The decades-long battle over the right to grow industrial hemp in North Dakota has entered a new phase, say activists.
This time, proponents were hoping to force the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to respond ahead of an Aug. 24 district court filing deadline in their latest bid to gain permission to grow hemp, which has been legal in Canada since 1997.
Hemp activists say the court case could create a concrete timeline that would bypass the DEA’s strategy for the past decade, which they charge has been to ignore requests for exemptions that would allow farmers and researchers to plant the crop.
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In a related development, a plant sciences professor from North Dakota State University has thrown his support behind the two farmers who have launched the legal challenge.
Burton Johnston recently wrote a letter in support of the two would-be hemp farmers: David Monson of Osnabrock and Wayne Hauge of Ray.
Johnston urged the DEA to quickly approve the pair’s application for an exemption that would allow them to plant the crop.
He also noted that the university, as a public research institution, is mandated to study crops that offer potential economic benefits to state citizens.
Tom Murphy, an activist with Vote Hemp, which is funding the legal challenge, said the DEA would likely continue its stalling strategy, but the pending court case would mean these tactics could not go on indefinitely.
“They could ask for different things. They could ask the court to throw out the case for different reasons and the court could say yes or no,” Murphy said.
He noted that the drug watchdog has good legal counsel that has the skills necessary to inflict a long, drawn out “death by a thousand paper cuts” upon the latest bid to plant hemp.
“We file paper, they file paper, then we file more paper and so on.”
In February, state authorities issued hemp-growing licences to Monson and Hauge, the first to be issued in 50 years. At the time, they also applied for a DEA permit to grow the crop and import seed.
After waiting months for a response, the state legislature in April removed its requirement for federal permission to grow hemp.
A lawsuit was filed on June 18 arguing that the DEA had no right to prosecute state licensed hemp farmers. If Monson vs. DEA succeeds, its supporters claim the case could open the door to legal cultivation of the crop in North Dakota.
Vote Hemp president Eric Steenstra said in a press release that the lawsuit is aimed at putting the issue “on our timeline.”
He noted that NDSU has been waiting eight years for permission from the DEA to begin collecting and cultivating wild hemp locally to begin breeding a low-THC hemp cultivar that could thrive in the state’s climate.
The DEA has not responded to the application, which was filed in 1999 and proposed planting 160,000 viable hemp seeds to study the crop’s potential as a new venture.
