Kentucky sees profits in growing cannabis
Business leaders, Republicans eye hemp farming on industrial scale
ATLANTA • Kentucky Republicans and business leaders are promoting an unlikely way to boost the state’s economic development: Grow cannabis.
Kentucky leaders want their state to become the king of hemp, a plant that comes from the same species as marijuana, though doesn’t contain enough of the intoxicating ingredient to cause a high.
They want to help state farmers overcome the federal government’s treatment of hemp as an illegal drug, and produce it on an industrial scale, for use in items such as soap, horse bedding, building materials and auto body parts. Kentucky is one of at least five states, including Indiana and Vermont, where lawmakers have introduced measures allowing hemp farming.
The Kentucky effort is supported by legislative leaders, the state chamber of commerce, Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and agricultural commissioner James Comer, a Republican who campaigned on bringing the crop to his state.
“It could produce thousands of jobs,” Comer said in an interview. “Industrial hemp is totally different than marijuana. It should be treated like corn or soybeans.”
U.S. retail sales of products with imported hemp were more than $452 million in 2011, according to an estimate by the Hemp Industries Association, based in Summerland, Calif.
All One God Faith Inc., a closely held company in Escondido, Calif., that markets Dr. Bronner’s soaps, is considering expanding to Kentucky if hemp is grown there, said David Bronner, the company’s chief executive officer. The soaps contain hemp.
Since 1996, at least eight states have passed laws removing legal barriers to hemp farming, according to a report last year by the Congressional Research Service in Washington. Colorado voters in November signed off on hemp farming.
Even in those states, anyone who wants to grow hemp needs a permit from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said Dawn Dearden, an agency spokeswoman. Dearden said she didn’t know when the agency, which doesn’t distinguish between hemp and marijuana, last issued a permit and referred a question on the matter to the Justice Department. A telephone message left with the department’s press office wasn’t immediately returned.
The hemp association is aware of only one DEA permit issued, for a now-ended research project in Hawaii, said Eric Steenstra, the group’s executive director.
U.S. businesses import hemp, usually from Canada and China. The plant is also grown in Europe, and is approaching harvest now in the Southern hemisphere.
Hemp has been a source of oilseed and fibre for centuries, according to the congressional report. It was grown in the U.S. from the colonial period until the mid-1800s, when cotton became more competitive as a clothing fabric. More than 30 countries grow hemp as an agricultural commodity.
The Kentucky State Police oppose growing hemp, saying fields could be used to hide marijuana and that pot growers will claim their plants are hemp, requiring state police to prove otherwise in overburdened state labs. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, has said law enforcement concerns must be satisfied before he would support allowing hemp.
The law restricting hemp farming is the 1970 Controlled Substances Act. Those who raise hemp without a DEA permit risk as much as 20 years in prison and forfeiture of their property, according to federal guidelines. An application for a DEA hemp permit is identical to asking for permission to grow pot.
Rep. David Monson, a Republican in the North Dakota state House and a wheat farmer, is among those who have unsuccessfully sought permission. In 1999, Monson watched hemp growing across the Canada border, at a time when a disease was ruining wheat and barley. Rotating those crops with fast-growing, disease-resistant hemp was a way to fight the blight, Monson said in an interview.