp farming to the United States: “It is absurd that hemp is being imported to the state, but our farmers cannot grow it.” Contrary, however, to the hopes of many farmers, Kings and Kern County Sheriffs, California Certified Organic Growers, the California State Grange, and the governor’s ostensible support, Gov. Brown vetoed Senate Bill 676, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act, citing the federal regulation that conflates industrial hemp with marihuana and which requires farmers of either plant to obtain a growing permit from the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Until the federal policy on industrial hemp is overhauled, Gov. Brown is thus unwilling to lead California towards a rational hemp farming policy that would promote job growth within the state, protect our natural resources, and supply the manufacturers and buyers of the expanding California hemp industry with raw materials they are currently importing from Canada, China and Europe.
Advocates for the reform of industrial hemp farming policy are now left to regroup and strategize how to use Gov. Brown’s veto of SB 676 to their advantage in pursuit of changing policy at the federal level.
As Gov. Brown himself made clear, the case for industrial hemp farming requires little convincing. Hemp, also known as the non-psychoactive oilseed and fiber varieties of the Cannabis sativa L. plant, can be made into clothing, food, paper, body care products, bio-fuel, auto-parts, biodegradable plastics, and building materials. Industrial hemp requires little or no herbicides or pesticides to thrive in California preventing harmful chemicals from entering our waterways via agricultural runoff; and hemp actually improves the quality of the soil where it is grown leaving behind precious nutrients for the next crop in the rotation. The Declaration of Independence was even drafted on hemp paper, while Abraham Lincoln burned hemp oil in his household lamps. And, until 1937 it was a major industrial crop grown throughout the United States with the last crop grown here in 1957.
So why is industrial hemp the only crop in the U.S. that is illegal to grow but legal to import and consume? It’s a good question, but not one with a satisfying answer. With this latest legislation, California had an opportunity to sanction hemp farming thereby challenging the federally created and frustrating paradox. SB 676, the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act, proposed an eight-year pilot program allowing farmers in four California counties, Kings, Kern, Imperial and San Joaquin, to grow hemp to serve the $419 million hemp industry in the United States.
Significantly, the bill carved out a new definition for industrial hemp distinguishing it from its relative, marihuana, and would have required that the farmers’ harvests be tested by DEA registered labs to ensure that the presence of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) contained in random samples is less than 0.3% and, therefore, of no intoxicating value. Further provisions of the bill created guidelines for hemp production to prevent the mis-identification of industrial hemp as illegal marihuana. In its paramount, laudable assertion, SB 676 recognized the increasing demand for hemp agriculture in a state that once embraced hemp as an unrivaled, ecologically friendly crop.
In spite of the persuasive case made to him, Gov. Brown chose to bow to his concern over federal entanglement rather than courageously standing up to an “absurd” federal policy. Our founding fathers created federalism exactly for circumstances such as this – to enable the states to experiment and challenge outdated and misguided federal policy. Sadly, the hemp bill suffered under Brown’s self-described canoeing approach to legislation. Indeed, he chose political expediency over principled governance.
Patrick Goggin is Director and co-counsel for Vote Hemp, the nation's leading industrial hemp advocacy group. He heads a private civil law practice in San Francisco where he is actively engaged in local and state politics.
Full disclosure, the poster, Tom Murphy is Director and National Outreach Coordinator for Vote Hemp.