More support for industrial hemp

If there’s one thing you can say about me, it’s that I’m as tenacious as a bulldog. Let me get my chops into something and I won’t let go, even when it’s obvious I’m wasting my time; it’s my time after all.

That is why I have spent so much time and so many columns extolling the virtues of cannabis sativa, or industrial hemp. I firmly believe in this plant and the potential it has, not only for Kentucky farmers but for American farmers as a whole.

And if industrial hemp is legalized nationwide, it can have a positive impact on the American economy. Not only will it produce goods that everyone can use, it will reduce harmful pollution. Paper, for instance, that is produced from wood pulp, requires harmful chemicals in its manufacture; hemp does not. And hemp can be replanted year after year, unlike trees that require decades to regrow.

And unlike plastic produced from petroleum, plastic produced from hemp is biodegradable. In other words, hemp will help create a green economy.

And let us never forget the bio-diesel that hemp can produce. I suggest this would be a far better source for diesel than importing that gunk known as tar sand oil from Canada that not only releases far too many greenhouse gases but also requires strip mining Canada’s boreal forests, thereby endangering the nesting grounds of over half of North America’s bird species.

I can’t say how happy I was to read that James Comer, Kentucky’s newly installed Commissioner of Agriculture, is backing industrial hemp. This is but one of many steps Commissioner Comer is taking to make his department relevant to those it is meant to serve. And I would strongly urge the state assembly to enact House Bill 286 that would resuscitate the Kentucky Industrial Hemp Commission by placing Commissioner Comer at its head.

And I am glad to see that Sen. Joey Pendleton, D-Hopkinsville will have some help in the state assembly. Sen. Pendleton has long been an advocate for hemp. House Bill 286 will be sponsored by our own State Rep. Keith Hall, Richard Henderson, D-Jeffersonville and Ryan Quarles, R-Georgetown.

Of course, getting this bill passed is only the beginning. There is still that infernal federal government out there and it is not about to budge from its stance that industrial hemp equals marijuana equals all schedule one drugs unless it is dragged kicking and screaming all the way.

Yes, there is Republican presidential contender Ron Paul’s bill H R 1831, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2011. It would amend the Controlled Substance Act by redefining marijuana so that it no longer includes industrial hemp. But it is stuck in the House Judiciary Committee and its chair, Lamar Smith, R. TX, won’t bring it up for a vote.

It’s only hope-and this is a long shot-would be a discharge petition. If a bill has not been acted on by the committee it’s assigned to within 30 days, the bill’s sponsor can file a discharge petition to release it from committee and bring it before the whole House for consideration. To be successful, the petition would need at least 218 signatures.

Of course it would be helpful if Kentucky’s own congressional delegation supported industrial hemp, but that, as they say, is a whole other kettle of fish.