Victory for Hemp

By Michael Taillard
Source: sfgate.com

As patients and patriots throughout United States struggle to free themselves of the archaic relics of the prohibition era, the dual battlefronts over the recreational and medicinal use of marijuana rage on, attracting the public eye while the ban on another highly valuable market is left out of the fray.  At a glance, it seems that industrial hemp would be an easy victory for the legalization movement, who often include its legalization as a part of their cause and who could use such a win to provide inertia in addressing their more challenging goals.  After all, hemp cannot make you high, and it cannot be easily confused for its psychoactive sibling.

California has just legalized industrial hemp, with the signing of Senate Bill 566 last month, and awaits word from the federal government, yet as recently as 2012, a congressman and Presidential candidate acknowledged to not even knowing what industrial hemp is (Source: SSDP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQB61AUdmJw).  This underlines the lack of exposure we have, as a nation, to this topic.  Over the years, 18 states in total have passed laws allowing the legalization of hemp production, with support from those on the left (e.g.: Democrat Debbie Stabenow, who introduced Senate Bill 954 to respect state laws on hemp) and on the far right (e.g.: Republicans Rand Paul an Mitch McConnell, who pushed for a legalization provision in the farm bill this year).  This appears to have completely snuck under the radars of both the media and the federal government, both of which have given the issue little attention.

Proponents of industrial hemp like to tout the versatility of the crop in producing a wide array of products ranging from plastics to concrete, but where does the real value in this industry currently exist?  Primarily in hemp fabric, food, and hygiene products, which have been driving the annual 15% growth rate in the consumption of industrial hemp within the US over the past 5 years.

Hemp Food and Hygiene Products Available in US Stores

While the US economy as a whole stagnates at a growth rate less than 3% annually since 2006 and is expected to maintain its slow recovery, the outlook for the industrial hemp market continues to indicate growth rates of around 15% into the next 3 years, outperforming most industries within the US.  The problem is that all this is based entirely on rates of increasing consumption, rather than production, because hemp is illegal to produce in the US.  Instead, we import all of it, primarily from China.  It’s important to note now that the US maintains a global comparative advantage in agricultural goods, which compose not only our largest export to China, but is a top export to many of our trade partners.  Having a comparative advantage means simply that we can produce agricultural goods more efficiently than most nations, which isn’t surprising given our massive amounts of arable land, industrial farming, and generous farm subsidies.  So while we many industries struggle to compete in a global economy, we take one in which we should be highly competitive, and freely give it away.

Although hemp is 10-20% more profitable than corn, making it very attractive for specialty farmers, the total size of the hemp market will likely never reach that of corn.  Current estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organizations place the global hemp market at about 200,000 acres, which is far short of the 84 million acres of corn in the US alone, but this largely due to global bans on its production for many decades.  This makes the market set to rebound as people rediscover a utility that once inspired George Washington to encourage us to “sow it everywhere”.  At an average yield of nearly 900lbs per acre according to the USDA, an ability to grown in a wide range of climates, and with every part of the plant usable for some purpose, it’s not hard to see why.

Despite this, searching the news yields little, and Congressional records, even less.  Industrial hemp was banned in the US with the passing of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, lumped with its more popular counterpart.  As we’ve seen with state laws on medical and recreational marijuana, it takes broad public visibility to get Capitol Hill to cede federal primacy and let the states decide, but the comparatively small market size and lack of controversy-stirring intoxicating effects have given the hemp industry a kind of invisibility.  With support across the entire political spectrum and no compelling arguments against legalizing hemp, this invisibility seems to be the only thing preventing American farmers from turning our amber waves into green ones.

Hemp enters 'exciting new world' with help from Boulder, Broomfield players

By John Aguilar
Source: dailycamera.com

Industrial Hemp Regulatory Committee wraps up rule-making for nascent industry

Along with recreational marijuana, hemp has its own place in the historic pot legalization law passed by voters last November.

Amendment 64, which permits adults in Colorado to possess and use small amounts of marijuana, also allows farmers to plant industrial hemp. Earlier this year, state lawmakers authorized the formation of a nine-person advisory board -- heavy with local connections -- to come up with rules that the Colorado Department of Agriculture can use to regulate the nascent industry.

The group, known as the Industrial Hemp Regulatory Committee, includes Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett, Boulder seed farmer Ben Holmes and Broomfield agricultural cartographer Chad Pfitzer. They recently wrapped up their work hammering out rules for the hemp side of cannabis legalization. Those rules will open up for public comment in the coming weeks before being adopted by the state.

"What's terrific about this is a lot of credible people will tell you that there are industrial uses for this," Garnett said. "And you can farm it, it's going to help the economy, and it will create some jobs."

Hemp, the non-drug variety of the cannabis plant, has been used for myriad purposes going back decades. Its long and strong fibers can be turned into rope and fabric, its seeds can be crushed for oil and flour and put into all sorts of foods and beverages, while its oil is often used as a supplement in soaps, shampoos and moisturizers. But hemp got caught up in this country's prohibition on marijuana and remains illegal at the federal level to grow, despite the fact that hemp's THC content is nowhere near what someone would need to get high.

Garnett said the regulatory committee he served on looked at ways to make sure law enforcement could feel comfortable about hemp farming without being an undue burden on producers. That included setting limits on the amount of THC -- the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana -- in hemp and establishing a registry for farmers so that the plant can be tracked.

"We were looking for ways to see that there can be reasonable regulations that don't interfere with the farmers' ability to grow a cash crop but that they can't grow it to supply it to the black market," he said.

Holmes, a cannabis seed developer in Boulder, said he felt the group struck a good balance between farmers' concerns and those of law enforcement.

"I thought the law enforcement people did a really good job of putting things in perspective," he said.

Holmes, who runs Centennial Seed Distributors, said the meetings were calm and professional, with none of the theatrics associated with the state's marijuana task force assembled by Gov. John Hickenlooper earlier this year.

He said it will take a while to establish a robust hemp seed library in Colorado and that large-scale growing of the plant won't occur for a few years.

"The early growers will be novelty growers," he said. "But right now it's all about making seed. Right now the industry has no seed."

The hemp seed strains that he gets from Europe and Canada will kick things off until Holmes can produce about a kilogram of local seed for the next round of planting. He will repeat that process for the next couple of seasons.

"I'll keep planting until I get enough seed to go industrial," he said.

Holmes envisions a "culture of innovation" springing up in Colorado when it comes to the development of seed strains that lead to cutting-edge products, akin to the creative energy captured by entrepreneurs heading up Internet startups in Colorado in the late 1990s.

"Colorado is prime for this," Holmes said. "It's one of those crops that scales beautifully."

Veronica Carpio, who once owned a cannabis-themed tea shop in Lafayette and now makes wholesale coffee and iced tea from ground hemp seeds, said the legalization of hemp in Colorado represents and "exciting new world."

"This is a super important part of Amendment 64 -- I don't think people realized hemp is now legal in Colorado," she said. "There will be new job opportunities, new farming opportunities and new research and development into the health benefits of hemp."

Carpio said hemp provides a healthy dose of omega-3 fatty acids and fiber when added to food and drink, while at the same time not overwhelming the flavor of the food product.

"Some people say they don't taste anything -- some people say it's just a nutty flavor," Carpio said.

She has such faith in hemp as a food additive, she plans to start up a hemp mobile next summer that will serve up hemp pancakes, hemp bread, hemp potato chips, hemp nachos, hemp pulled pork and hemp chocolate.

"I can infuse anything with hemp seed oil or hemp seed protein powder," she said. "I do think Boulder County will embrace hemp."

Cannabis Journalist Doug Fine to Print New Book on Hemp Paper

by Oscar Pascual
Source: sfgate.com

Journalist and author Doug Fine is a busy man these days. When he isn’t hosting a TED Talk,appearing on television, or goat herding, he’s working on the follow-up to his critically received book, Too High to Fail:Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution.

Fine’s upcoming book is yet to be titled, but will focus on the future of the use of industrial hemp and will be published on actual hemp paper.

“My just-finished next book, about the almost unfathomably lucrative future of industrial hemp, comes out in March – on hemp paper,” Fine says. “I’ve waited two decades to make the tree-free leap. Now I finally have a legitimate answer when a sharp college student during a post-live event Q and A asks me how a sustainability journalist comes to be writing books printed on harvested forests.”

In the meantime, you can read more of Fine’s cannabis-based journalism here. (via StT.org)

Largest Hemp Harvest In Colorado In Fifty Years

By Joliza Magdaong
Source: jobsnhire.com


After fifty years, Hemp farmers in Colorado have their largest harvest.

Colorado- Hemp, which is commonly known as a variety of marijuana or cannabis have finally have its first largest harvest in Colorado after fifty years.

Hemp industry started during the legalization of Amendment 64, which set the rules for marijuana and hemp production, including the dosage of hemp medical administration, and how large the hemp harvest production must be. "For fifty years, we are happy that at last, we were able to grow this huge, and we are sure about its benefits to the people", Loflin and other Hemp raiser said.

That is why last week; they organized an event that would show the fruit of their hard work, as they finally present the data of hemp production, which was considered as the largest after fifty years.

Loflin and the rest considered the harvest as the symbol of Hemp industry, as it was a production of dedication and hard work among the farmers. "We think that this is the first symbolic hemp harvest" he added.

Majority of the Hemp raiser consider the harvest as historical, as it is the largest hemp volume in the history.

On the other hand, the US governments have no plans to sue hemp farmers for pursuing such plants. Instead, they are expecting that Loflin will have more supporters, as he was considered as the leader of Hemp famers.

In addition, Steenstra also believed that Loflin is also capable of enticing other to follow his lead. "He is a charismatic person, so we at the White House will not be surprise if Loflin will someday have his own Hemp Party Group that will voice out the concerns among hemp raisers".

As of the moment, Loflin was able to harvest almost quarter- acre of his land so far.

America's First Hemp Crop Harvest In Almost 60 Years Begins In Colorado

By Matt Ferner
Source: huffingtonpost.com

In the 1700s, American farmers were required by law to grow hemp in Virginia and the other colonies. It was a widely used crop for hundreds of years in the United States. Cut to 1957 when the U.S. government banned hemp over confusion about its relationship to marijuana, and the plant from which the paper for the The Declaration of Independence was sourced was gone from America's soil.

Until now.

Back in May, Springfield, Colo. farmer Ryan Lofin planted 55 acres of hemp -- the first hemp crop planted in the U.S. in nearly 60 years. Last week, Lofin and others harvested the historic hemp plants by hand as advocates watched on, Westword reported.

The passage of Amendment 64 in Colorado last November, which famously legalized marijuana for recreational use by adults, also allows for the commercial growing of hemp.

And now that Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced that the Department of Justice will allow Colorado's new marijuana laws to go into effect, this harvest may be the symbolic first that restarts a once-booming American industry, if other farmers choose to follow Lofin's lead.

"This is monumental for our industry," said Bruce Perlowin, chief executive of Hemp Inc., to The Denver Post back when Lofin first planted his crop. "It will unlock a clean industrial revolution that will be good for the economy, good for jobs and good for the environment."

Hemp is a genetic "cousin" to marijuana, but contains little to none of the THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana associated with the "high" sensation. And although hemp hasn't been grown domestically for decades, in 1998 the U.S. began to import food-grade hemp seed and oil for various uses.

The Colorado Department of Agriculture is still working on rules for registering hemp farmers and hopes to have them in place by early 2014. Back in May -- the same month Lofin began planting hemp seeds -- Colorado Deputy Commissioner of Agriculture Ron Carleton clarified that although A64 had passed, it did not authorize the cultivation of hemp in Colorado until those rules were in place.

“The General Assembly, with SB13-241, has made it clear that cultivation, for either commercial or research and development purposes, is not authorized unless the prospective grower first registers with the Department," Carleton said in a statement. "That will not be possible until early 2014 as we do not expect the registration program to be in place before then.”

But that didn't stop Lofin, who told Westword he's not worried about law enforcement. "It's time for this to happen," he said.

Colorado lawmakers have already passed SB-241, which requires the state's Department of Agriculture to set up these rules for hemp farmers by March 1, 2014. The bill has not yet been signed into law, but is expected to be signed by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Has California Joined the Hemp Revolution?

By Russ Belville
Source: alternet.org

California Gov. Jerry Brown just signed Senate Bill 566 which legalized industrial hemp… sort of.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Jan Havlicek

With all of the attention focused on the legalization of cannabis’ psychoactive variety we call marijuana, it’s no surprise much of the public is unaware of the developments regarding cannabis’ non-drug variety we call industrial hemp.  The more you dig in to the issue of hemp, the more you’ll find it is far wackier than the wacky tobaccy.

California Gov. Jerry Brown just signed Senate Bill 566 which legalized industrial hemp… sort of.  The law requires the state to regulate the farming, processing, and sales of hemp for oilseed and fiber, just as soon as the federal government says it’s okay to do so.  It’s like California’s at the hemp race starting line with an “on your marks… get set…” and it’s just waiting for the feds to say “go!”

The state’s voters weren’t as timid in 1996 when they legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes through ballot initiative, but the legislature wasn’t shy about passing Senate Bill 420 in 2003, either, with then-Gov. Gray Davis signing it, despite its conflicts with federal drug laws.

In polling, the state’s voters were supporting the historic Prop 19 marijuana legalization in 2010, until the legislature passed and then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a marijuana decriminalization measure to lessen the urgency for outright legalization.  The Governator didn’t seem to mind that he was lowering penalties for a federally-criminal drug.

But the hemp issue in California seems not to have caught the imagination of ballot initiative activists or the general public.  The legislature has hammered away at the issue, passing bills in 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2011, which were subsequently vetoed by the aforementioned Govs. Davis, Schwarzenegger, and Brown.  How is it they could sign laws increasing access and lessening penalties for drug-cannabis and veto laws legalizing non-drug cannabis?

In vetoing the 2011 hemp measure, Gov. Brown wrote “Federal law clearly establishes that all cannabis plants, including industrial hemp, are marijuana, which is a federally regulated controlled substance. Failure to obtain a permit from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration prior to growing such plants will subject a California farmer to federal prosecution.”  Yet there are plenty of California medical marijuana farmers who have been federally prosecuted, even as they followed the 2008 medical marijuana guidelines that Jerry Brown himself wrote up as Attorney General.

Thus we have Gov. Brown signing the 2013 iteration of the hemp bill that keeps hemp’s legality in limbo until the federal government gives the go-ahead… and maybe it already has.

On August 29, the Department of Justice released its long-awaited response to the legalization of drug-cannabis in Washington and Colorado.  The feds explained they will likely allow state marijuana legalization to move forward with “the expectation that states … will implement strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems that will address the threat those state laws could pose to public safety, public health, and other law enforcement interests.”  So long as the states are preventing distribution to minors, criminal profits, diversion to other states, drug trafficking, violence and firearms use, stoned driving, growing on public lands, and marijuana possession on federal property, Washington and Colorado will be left alone.  If the White House is going to allow Washington and Colorado to grow, buy, sell, and use drug-cannabis, how could this not apply to California’s regulation of non-drug-cannabis?

California is not the only state to pass an “It’s OK if the Feds Say So” hemp legalization law.  Nine other states (Colorado, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia) have also passed such laws, but a few of those states are tired of waiting for the feds to say “go!”  Maine and West Virginia lawmakers enrolled bills to remove their laws’ requirements for federal licensure.   Colorado addressed the problem when it passed Amendment 64 legalizing marijuana, which also directed the legislature to regulate hemp and just this week, the first legal hemp crop in sixty years was harvested by hand in Southeast Colorado.

There are thirty countries in the world that allow legal cultivation of industrial hemp, yet they still ban the production of marijuana to one degree or another.  

The United States stands alone among industrialized nations in banning both drug-cannabis and non-drug cannabis, but still allows the importation of harvested hemp and hemp seeds for making soaps, nutritional products, building materials, clothing, and more.  Canada and China are more than willing to keep supplying our industries with hemp and taking all the jobs and profits that come from that trade imbalance.

With the issuance of the August 29 Cole Memo, legalization in two states, and medical marijuana in twenty states, you’d think the legalization of industrial hemp would be a no-brainer.  How does Drug Enforcement Administration get away with administering the enforcement of laws against non-drugs?  Our lawmakers still don’t seem to get that you can’t hide marijuana plants in hemp fields (cross-pollination ruins them both) and you can never smoke enough hemp to get anything other than a headache (even extraction and concentration techniques would require so much hemp as to be unfeasible). 

While states meekly pass laws designed not to offend the governors who fear the federal government, we continue to miss out on producing nature’s most digestible protein for humans, strongest fiber for clothing, most renewable source of fuel for vehicles, and a carbon negative source of cheap, recyclable building material.  America’s struggling farmers are ready to start growing hemp now and it is unconscionable - and in my opinion, unconstitutional - to prevent them from doing so.

I’ve never read of a constitutional challenge to the federal ban on hemp and I’m no lawyer, so perhaps my theorizing here is way off base.  I just don’t understand how banning hemp farming isn’t a blatant violation of the Ninth Amendment.  If you recall your Bill of Rights, you’ll know this as the short little amendment that reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The way I understand that is just because the Founders wrote many of our rights into the Constitution, that didn’t mean it was an exhaustive list.  There are still other rights “retained by the people” that aren’t mentioned.  Now, certainly, in a country founded by hemp farmers who wrote on hemp paper, swore allegiance to a hemp flag, and required cultivation of hemp by law, don’t you think the people retain the right to grow hemp? 

The Father of our Country, George Washington wrote, “Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere!”  He didn’t add “…if the federal government says you can.”

CELC launches the ‘Observatoire des Fibres Liberiennes’

By Billy Hunter
Source: knittingindustry.com

European Confederation of Linen and Hemp (CELC) has launched its European Flax label at the Première Vision show that took place in Paris from 17-19 September.

It has also announced the creation of the ‘Observatoire des Fibres Liberiennes’ (Bast Fibre Authority), aiming to establish a common platform for specialised textile and clothing laboratories for the identification of bast fibres such as linen, hemp and ramie.

Green fibre on demand

Faced with an informed and demanding consumer concerned about the origin and composition of the products they use, CELC has created a premium European flax fibre brand, which is said to preserve, promote and safeguard a uniquely European agriculture and industry, it's regional origin and local expertise.

Acknowledged as the green fibre of the future, European flax, applied to linen products in forms of fibres, yarns, textiles or composites, is a guarantee to be recognised by the final consumer, CELC reports.

Strategic development

CELC believes that as the only European organisation uniting the whole of the linen and hemp industries, it now undertakes a strategic decision by creating the Observatoire des Fibres Libériennes, a development that is expected to support the European Flax and Club Masters of Linen labels.

According to CELC, this initiative is underpinned by the development and standardization of a testing and analysis protocol.

The standard identification protocol

It becomes necessary to define and determine an indisputable new method of analysis, CELC reports.

Tests and analyses by Arvalis Institut du Végétal on finished products demonstrate how the different stages of the textile production chain alter the DNA, ultimately rendering it unusable. This, the confederation says,  proves DNA as an unreliable form of identification.

Lacking a uniform frame of reference at the outset, it was only after several months of dialogue with the laboratories for textile expertise in France, Italy and Belgium that the Observatoire succeeded in establishing a benchmark programme for the analysis of bast fibres.

Fibre examination

The protocol for an accurate identification of the three fibres, linen, ramie and hemp, developed by the Observatoire, is based on:

• method of fibre preparation
• microscopic examination
• expertise in comparing fibres with reference fibres
• identification of distinguishing markers
• analysis of intrinsic physical behaviour

After bringing together the laboratories, technical and research centres, which are a reference point for the European textile and clothing industries, CELC hopes to make Observatoire accessible to leading providers of quality and control services.

www.europeanflax.com