Colorado Legislature Nullifies the Federal Ban on Hemp

Colorado’s Industrial Hemp Bill (SB13-241) passed the last legislative hurdle as the State Senate concurred with the State House’s minor Amendments. The bill now moves to the Governor Hickenlooper’s desk for his signature.

If the bill becomes law, Colorado will nullify unconstitutional federal laws and regulations which ban farmers from growing this remarkable product. Currently, the United States is the world’s largest importer of Hemp (with China and Canada the top two exporters in the world), and the Colorado legislature wants their citizens to be allowed to participate and profit in this market.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to ban the production of this industrial plant, but has persisted in preventing its domestic production.  The result?  Products with hemp that are readily available at your local grocery store must be imported from another country – resulting in higher costs for you and fewer farming jobs in America.

The United States is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop, according to the Congressional Resource Service.  Recent congressional research indicates that the hemp market consists of over 25,000 various products. The same research found that America imports over $400 million worth of hemp from other countries.  At this time of economic difficulty, 13-241 would not only expand freedom and support the Constitution, it would also be a great jobs bill.

With the passage of Amendment 64, which legalized small amounts of marijuana for adults, hemp was removed from the state’s controlled substances list, though a provision of the initiative states that that hemp cultivation is contingent on legislative action – this bill would be that required action necessary to legalize hemp and authorize the state to begin distributing hemp licenses.Under the proposal farmers would have the option of applying for a 10-acre plot in order to study the viability of various hemp varieties, or they could apply for a larger, full-scale hemp farm - one that wouldn’t be limited by the number of plants, but rather by the THC content in said plants.

Bills like this one would be a boon to a troubling economy by creating jobs here instead of sending money to countries like China and Canada. Also, the public will also benefit by seeing lower prices on products that use hemp. This is yet another example where liberty actually breeds economic growth when government often impedes it.

Since the enactment of the unconstitutional federal controlled-substances act in 1970, the Drug Enforcement Agency has prevented the production of hemp within the United States. Many hemp supporters feel that the DEA has been used as an “attack dog” of sorts to prevent competition with major industries where American-grown hemp products would create serious market competition: Cotton, Paper/Lumber, Oil, and others.

The bill passed unanimously in the House and by a vote of 34-1 in the State Senate

ACTION ITEMS

If you live in Colorado, contact Governor Hickenlooper’s office and encourage him to sign the bill into law. His number: (303) 866-2471.

If you live elsewhere, contact and encourage your state representative to introduce the Hemp Freedom Act: http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/legislation/hemp-freedom-act/