The industrially useful marijuana relative has been banned for decades, but Colorado has opened the door to legal farming again.

By Bruce Kennedy Wed 7:30 AM

In a quiet corner of southeastern Colorado, planting season is under way as usual — except the plant that Springfield farmer Ryan Loflin is working on hasn’t been grown commercially in the U.S. in decades.On Monday, Loflin planted America’s first industrial hemp crop since around the Eisenhower administration. According to the Denver Post, Loflin is using 60 acres previously reserved for alfalfa to cultivate the test plots, and with a partner he’s installing a seed press to produce hemp oil.

 

Hemp comes from the same plant family as marijuana, but it contains just trace amounts of the psychoactive chemical THC that gives marijuana its potency. Still, it’s difficult to tell the difference visually between marijuana and hemp, and the federal government has classified both plants as controlled substances.

 

Hemp has been cultivated for thousands of years, and its modern advocates tout it as a wonder plant that can be readily made into paper, textiles and a variety of oils and food products.

 

Hemp is also legal and grown as a crop in many countries, including Canada and the U.K. In fact, according to a 2005 Congressional Research Service report, the U.S. “is the only developed nation in which industrial hemp is not an established crop.”

 

And hemp consumption, through foods, oils, soaps, lotions and clothing, is growing. The Hemp Industries Association estimates retail sales of hemp food and body care products in the U.S. reached a record $156 million last year. And according to an HIA review of clothing, auto parts, building materials and other products, the overall total retail value of hemp products sold in the U.S. in 2012 came to about $500 million.

 

“As the hemp market grows and Canadian farmers increase their hemp acreage to meet demand,” HIA Executive Director Eric Steenstra said in a press statement, “U.S. farmers’ frustration at being shut out of the lucrative worldwide hemp market is catalyzing real movement throughout all levels of government to legalize industrial hemp.”

 

Colorado allowed the growing of hemp and marijuana under laws enacted last November — and the group Vote Hemp says at least nine states have introduced legislation to remove barriers to hemp production. Eight others have passed bills to study hemp.

 

Just last week, Kentucky Agricultural Commissioner James Comer was in Washington, D.C., talking with both administration officials and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, about legalizing industrial hemp.

 

“I just think if more and more people studied this issue, they would realize this is a no-brainer,” Comer told Politico. A Republican who sees hemp as an economic opportunity for his state, Comer added, “This is a way to create jobs.”