North Dakota is preparing for a showdown over the issue of whether American farmers should be allowed to grow industrial hemp.
Roger Johnson, the state’s agriculture commissioner, recently proposed rules under North Dakota law to license farmers there to grow industrial hemp. The rules could be in place later this year, giving farmers the chance to apply for licences in 2007.
However, North Dakota farmers would also need a permit from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, and that’s where a showdown might arise.
“Our federal government, through DEA, are going to have to make a decision as to whether these rules are going to be of any effect or not,” Johnson said. “It is a way to try and get DEA to come to a responsible position.”
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
If the DEA rejects or ignores licence applications from North Dakota farmers, it would set the stage for a court challenge pitting advocates of industrial hemp cultivation against the U.S. government.
“Once the state is regulating the crop, which North Dakota is going to do, the DEA will not have a very good argument to continually block this crop from being grown,” said Adam Eidinger, a spokesperson for Vote Hemp, an organization promoting the acceptance of industrial hemp in the U.S.
“What Roger can’t do on behalf of the state is actually file a lawsuit against the federal government saying that they are unlawfully preventing farmers from growing industrial hemp. However, a farmer who is licensed by the state could.”
Eidinger said his organization has a legal fund specifically for that issue. Vote Hemp has ample experience suing the DEA, he said, and won two years ago when that agency tried to ban hemp food products.
“They have a choice. They can drag this out in the courts for two or three years or they could just co-operate now and probably get a lot more of what they want, a lot more of the assurances they’re looking for that these farmers aren’t growing marijuana.”
North Dakota has tried for years to convince the DEA that industrial hemp is not the same as marijuana and that farmers in the state should be allowed to legally grow it. Levels of the hallucinogenic substance tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, are far lower in hemp than in marijuana.
Johnson said the state has been stonewalled in its efforts to find common ground with the DEA.
“I think the federal government is probably going to stick to the line that they’ve stuck to for years and years and years. In their eyes, industrial hemp and marijuana are the same thing, even though everybody who’s looked at it knows they’re very different things.”
The licensing rules proposed by North Dakota for growing industrial hemp include criminal background checks, finger printing, testing of plants to ensure they contain low levels of THC, and providing the location of each hemp field using geopositioning. Government inspectors would have access to the fields 24 hours a day.
Growing industrial hemp has been legal in Canada since the late 1990s. The Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance estimates that at least 30,000 acres will be planted to the crop this year.
David Bronner, a California businessperson, began importing hemp oil from Canada in 1999. He now spends about $200,000 annually to import hemp oil and hemp grain. The oil is used mainly to make soap while the grain goes into a snack product.
“It’s ridiculous that the industry’s booming and American farmers are being cut out,” said Bronner, owner of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. “How much longer are we going to be hamstringing the American industry and farmers?”
The Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance is not alarmed by the prospect that American farmers may one day be allowed to grow industrial hemp. Executive director Arthur Hanks said it would add to the crop’s credibility and would create new marketing opportunities.
Hanks believes the Canadian industry could still compete due to its head start in growing, processing and marketing the crop, and its ability to produce a superior oilseed.
At the same time, he anticipates opportunities for joint ventures across the border once cultivation of industrial hemp becomes legal in the U.S., which he doubts will happen overnight.
