Federally legal hemp, a fruitful endeavor in Colorado, gets jolt from Republican Mitch McConnell
Colorados burgeoning hemp industry got a jolt Monday when Republican Mitch McConnell, the Senates Majority Leader,gave his full-throated support of shoring up federal laws around hemp.
McConnell announced plans to introduce The Hemp Farming Act of 2018, which would remove hemp from regulation as a controlled substance and treat it as an agricultural commodity.
Right now, no state grows more hemp than Colorado, and federal legalization could prove bountiful for growers and those who can farm out their expertise elsewhere.
Currently, hemp businesses across the U.S. operate under a smatteringof federal protections via the Agricultural Act of 2014, better known as the Farm Bill, which expires this year, and via appropriations riders. Those protections are even stronger in Colorado, which established an industrial hemp program in 2013 as a result of voters legalizing adult-use cannabis.
I think (federal hemp legalization) can be huge because Colorado is already set up in a better situation than any other state, said Morris Beegle, founder and president of the Colorado Hemp Company.
Hemp, a low-THC cousin of marijuana that was once widely grown across the United States, can be used to produce medicine and to make commercial items such as food, car parts, bio-fuels, animal feed and textiles.
In a few short years, hemp has become a bigger crop in Colorado than some of the states more notable agricultural products such as pinto beans, Palisade Peaches and Rocky Ford melons.
In 2017, the state tallied 9,800 acres of industrial hemp grown,up from 5,800 acres in 2016, 2,100 acres in 2015, and 200 acres in 2014,said Duane Sinning, assistant director of plant industries for the Colorado Department of Agriculture.
That accounts for more than one-third of the industrial hemp grown nationwide, and is more than double the output from Oregon, the second-largest producer at 3,469 acres, and Kentucky, the third-largest producer at 3,100 acres, according to data compiled by Vote Hemp, the lobbying arm of the Hemp Industries Association.
Under current regulations, hemp-based products are expected to generate $1 billion in revenues this year and grow to $1.7 billion by 2020, according to New Frontier Data, a cannabis data and analytics firm that recently acquired Denvers Hemp Business Journal.
The hemp industry in Colorado and elsewhere is only scratching the surface, saidEric Steenstra, president of Vote Hemp, the U.S. Hemp Industries Associations lobbying arm.
The current federal provisions have been left open to interpretation by some federal agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration, he said.
As such, some market activity has been chilled. Banking has been limited, products have been seized and legal challenges have ensued.
Major companies are sitting on the sidelines, Steenstra said, noting that hes seeing some movement in industries such as the natural products sector. He noted how this years Natural Products Expo West featured dozens of new hemp-derived products, such as those rich in cannabidiol, or CBD.
Were starting to see that happening, and I think this is the thing that we need to really break through on that, he said.
By Steenstras estimates, hemp could easily be one of the nations biggest crops in 20 years.
I would say that Colorados going to continue to be on the forefront of the hemp industry, said Tim Gordon, who serves as president of the Hemp Industries Associations Colorado chapter and president of Functional Remedies, a Boulder-based CBD oil company. Were just seeing what I call the initial swim lanes of the industrial hemp industry coming to fruition.
And while Colorado might not be able to maintain the pace of other ag-heavy states, it certainly could establish itself as a leader in intellectual capital and aspects such as hemp-derived CBD products, he ...
