Source: free-times.com
It’s now legal to grow hemp in South Carolina. But it’s unclear how a person would go about doing so.
A law passed by the General Assembly in May defines industrial hemp as hemp grown by a licensed grower — but doesn’t say who would perform that licensing or what’s required to get a license. It doesn’t explain how a farmer could legally get hemp seeds to grow, either, as they remain illegal under federal law.
Hemp won’t get you high: It’s a form of the cannabis sativa plant that contains only minimal amounts of the psychoactive chemical THC. It’s widely used for making everything from rope to paper to oil. Products made with hemp are legal in this country, but the actual seeds and plants aren’t.
At a Sept. 3 hearing chaired by Sen. Tom Davis, a Republican from Beaufort, it became clear that the hemp law hastily passed in May needs some fixes.
“Individuals have contacted me interested in buying land, growing industrial hemp,” Davis said.
The state Department of Agriculture, too, has heard from people who want to grow hemp, said Clint Leach, deputy agriculture commissioner.
But a very hesitant Leach says the department isn’t equipped to regulate hemp farming.
“If … there is cultivation and growth by companies and private citizens, we don’t feel like we have the necessary tools available to be responsible for enforcing it,” Leach said.
At the very least, he said, the department will need to team up with Clemson University and the Department of Health and Environmental Control to understand and enforce regulations.
“Can I grow hemp tomorrow?” a woman in the audience asked lawmakers and agency leaders.
“That’s a question we’re trying to develop an answer for,” Leach said.
Some of the issues include seed transportation, as possessing hemp seeds is illegal under federal law; testing the hemp to make sure THC doesn’t exceed legal levels; and providing a way for farmers to destroy hemp that exceeds the THC limit without running afoul of the law.
“There needs to be some way that a person who’s trying to do it right, if it’s out of sync, they destroy that crop and try to start over,” said Sen. Brad Hutto, an Orangeburg Democrat who’s running for U.S. Senate.
In Canada, industrial hemp is a $1 billion a year market, according to the Los Angeles Times; commercial production has been legal there since 1998.
And the market is booming, according to the paper, with Canadian farmers making $250 per acre in 2013: “By comparison, South Dakota State University predicts that soy, a major crop, will net U.S. farmers $71 per acre in 2014.”
Could hemp farming catch on here among mainstream farmers? Or is hemp legalization just another front in the battle for marijuana legalization?
That depends, says Rep. Kirkman Finlay, a Columbia Republican who is also a large-scale farmer. Hemp could be a passing fad, like baling wheat straw was a few years ago, or growing the grain triticale is now.
“Every three to five years in farming, there’s a new product,” he tells Free Times. “Most of the time they go the way of the horse and buggy.”
“Hemp could take off if there’s a market and if it can be grown profitably — and that’s two big ‘ifs,’” Finlay says. “Like most of these products, it’s probably viable, but probably not to the extent people are saying.”
Finlay voted for the bill, but he’s never looked into growing hemp, he says.
Still, the trend nationally is toward legal hemp farming.
Federal lawmakers actually legalized the growing of hemp for research purposes in February. And several other states have legalized industrial hemp.
So it seems South Carolina will have to fix up its law.
“We’re going to have to go back and clarify the law,” Hutto said. “Here we’ve set a licensing role and not designated an agency. We suggested there’s a process, and we have to be ready for that. I think we should assume there was the political desire to legalize the manufacture of hemp in this state.”
Lawmakers also legalized cannibidiol oil last session — and that bill faces similar problems. CBD oil, as it’s often called, has the THC removed, and is used to treat people with chronic illnesses. The Legislature made it legal — but failed to say how doctors or patients could legally get a hold of the stuff.
The State Law Enforcement Division has taken the position that it’s still illegal to grow, according to SLED toxicologist Wendy Bell.
“To me that’s nonsensical,” Davis replied. “The General Assembly, in certifying doctors to use and prescribe, in my mind implicit in that is the ability to grow and manufacture.”
Davis plans to hold several more hearings around the state, then take up some fixes to the hemp and CBD bills in the opening weeks of the legislative session in January.
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