What's Up With Hemp Farms...

 Citygirl has a degree in Hotel and Restauran Management from Cornell. That has led her down a variety of different paths since, but all have had at least an undertone of social justice. She has kept contact with a number of her Cornell friends.  Among yesterday's adventures, she caught up with her friend Karlie, who has a good sized farm. She and her business partners grow vegetables, serving over 400 families via farm shares. They have also been part of New York State's pilot program to grow hemp since its inception in 2015.

Hemp is an utterly harmless plant surrounded by a rediculous amount of historical controversy. Genetically related to marijuana, and able to produce small amounts of THC, the plant was criminalized along with marijuana years ago.  Other countries continued to grow it, producing paper, cloth, building materials, and rope (among other things) Hemp- WIkipedia.  Hemp is NOT marijuana. You could smoke it all day long and not get high.

Allowing farmers to grow hemp has allowed for a new cash crop. Hemp grows faster than any other plant, and uses a lot of carbon dioxide as it grows, helping to offset climate change. It is a source of CBD oil, used for pain management, anxiety, and other medical purposes.

A week ago, NYS hemp farmers were given less than 2 months notice that NY was not going to renew the pilot program, and that legislative supervision of hemp farming would fall to the federal governement.  That would be grand except that hemp remains illegal federally, and getting the necessary paperwork in place to continue farming just went from challenging (Okay, lets work with the State government) to nearly impossible (Let's chat with the Feds.). This is a financial disaster for the farmers. It also hits the CBD extractors, because it also puts them under federal rather than state control as well.  It also clearly demonstrates that no one in government understands farming even a little bit.  You cannot expect any farm to entirely change its game plan in the 2 months immediately before the harvest of its main crop.

As a pain management physician whose patients are using CBD as an alternative to opioids with some degree of success, I have to say that this is rediculously short-sighted. Adding layers of expensive legislative hoops to this process will only deter new hemp farmers, and likely make established farmers drop out. The farmers lose, the economy loses, the patients lose....who wins exactly?

Anyone who has a moment free (and hey, COVID leaves us time, right?), drop a note to your state representative and ask them to support your local hemp farmers. 

DeeDee