If Congress wanted to handle hemp responsibly, it would separate production from products.
One-percent max THC for production, something else for products, depending on type.
Processed primary grain/hurd/bast products go with USDA, and each with descriptive nomenclature appropriate to that sector beyond “hemp.” Fiber has always been exempt from regulation.
Cannabinoids handled as Dietary Supplements by FDA.
Ingestible should be 10 ppm, like hemp foods are in Canada and Europe.
We don’t call vodka “potato,” citric acid “corn,” table sugar “beet,” or ethanol “sunflower.”
But in hemp, 25,000 products are all just… “hemp.” Walls? “Hemp.” Graphene? “Hemp.” THC? “Hemp.”
Right now, it’s all “Hemp,” regardless of whether or not it actually is; we have to take the word of those known to gaslight us for it.
Until hemp trichome farming is off the table, USDA/NIFA will continue to sit on its hands.
But the reason hemp was a success in Canada is simply that the Manitoba government threw money at developing the seed shelling technology, plus many federal grants. Forcing farmers to take shares of stock in the company instead of cash one year helped as well.
That government investment had a huge ROI as Manitoba producers would go on to dominate global grain sales, 90% of Canadian hemp acres.
Even today, delta-8 is hard to find there and CBD is regulated but none of that was on even the horizon 25 years ago; everyone knew it could be done but why synthesize THC inferior to God’s own?
Legalizing what was now for 89 years a Schedule 1 controlled substance every five years via a Farm Bill is why no one believes hemp is really legal, it first must come off the Schedule, and marijuana must be legalized via descheduling, not rescheduling.
Only then will USDA and Big Ag/Big Business take hemp seriously. The recent hemp THC ban was step one in handing it over to Big Pharma via rescheduling.
