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