It easily slipped past national attention as an inevitable government shutdown dominated coverage, but for the first time since the 1940s, farmers can cultivate hemp as a crop.
The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, known as the Farm Bill, was approved in Congress with bipartisan support and signed into law by President Trump in late December. It codified a process by which states can seek approval from the federal Department of Agriculture for hemp crops and selling hemp-derived products. The law also removed hemp from the Controlled Substances Act.
The one catch: Any hemp yield must contain less than a miniscule 0.3 percent concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound that gives marijuana its mood-altering effect.
“The lifting of the federal ban on non-psychoactive hemp is a concrete sign that the ‘reefer madness’ which first led to its criminalization is finally coming to an end,” says Aaron Smith, executive director of the...