By Joy Beckerman Maher
The vast majority of citizens across America who are aware of the historic cannabis legislation taking place in Washington are under the impression that industrial hemp is being cultivated on a large scale here. Despite a sea of legal marijuana cultivation and groundbreaking authority from the Feds to at least plant the simple, safe, versatile, non-psychoactive hemp seed for research purposes, the Washington State Department of Agriculture has not issued any permits to grow hemp. The Department of Agriculture stated, “According to our conversations with the State Attorney General’s Office, cultivation of industrial hemp has not been legalized in Washington State.”
That’s tragic because the ACLU of Washington, the Hemp Industries Association, Vote Hemp and certain state legislators hold the opinion that industrial hemp was – at minimum – de facto legalized when Initiative 502 passed. What we have here, folks, is a difference of opinion … legal opinion, that is.
To facilitate a more helpful understanding of this conundrum, it is first best to provide a quick botany lesson regarding the cannabis sativa L. plant species. “Cannabis” is the plant genus; “sativa” is Latin for “sown” or “cultivated” (and is included in many scientific plant species names); and the “L.” we often see associated with cannabis sativa merely stands for the surname initial of Carl Linnaeus, the Swiss botanist who invented taxonomy.
Within the cannabis sativa plant species, we have the drug cultivar known as “marijuana,” which is a high-resin crop generally planted about four feet apart for its medicine- or narcotic-rich leaves and buds, with its different types being classified as “strains.” Then we have the oilseed and fiber cultivar known as “industrial hemp,” which is a low-resin crop generally planted about four inches apart for its versatile stalk and seed with its different types being classified as “varieties” or other cultivars. It must be noted that it is more than likely the case that these two cannabis cultivars – drug and oilseed/fiber – came into existence as a result of human intervention over thousands of years. Industrial hemp is non-psychoactive and smoking even several acres of it will not result in achieving a high; conversely, only a memorable headache is achieved, regardless of Herculean effort.
An extraordinary convergence of state and federal legislation involving cannabis has occurred and led Washington to this counterintuitive “marijuana only” place. One, of course, is the passage of I-502, our general adult use marijuana law, which defines marijuana in the same manner as the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, but adds the language “… with a THC concentration greater than 0.3 percent …”
The other is the landmark Section 7606 of the federal Farm Bill that was signed into law Feb. 7, 2014. Section 7606 of the Farm Bill is the “Legitimacy of Industrial Hemp Research” Amendment that – for the first time in U.S. history – distinguishes and defines industrial hemp as the plant cannabis sativa L. “with a (THC) concentration of not more than 0.3 percent.”
The gigantic deal about Section 7606 is that the Feds have carved out a path for states to reintroduce industrial hemp by authorizing institutions of higher education or agriculture departments in states where hemp is legal to grow for research or agricultural pilot programs. While industrial hemp crops and the hemp industry once thrived in the U.S., hemp has not been commercially cultivated since 1957, and there is a certain amount of need for research to develop new varieties that grow well in various regions and meet the current market demands. Colorado and Kentucky immediately took advantage of Section 7606 and have already harvested their first industrial hemp crops in the last month. Meanwhile, fifteen other states are on board and ready to grow hemp: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia. But what about Washington? You know, where we grow tons of pot?
While our state Legislature had five industrial hemp-specific bills presented to it in the last session, none of them actually passed, though not at all because some didn’t have overwhelming support. House Bill 1888, which sought to commercially cultivate industrial hemp and create a hemp industry, was passed by the House unanimously: 97 yays, zero nays, zero absences, one excused. That’s right, with the exception of a single excused, every single member of the House showed up to vote “yes” on commencing commercial cultivation of industrial hemp in Washington. But HB 1888 competed with three separate industrial hemp-specific Senate bills that sought research only, with some being more restrictive than others (SB 5222, SB 5954, and SB 6214). In spite of prime sponsor Rep. Matt Shea’s (R-4th District) beyond admirable endeavors to have HB 1888 heard by the Senate before the short and frenzied legislative session ended, it was not brought before the Senate.
However, public testimony on HB 1888, SB 5954 and SB 6214 was heard. I testified at and witnessed those hearings. While the Department of Agriculture supports any crop that “helps agriculture and creates jobs,” specifically including industrial hemp, it was clear from testimony that they are concerned with the fiscal unknowns and potential lack of resources to set up a new program that requires equipment, lab apparatus, human resources, etc. (even with arguably reasonable licensing fees written into HB 1888). The critical amendment placed on HB 1888 was that funding would come only from private and federal funds, removing the possibility for the use of state funds.
And so goes the legislative process … which ended without passing even one hemp-specific bill.
For the 2014 growing season, this legislative cliff-hanger left Washington’s farmers to rely on the research path carved out by Section 7606 of the federal Farm Bill and the legal opinion of the ACLU of Washington, the Hemp Industries Association and Vote Hemp that Washington de facto legalized industrial hemp when it legalized marijuana through I-502. But since the state Office of the Attorney General advises our Department of Agriculture, and the legal opinion rendered by that office was that industrial hemp had not yet been legalized, the department refused to issue research permits. As president of the Washington chapter of the Hemp Industries Association, I met with our attorney general’s Legal & Policy analyst to discuss this quandary.
“It’s probably just one lawyer’s opinion that was given,” he said. As the only daughter of a single-father Jewish lawyer, I am intimately, if not painfully, familiar with the enormous power of just one lawyer’s opinion. In this case, the opinion prevented Washington farmers from putting industrial hemp seeds in the ground this year. In this case, I, along with countless other industrial hemp entrepreneurs in our state, will continue to turn away sales both large and small from buyers seeking all manner of Washington-grown, pressed and made industrial hemp fiber, seed oil and finished products.
If we can’t get reasonable industrial hemp legislation passed in the coming session, the following harms will continue in our state:
– Washington residents and farmers who do plant industrial hemp will be placed in a dangerous position with the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is still allowed to seize land where industrial hemp is not being grown in accordance with state law (farmers’ USDA benefits are also jeopardized).
– Our state will continue to be deprived of the millions of research, development and investment dollars and thousands of jobs that will be enjoyed by the states that are starting now and who do not over-regulate this obviously safe, versatile and valuable agricultural crop.
– Additional hysteria not based in fact will continue to circulate in the marijuana cultivation community because there does need to be a minimal distance between outdoor marijuana grows and industrial hemp fields to prevent potential cross-pollination that will negatively affect marijuana’s potency and value.
The sunny horizon is that there seems to be a plethora of bipartisan support in both the state House and Senate to move forward with the reintroduction of industrial hemp in Washington, one way or another; and our Department of Agriculture, as well as our Office of the Attorney General, seem to have a positive and receptive attitude about the inevitability of this reintroduction. But it’s not going to happen without Washington residents taking their power and making their voices heard by their individual Legislators. Washington needs to stake its claim on its piece of the industrial hemp pie, and our farmers need to put seeds in the ground in the coming spring.
In addition to hemp seeds being the highest digestible form of protein with the highest essential fatty acid profile in the entire plant and animal kingdom, and in addition to the 25,000 known products that can be made from the stalk and seed oil of this renewable, sustainable, low-maintenance, fast-growing, carbon-cleansing, rotational crop, it has now been discovered that industrial hemp is an ideal material for nanotechnology and super capacitors. Canadian farmers are reaping an average of a $250 per acre return on their hemp seed crops, and Americans are consuming 90 percent of those Canadian hemp seed harvests. Let’s get it done in this legislative session by calling, writing and visiting with our lawmakers. A state of industrial hemp, indeed!
Joy Beckerman Maher is the president of Hemp Ace International, president of the Washington chapter of the Hemp Industries Association and a paralegal at Northern Lights Legal Services.