{"id":8581,"date":"2018-12-14T00:19:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T00:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/?p=3299396"},"modified":"2018-12-14T00:19:09","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T00:19:09","slug":"legislators-hemp-advocates-say-farm-bill-is-a-boon-for-colorados-growing-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/legislators-hemp-advocates-say-farm-bill-is-a-boon-for-colorados-growing-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislators, hemp advocates say farm bill is a boon for Colorado\u2019s growing industry"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/legislators-hemp-advocates-say-farm-bill-is-a-boon-for-colorados-growing-industry\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<div><img src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/legislators-hemp-advocates-say-farm-bill-is-a-boon-for-colorados-growing-industry.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>State legislators joined business owners and advocates of Colorado\u2019s hemp industry Thursday to mark the passing of the new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2018\/12\/12\/new-farm-bill-impact-on-colorado-farmers\/\">federal farm bill\u00a0<\/a> that legalizes hemp, a move they called long overdue.<\/p>\n<p>The bill, which cleared Congress on Wednesday, is awaiting President Donald Trump\u2019s signature. The bill shifts hemp, which has negligible amounts of the psychoactive ingredient of its cousin cannabis, from classification as a controlled substance to a crop regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, states and tribes.<\/p>\n<p>State Sen. Kerry Donovan, D-Vail, said during a news conference that the shift will move Colorado from playing defense to ensure that the state and hemp producers don\u2019t run afoul of the law to being proactive and creative.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can look at how we take an industry that\u2019s just sprouting and expand it to more rural communities,\u201d Donovan said.<\/p>\n<p>The federal farm bill approved in 2014 opened the door to the legal growth of hemp, allowing cultivation for research purposes and allowing states to permit\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2018\/11\/20\/hemp-taking-off-as-viable-product-and-colorado-entrepreneurs-at-the-forefront-of-industry\/\">\u201cpilot programs.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0But hemp remained a Schedule 1 drug along with heroin and ecstasy, the Drug Enforcement Administration\u2019s highest classification.<\/p>\n<p>If the farm bill becomes law, the USDA will approve federal standards during the next year. States and tribes can adopt the federal standards or develop their own, as long as they are at least as strong as the federal regulations.<\/p>\n<p>Members of the hemp industry and advocacy organizations said Colorado is a leader nationally, accounting for about half the country\u2019s hemp production. Nearly 31,000 acres of hemp are registered with the state, according to\u00a0the Colorado Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a great opportunity for folks out there looking for a product,\u201d Nick Levendofsky, director of external affairs for the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, said Wednesday of the hemp provision.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the hemp in food and other products now sold in the U.S. is imported from other countries, including China and parts of Europe. The legalization of hemp will give U.S. farmers the opportunity to meet the growing demand for products, said Corey Cox, an attorney with the\u00a0Vicente Sederberg law firm, which specializes in marijuana and hemp issues.<\/p>\n<p>An important area of potential growth is in medicinal products. Cannabidiol, or CBD oil, is extracted from hemp seeds and is used in pills, infused lotions and other over-the-counter products.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRemoving the DEA from the equation will allow for a lot more commercial activity, experiments with new products and a lot more research,\u201d Cox said.<\/p>\n<p>Jesse Claeys, spokesman for\u00a0 New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, toasted to that prospect with a bottle of the brewery\u2019s Hemperor HPA, a new style of India Pale Ale. He said the brew was born after the company was approached by farmers who thought the aroma and taste of\u00a0 the hemp they were growing would make a good, new ale. New Belguim couldn\u2019t use the entire plant, but recreated the flavors in the beer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHemp, hemp hooray!\u201d said Claeys, raising a bottle of the beer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis really is a historic moment for the hemp industry,\u201d said Shawn Hauser, an attorney with Vicente Sederberg.<\/p>\n<p>Colorado already has robust hemp regulations and during the next year, while the USDA develops its standards, the state will be able to shape the best policies to comply with the federal regulations, Hauser said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we, as Coloradans, have a significant head start as we look at how to conform our state process to the new federal law,\u201d\u00a0said state\u00a0Rep. Dylan Roberts, D-Avon, chairman of the House Rural Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related right\" \/>\n<p>Hemp has been an agricultural product for several centuries and was one of the first plants to be used for fiber. After passage of the\u00a0Controlled Substances Act of 1970, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehia.org\/History\">hemp<\/a> was no longer officially recognized as distinct from marijuana, according to the Hemp Industries Association.<\/p>\n<p>In Colorado, hemp, a plant in the cannabis family, cannot have more than 0.3 percent of\u00a0tetrahydrocannabinol \u2014 THC \u2014\u00a0 the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. The standard was specified in the state constitution, but voters in November approved putting it into a statute so it can be changed by lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p>That was a good move for Colorado\u2019s hemp industry, Cox said, because it will be easier for the state to change its standard if the federal government makes a change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<p>State legislators and advocates of Colorado&#8217;s hemp industry say a provision in the new farm bill that legalizes hemp will be a boon for the state&#8217;s already thriving hemp industry. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5062,531,52,330,6969,6811,6857,233,1547,6970,5452,55,2383,6813,4995,77,9,6855,5019,441,8035,1,3,7309,61,1736],"tags":[5063,3105,2632,2908,6971,6816,6859,2811,4115,6972,5458,2635,4947,6818,4996,2655,6856,5022,3015,8036,7312],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}