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posted by martyb on Wednesday December 05 2018, @01:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the rope-a-dope dept.

U.S. House and Senate legislators have reached an agreement on the Farm Bill, which includes a provision that would legalize hemp cultivation nationwide, with caveats (e.g. nobody with a drug-related conviction can participate):

Not only have cannabis derivatives like hemp been effectively banned in the US since the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, other legislation has categorized marijuana products as dangerous Schedule I substances like LSD and ecstasy. Then in 2014, Congress passed legislation that approved small pilot programs for growing hemp, though to do so, farmers still needed approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration. (This 2014 provision was part of the Farm Bill, a massive piece of legislation that sets policy around food and agriculture. The Farm Bill needs to be renewed every few years, so the new decision to legalize hemp is part of the proposed 2018 Farm Bill.)

Despite this, there was some debate over whether derivatives of the hemp plant, like CBD, were really excluded from the Controlled Substances Act, according to Shawn Hauser, a senior associate at cannabis law firm Vicente Sederberg, hence the legal gray area. "The 2018 bill actually goes in and amends the Controlled Substances Act to make very clear that CBD derived from hemp would not be considered a controlled substance," she says.

This is "a pretty important step forward in terms of federal government's recognition of what CBD is and what its lack of potential harm or risk is," says John Hudak, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution and author of Marijuana: A Short History. There are likely to be more CBD products now, but that still doesn't mean that everyone can just grow hemp in their backyard. Farmers will no longer need DEA approval, but there will still be significant federal and state restrictions on hemp products and growers will need to be licensed and fulfill other requirements developed by the US Department of Agriculture. "It's not going to be this free-for-all that some people imagine," Hudak says.

[...] The House and the Senate both need to officially vote on the new legislation, which is expected before the end of the year. As Hauser says: "We're still in infancy at the precipice of a new business which other industrialized countries have had for decades."


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @02:54PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @02:54PM (#770093)

    that taxpayers is going to stop paying for the DEA to fly around 10M$ helicopters with 2k$/hour operating costs (not counting crew pay), just so they can peak in peoples back yards?

    It seems like they are going down the same road as the booze laws. You can make it, but only if your one of "us".

    Probably the correct way to approach this would be to use a VAT style system and regulate the commodity with taxes. That would allow the market to float but still be low impact on social welfare. Instead they are going to declare that only their pals can get into the business, and the only people selling dope will be the congress and their buddies in the various mafias.

    The goal here seems to be to legalize weed in just such a way that it produces as much crime as possible. That way they can be assured that they were "right all along". Nothing says freedom like throwing people in jail because they aren't in your cool kids club.

    SSDD.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @03:21PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @03:21PM (#770106)

    The role of the Government of the United States was explicitly restricted to protecting the rights of the individual, chief among which are the rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (i.e., the pursuit of self-interest).

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @03:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @03:56PM (#770123)

      Uhh no. The role of the US Goverment was to provide for the common defense and to serve as point of resolution when issues arise between the several states. The US Gov only enumerated and recognized rights to individuals. It has always been on the individual to protect those rights.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @04:54PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @04:54PM (#770145)

    yes, they're making it so you "have to" sign away your rights in a licensing scheme to do something you already had the right to do. they are treasonous scum and people who get licensed are dumb whores.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 05 2018, @05:32PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 05 2018, @05:32PM (#770168) Journal

      Just wait. There will be: All New! Monsanto Genetically Modified Hemp! Patented! And you have to keep buying it from Monsanto every year! Large fines or patent lawsuits if any of it blows into your field from a neighboring field!

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.