Hemphatic Support Needed

It’s not been too terrible a year to be a supporter of industrial hemp in the Bluegrass State. We did, for example, see a new Commissioner of Agriculture, James Comer, sworn in who just stood up and endorsed this marvelous plant.

There’s also been one state official who’s been trying relentlessly to reintroduce industrial hemp in Kentucky, mostly without a lot of help, and that would be Senator Joey Pendleton (D) Senate District 3. Well, anyway, that’s where he was prior to redistricting.

The truth is that while the bill introduced by him this last legislative session didn’t get out for a vote in the Senate, Kentucky has already passed a bill that would allow its farmers to grow industrial hemp.

The big roadblock is the Drug Enforcement Administration, and while they may not be convinced of the fact that hemp and its cousin, marijuana, really belong on the list of schedule one narcotics, this doesn’t mean they won’t stop enforcing this idiotic inclusion.

This list, by the way, includes opiates, opiate derivatives, depressants and stimulants and psychedelic substances. If you look, you’ll find one little substance in that last grouping, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and it’s this that industrial hemp has in such small quantities that it couldn’t even get a fly high.

What can industrial hemp do? C’mon, get real. This plant has over 22,000 uses (maybe considerably over) so it’d take a lot more than 550 words to list them all. But more than that, better than that, even, is the possibilities of the jobs it would mean, not just in Kentucky, but all across the U S, if we could just get the feds to drop hemp prohibition.

For the record, by the way, we aren’t the only state that has passed laws concerning industrial hemp. Here’s some info included in an e-mail I got from an organization I am a member of-Vote Hemp: “To date, thirty-one states have introduced hemp legislation and seventeen have passed legislation; nine (Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont and West Virginia) have removed barriers to its production or research.”

Sadly, no state law will ever trump federal law on hemp. And it is from this unenviable position anyone whose aim it is to see renewed hemp production in the U S must start.

Yes, there is presidential aspirant, Ron Paul, R., TX, who reintroduced his bill that would exclude hemp from the list of schedule one narcotics. It’s in the same position the bill that was passed over in Kentucky was; it was assigned to a cold and unfeeling committee (House Judiciary Committee) where it was left to languish.

And until very recently, no one would co-sponsor that bill in the U S Senate, not even Rep. Paul’s son, the transplanted Texan we elected to that august body, one Rand Paul.

But we did get word a while back that Senator Ron Wyden, D. OR, has introduced Senate Amendment 2220 to the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012, S.3240.

This amendment is Rep. Ron Paul’s bill, H. R. 1831. Now hemp supporters must contact Members of Congress to urge them to vote aye. So I urge you all to call or write (snail or e-mail) them.

This may be our best chance ever.