Thank you for contacting me in support of industrial hemp farming. I appreciate hearing from you.
As you may know, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2007, H.R. 1866, would amend the Controlled Substances Act to exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana. This bill would also grant states the exclusive authority to regulate the growing and processing of industrial hemp, including determining whether plants meet the concentration limit. H.R. 1866 has been referred to the House Committee on Judiciary and Energy and Commerce. As a Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, I will be sure to keep your thoughts in mind should the Committee hold hearings or votes on H.R. 1866.
I am aware of the historical use of hemp since it was widely grown as an agricultural crop from colonial times through the mid-1800′s for fabrics, twine, and paper. As you know, it is currently legal to possess imported sterilized hemp seeds, hemp products (such as fabrics and hemp oil cosmetics) and raw hemp fiber, because these products are not included in the most restrictive category of controlled substances. However, under the current policy of the Office of the National Drug Control Policy and the DEA, such products must meet a zero-tolerance standard for tetrahydrocannabinol content (THC) in order to be cleared through U.S. Customs.
Please continue to contact me about the issues that concern you, as I both need and welcome your thoughts and ideas. Because security measures in the House cause delays in receiving postal mail, I encourage you to contact me by telephone, by fax, or through my website at http://www.house.gov/inslee/contact. For more information on my activities in Congress, and for information on services that my office can provide, please visit my website at http://www.house.gov/inslee/. If you would like to subscribe to my email updates, please visit http://www.house.gov/inslee/signup.htm.
Very truly yours,
JAY INSLEE
Member of Congress
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Yeah, but the thing about hemp is it’s virtually impossible to guarantee a 100% absence of THC. Plants are living organisms and every one is different. Even if you only get one freak plant in a thousand which produces THC for absolutely no apparent reason when 999 of it’s surrounding brothers and sisters don’t, it could be the beginning of a farmer’s crop developing higher levels of THC. You could hardly blame the farmer and lock him away for years on end if nature were to play such a funny little trick on him and bless him with field upon field of medical grade quality cannabis, could you? The DEA knows that and they know that as soon as hemp is legal there will be a sudden abundance of such ‘innocent’ farmers who just happen to be coincidentally suffering from mysterious disappearances of significant quantities of their crops. UFO’s and alien abductions? Perhaps, but the DEA is unlikely to believe it. Why does that farmer drive a Jag, keep a Merc in the garage and give his kids new BMW’s for Christmas and birthdays? That would be OK, but there would be little they could do to prove it and, let’s face it, they’re not doing very well in the drug war right now. The minute they legalise, or even just decriminalise hemp production, they can’t even pretend to have any hope of controlling, or even having the slightest impact on, the cannabis market.
Even if they somehow managed to regulate and license hemp production to exclusively dickhead farmers who would never dream of making money from the land by giving people what God intended them to have (Doesn’t that somehow contradict the whole reason for being a farmer?) how would you propose stopping people finding a nice little quiet spots in the middle, or around the edges, of farmer Richard Head’s fields where they could take out the industrial quality hemp and replace it with their own varieties? Ten seeds of good, reliable outdoor variety cannabis from a seed bank in Amsterdam will cost you about €20 ($20) and yield up to five kilos (more than ten pounds) of medical grade cannabis. You’re familiar with the expression ‘…needle in a haystack.’? “Oh, tie a yellow ribbon round the young cannabis plant!” And measure your paces carefully. Better yet: tie a string to a nearby tree, take it with you into the field and tie a knot in it when you’ve found your spot. You’d just need to go back late one night/early one morning a little before the farmer’s harvest time to reap the reward of living, or driving to, far out in the country. What are you going to do – put up a fence around all the hemp fields like the one separating Israel from the West Bank? Yeah, right – farmers have got loads of money to spend on stuff like that. Or would you propose the DEA funds it? Do you think determined medical growers wouldn’t find a way around it (It shouldn’t take more than a night or two to dig a little tunnel under a fence.) for the sake of their loved ones’ health (and to save a hell of a lot of money on electricity bills: “Look Ma, no nutes!”)? What would you do with the legions of guerilla growers riding piggyback on hemp farmers’ fields? Put them in prison? You must have mighty big, elastic prisons in America.
No, hemp can never be legal as long as there’s any pretence of cannabis being a controlled substance.
How can orange and other fruit juices be exempt from laws pertaining to alcohol? There are trace amounts of ethel alcohol in them, yet even the most ardent supporter of prohibition has no problem serving orange juice to even the youngest of toddlers!