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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, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 05 2018, @05:51PM (6 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 05 2018, @05:51PM (#770180) Journal

    I don't know about any free-for-all, but let me offer some insight into rural living in SW Arkansas.

    When I moved here, 30+ years ago, cannabis was strictly illegal. Helicopters flew around, using state-of-the-art cameras to locate hemp and cannabis. I saw them hover right over my property, apparently taking close up images of stuff they thought might be cannabis. The closer to harvest time, the more time those choppers spent in the air, and we saw them frequently. Every plant was claimed to be worth a zillion dollars, and the state and local cops and courts would rake in a lot of bounty money from the feds for each plant they found.

    In more recent years, we don't see helicopters 5 days out of the week. We might see a chopper every couple of weeks, and they don't seem to be searching for the odd plant. Instead, they seem content to look for major grow operations. They certainly don't waste time hovering over my property! (I'm not even sure that 15 acres is big enough to qualify as a "major grow operation" unless you've got greenhouses and hydroponics installed.)

    In short, I could probably plant my garden next summer, and put a row of cannabis plants right down the center of it, and be safe. Compare that to ~15 or 18 years ago, when my stepson planted about 30 plants on the property, and we all went into panic mode when we found the stuff. "Well, HELL, I was wondering why that helicopter was hovering right over the old well last week! That boy doesn't have enough sense to plant his shit on Weyerhauser property, like his uncle does?"

    Civil forfeiture, in conjunction with insane cannabis laws meant that the grower lost his home and property, almost automatically if you were dumb enough to plant on your own property. Planting on Weyerhauser land had few if any consequences - you had to be caught actually cultivating and/or harvesting the stuff to be convicted. Even then, your home was probably safe from confiscation. Kiss your vehicle goodbye though.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:07PM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:07PM (#770190) Journal

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weyerhaeuser [wikipedia.org]

    Weyerhaeuser (pronounced "Warehouser") Company, is one of the world's largest private owners of timberlands, owning or controlling nearly 12.4 million acres of timberlands in the U.S. and managing additional 14.0 million acres timberlands under long-term licenses in Canada. The company also manufactures wood products. Weyerhaeuser is a real estate investment trust.

    Never heard of them before.

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    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:26PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:26PM (#770207) Journal

      If you use printer paper in the US, you use Weyerhauser supplied trees. In 1990, I helped to build what was then the largest paper mill in the world. At least 80% of the wood going into that mill comes from Weyerhauser land. The rest of the paper mills in the region (Kraft paper mostly) can say the same. They are just HUGE! That "real estate investment" thing is sort of a joke. They will reluctantly sell land. You might get their least valuable land if you're willing to pay the equivalent of $1000 per tree on the land.

      They have the political clout to get partial exemptions for log and chip trucks from the DOT. All other trucks have a weight limit of 80,000 pounds. Logging trucks get a pass, up to 85,000 pounds. Believe me, that's a LOT OF MONEY the state forfeits in fines! Surrounding states have slightly differing laws, but Weyerhauser has clout in all of them.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 06 2018, @12:53AM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday December 06 2018, @12:53AM (#770384)

      They bought/merged with Plum Creek Timber a few years back - huge operations. Pretty good investment, REITs pay prescribed dividends that regularly beat bank interest while their shares usually appreciate about as quickly/reliably as most common stocks.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 06 2018, @12:50AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday December 06 2018, @12:50AM (#770380)

    Back in the '70s a neighboring property in Florida planted about 15 acres by cutting the heads off of palmetto bushes and micro-dripping water into the stems as a place for the hemp to grow from - apparently grew quite well but was spotted by deputies in light aircraft just before harvest time, was declared "worth" $25M.

    In the 2000s, we used to see locals (not land owners) parking and hiking into private property owned by out of towners on a regular basis, no great mystery what they were up to. With the public records readily available on the internet you can sit at home and identify big, swampy properties owned by out-of-state people who likely never visit. We spoke with one of these owners on a rare visit in 2017, he bought in 2007 and had never even walked the length of the property from road to river - but I bet his squatter-farmers have.

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  • (Score: 2) by legont on Thursday December 06 2018, @02:06AM (1 child)

    by legont (4179) on Thursday December 06 2018, @02:06AM (#770422)

    Interesting. I remember times when here in North East it would be possible to report a "violation" next door and get a piece of the proceedings under Rico laws. I wonder what you think would happen if somebody goes to the police and reports that someone has plants growing. How would they react these days?

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    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 06 2018, @02:14AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 06 2018, @02:14AM (#770428) Journal

      Interesting question. I suppose it depends on how popular the suspect is, or is not, and whether he is willing to pay bribes. The cops probably aren't going to invest a lot of effort into some small time pot grower, but if they smell enough profit, they'll be all over it.