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Source: dailydemocrat.com
As tempting as it would be to take Yolo County government to task for its desire to opt out of a pilot hemp farming program, it's probably the right thing to do.
Yolo County was initially included under the provisions of Senate Bill 676, sponsored by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, which authorized five counties statewide for commercial farming of industrial hemp under an eight-year pilot program. Now, before anyone gets excited, "industrial hemp" is very common. It's used as a source of fiber and oilseed for textiles, food and cosmetics. It is also not psychoactive. It contains only minute traces of THC, the stuff in marijuana that gets one high.
The problem is that hemp for all practical purposes looks and smells a lot like marijuana [citation needed]. It's not impossible to distinguish hemp from pot, but it is difficult.[citation needed] A trained observer such as a sheriff's deputy or other law enforcement officer might have trouble, let alone a private citizen.[citation needed]
Can you imagine the confusion that would occur should Yolo County farmers get in on hemp growing? People would be calling law enforcement all the time to report what they considered to be "illegal" marijuana growing operations -- even if the fields were in plain sight.
If you don't think that's true, try asking people to distinguish tomato, pepper and canola plants sometime. Not everyone is up on what grows in the county (unless they see it on the shelf of in a grocery store).
We'll give credit where it's due and thank supervisors for supporting a 2007 bill -- later vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- that would have allowed hemp farming statewide. So, it's not like the county is totally opposed to hemp farming.
It's simply that with resources stretched to the breaking point, why add more work to our local law enforcement agencies?
Blogger's comment: Okay how ignorant does the writer think that law enforcement is in Yolo county? Cops can't distinguish between a tomato plant and a pepper plant? I guess if your job depended upon not being able to tell the difference between an industrial hemp field and a marijuana grow operation, then maybe that explains the position of law enforcement, but that would apply to CAMP and the DEA, not to local cops. It is possible that law enforcement needs some training but it would take all of 15 minutes to educate someone to distinguish industrial hemp from marijuana.
Yolo county government is either ignorant or captive to the DEA.
Ignorance can be cured quickly. Just call the Kings County government for some perspective.
If the Yolo County government is captive to the DEA, then the cure may take a bit longer but can happen at the next election.
Below are some good comments from readers of the original article in the Daily Democrat.
- Kevin Hoes · Sac StateRealy? The only argument against growing hemp in Yolo County is that, the average person cant tell the difference between tomatoes and peppers? I've got an idea, if you want to grow hemp, then call the sherifs department and let them know what you are doing. Kind of like calling the fire department when you are doing a controled burn. I suppose the real problem is the DA's ignorance regarding marijuana and hemp.
- Sharon Alderman · Elder at Living In The NOWCut your nose off despite their faces.....short term thinking. What about educating the public? Hemp will do so much for their economy in the long term.....this is an example of the dumbing down of Americans......HoOponoOpon
o - Kevin Gallagher · Top CommenterIf the hemp fields were registered as such, then locations of those fields were be known. Any cannabis that is not grown at those registered locations would not be legal. Signs identifying the fields as industrial hemp fields would help. Other than that, you can tell by how it is grown. If the plants are grown very close together, it is hemp. If each plant has a lot of room to grow and branch out, then it's medicinal cannabis. It is not possible to grow medicinal cannabis in an industrial hemp field, as they would ruin each other. This is not hard to figure out, unless one doesn't want to figure it out.
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