The New Normal, it appears, is to tell heads of state and bureaucrats about hemp, and make wild unlikely promises in order to get it legal especially in sub- and tropical nations, but also US states.
One even said “industrial hemp is medicinal but marijuana is recreational” when legalizing hemp at a latitude not historically conducive to hemp. The Governor of Oregon recently said “The hemp industry has lied. I will never negotiate with liars.”
In some nations no doubt they salivate at the thought of all the vast wealth, jobs, and tax the foreign marijuana and hemp investors in suits will bring. It’s a bad way to introduce a commodity agricultural crop, as it raises unrealistic expectations.
However, much like in the US when CBD started confusing the conversation previously only about fiber and seed, don’t be surprised if it comes back to bite them. I was actually asked back in 2016 to stop promoting and educating on hemp CBD (tweeting Sen. Rand Paul) because legislators were starting to ask the hemp lobbyists about it, having cognitive dissonance.
The problem is that the lobbyists were lying by omission to them about hemp, failing to disclose that most CBD on the planet was in hemp and that “Medicinal Hemp” was now a Thing. They actually were telling anyone that listened that hemp had no CBD, that it was a Schedule 1 controlled substance, and that the Ninth Circuit HIA v DEA 2004 decision didn’t protect it. Seriously.
Finally in 2018 different lobbyists took over, those whose mission was not to protect investments in Canadian hemp but rather to get CBD thus hemp legal, and Senate then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) got it done. Republicans added a provision to ban only drug felons from hemp farming. Of course. Despite sponsoring a hemp bill every session since 2005, Sen. Paul wasn’t even invited to the party, it was all about Mitch.
But today, it’s a new era. CBD and hemp are dying (hence industry’s pivot to minors and other forms of THC from hemp), will Congress save it in the Farm Bill next year? It very easily could, with one paragraph. Or will they kill CBD and minor hemp ‘noids, and therefore today’s hemp with it, doubling-down on their 85-year lie that THC is the “Devil’s Molecule”?
The recent SCOTUS decision in Dobbs (“leave it to the states”) looks extremely favorable at the federal level for marijuana decriminalization let alone hemp regulation, especially with Justice Thomas, which is why the high court will never see a case if prosecutors have their way. Now when they raid they seize assets but don’t prosecute except to make a lesson of someone. That silences the victim for three years, the statute of limitations.
For the state, it’s a Win-Win, they sell the gear, keep the cash and never spend a penny to prosecute or incarcerate, but threaten prosecution if the victim speaks out or is an activist. A narcs’ and taxpayers’ dream.
However, FDA, in an unprecedented move, recently backed away from its almost-criminal-in-a-global-pandemic ban on NAC, reversing the archaic Exclusionary Rule found in DSHEA. It could do the same for CBD, but will likely require a Citizen’s Petition. Feel free to file one, literally anyone can. Click here: https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/cdrh-foia-how-get-records-cdrh/cdrh-petitions/
