Pretend for a moment that you’ve got a no-good cousin. His name is always showing up on Page 3 of Thursday’s newspaper, he’s got children spread out over an eight-county area and his idea of work is booting up the PlayStation 4 while his mama works to pay the light bill.
While acknowledging you do share common blood with this ne’er-do-well, you do not having anything to do with him and certainly do not possess any of his characteristics. Yet let’s say that no one in town will hire you for a job because of his reputation. Is that fair? Certainly not.
Yet it’s what we’ve done in America to hemp because of its cousin marijuana. Let me explain.
Congress passed a law in 1937 banning the growth of all cannabis plants, which include both marijuana and hemp. Marijuana, of course, makes users high because of its high concentration of the chemical THC. Hemp, on the other hand, contains very little THC — not nearly enough to get anyone buzzed. Yet it has many other useful attributes. Its fiber is famously light and strong, making it good for ropes and similar uses. Its seeds can be eaten or made into oil. Its woody part also has uses as paper or other filler.
Also, it grows just about anywhere, requiring neither an abundance of water nor rich soil.
Yet U.S. farmers have been forbidden from cultivating it for decades for no real reason other than its aforementioned cousin.
Until now.
The 2018 Farm Bill separates hemp from marijuana. Hemp can now be grown legally if it has less than 0.3 percent THC — and if the state where it is to be grown passes a plan to license and regulate it. That plan must pass U.S. Department of Agriculture approval.
That follows the 2014 Farm Bill, which started a pilot program for growing hemp on a limited basis.
Now the Mississippi Legislature is taking up the issue. House Bill 1547 would follow the federal lead in removing hemp from the state’s list of controlled substances. After a committee initially rejected it and then changed its mind, the House passed the bill Feb. 12 in a 97-18 vote, and it now goes to the Senate for consideration.
“If we wait even one more year on this, we are putting our farmers behind,” State Rep. Dana Criswell, R-Olive Branch, was quoted as saying by Mississippi Today. “Let our farmers grow another crop and make some money for our state.”
That just makes sense to me. Listen, I’m one of the holdouts — now in the minority in America — who believe marijuana should remain illegal. I think it’s a vice that people use to get high, not the miracle cure it’s touted to be.
However, the legalization of hemp may actually help slow marijuana from being legalized. That’s because hemp is high in cannabidiol, the chemical that is responsible for most of the purported health benefits of marijuana yet does not make you high. Since hemp contains that oil and does not have the downside of the psychoactive effects that marijuana has because of THC, wouldn’t it make sense to pursue hemp’s medical benefits rather than marijuana’s?
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., led the push to legalize hemp in the Farm Bill, in part because his home state is in an ideal place to grow the crop (it should be noted McConnell opposes marijuana legalization). With its vast areas of uncultivated land with poor soil, Mississippi could be as well.
There’s no good reason why farmers shouldn’t have that option. Hemp probably won’t cause an immediate economic boom in the state, but it could have positive long-term effects. And it’s not the noxious weed that its cousin’s reputation might lead you to believe.
Charlie Smith is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at (601) 736-2611 or csmith@columbianprogress.com.
