There were less than 10,000 acres of industrial hemp grown throughout the entire United States last year. It will be National Hemp’s position to increase this number exponentially. In order to seed the budding hemp industries, National Hemp will not only seek to increase domestic production and sales but will establish relationships with hemp producing countries throughout the world to bring the wide variety of raw and manufactured products to US consumers. Currently, shipping is costly and prohibitive for individual entities to import enough volume to reach scale. National Hemp will consolidate demand to be able to purchase in volume. Domestic production is much preferred but until political barriers are removed, supply will be found wherever it can be. National Hemp intends to prove the demand and provide the economic political pressure to lawmakers to lessen restrictions on existing hemp markets and to allow new ones to be created.
Current Federal Policy:
The 2018 Federal Farm Bill is currently in Conference Committee in Congress. It is expected to pass near the end of September and includes substantial changes in industrial hemp law. It will effectively take industrial hemp off of the national schedule of dangerous substances, ending the national prohibition on cannabis plants containing .3% THC or less.
Current Policy according to the 2014 Farm Bill is as follows:
“Notwithstanding the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (20 U.S.C. 7101 et seq.), chapter 81 of title 41, United States Code, or any other Federal law, an institution of higher education (as defined in section 101 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001)) or a State department of agriculture may grow or cultivate hemp…”
Here is a quick start to legislation involving hemp. Library of Congress
Florida Policy:
Currently the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) has completed its rule making for Florida State 1004.4473 The most recent draft of those rules that will eventually become 5B-57.013 Industrial Hemp Planting Permits are found here. For the most part the FDACS is treating this like any other crop that might want to be introduced. The rules are pretty standard and consistent with other plant restrictions and research. That means that most of the policy for this research will be developed by the Board of Trustees for each of the land grant universities. Those would be the University of Florida and Florida A&M University. Each school will develop their own set of rules and requirements for partnership in industrial hemp research.
You can track the Florida House of Representatives here. You can track The Florida Senate here.
Other States:
From UMASS Industrial Hemp Initiative:
