Woo Hoo!! The Hemp Bill Passed the CA State Leg.!

[Le Taz Hot]

:woohoo:

It passed the Assembly on the 7th (49 to 22 -- my "Dem" Assemblyperson abstained :eyes:) and it passed the state Senate last night (26 to 13 -- my Republican Senator voted "yes.").

http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/billtrack/vote.html?bill=201120120SB676&vdt=2011-09-08+19%3A12%3A00&vds=1096

Now to Brown's desk for his signature. Let's see if he does the right thing or if he sucumbs to party pressure. There is no, and I mean NO excuse for vetoing this, especially as broke as we are. We'll see.

--------

Edit to add:

"Governor Can Help California Economy, Farmers and the Environment by Signing New Industrial Hemp Farming Bill"

<skip>

“California is one step closer to building a successful hemp industry in the Central Valley,” said Senator Mark Leno, following news on September 7 that the Assembly approved the legislation in a vote of 49-22. The legislation allows California farmers to grow industrial hemp for the legal sale of seed, oil and fiber to manufacturers. The Senate approved the bill last night in a concurrence vote of 26-13, making the next stop, Governor Jerry Brown’s desk.

Introduced by Senator Mark Leno earlier this year, SB 676 would create an 8-year pilot program to allow industrial hemp farming in four California counties: Kern, Kings, Imperial, and San Joaquin. This is the third time in ten years that the California legislature has passed a hemp farming bill. However, SB 676 is further refined than previous bills and has significant support from businesses, farming groups, local governments, labor unions, and even law enforcement.

Strong support for the bill has come from Kings County Sheriff David Robinson who wrote in a letter to Senator Leno: “I strongly support this important step in giving our farmers another crop option and another economic opportunity, to help create jobs during these difficult economic times.” Letters of support from the Kings and Kern County Sheriffs, as well as the Kings County Board of Supervisors who voted unanimously to support the bill, can be viewed at: http://votehemp.com/letters

<more>

http://www.globalhemp.com/2011/09/governor-can-help-california-economy-farmers-and-the-environment-by-signing-new-industrial-hemp-farming-bill.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=governor-can-help-california-economy-farmers-and-the-environment-by-signing-new-industrial-hemp-farming-bill

[Mimosa]

1. The fibers make good fabric

This bill will help CA's economy. I wonder if Holder's DoJ will challenge it.

[Le Taz Hot]

2. Right now I'm just worried

about Brown signing it. Fingers crossed.

[glowing]

3. One cannot get high from hemp... In fact no one who grows

marijuana wants hemp anywhere near their marijuana plants. Hemp would ruin them. Stupid not to grown hemp... Shoot its stupid to ban marijuana too... but that's a whole other category of stupid.

[joshcryer]

4. Hemp leaves are 25% THC, there has been no significant agricultural research or hybrid breeding...

...of industrial hemp. You can get to high potency hemp by simply growing it so that it produces no seeds.

Hemp needs to undergo research to exploit the high nutritional and oil value of the seeds. Like maize (corn) once we find a proper hybrid that is the best of all worlds, we'll be growing the hell out of it. That research has been effectively banned for decades.

I personally think there's a lot of potential for a kenaf-hemp hybrid.

[Fly by night]

6. WHAT have you been smoking?

Very few strains of medical cannabis produce buds that would assay at 25% THC. NONE of them would produce leaves (except perhaps the sugar leaf around the buds) that would assay at a fraction of 25% THC.

Dried female hemp flowers contain < 1% THC. The leaves contain a fraction of that. Growing nonpsychoactive hemp without pollination would still produce non-pychoactive buds, unless you are willing to smoke tons of it at a time.

I agree with the poster above that allowing commercial production of hemp will greatly impact (in a negative way) the outdoor production of medical cannabis anywhere in the area. It will also negatively impact indoor medical cannabis production without significant air filtration to remove hemp pollen that can travel hundreds of miles with the prevailing wind.

Having said that, I still favor the California bill. Limiting production to four counties in the Central Valley should minimize the impact of inductrial hemp on most upwind medical cannabis production in California, though it will impact mmj production in Nevada and other downwind states.

K&R

[Fly by night]

8. I meant to say...

I waited too long to edit my earlier post. This sentence:

"NONE of them would produce leaves (except perhaps the sugar leaf around the buds) that would assay at a fraction of 25% THC."

should read:

"ALL of them would produce leaves (except perhaps the sugar leaf around the buds) that would assay at a fraction of 25% THC."

Sorry about that. Wish I could blame my earlier mistake on having waked and baked this morning, but alas ...

Now back to the Garden.

[Le Taz Hot]

7. 25%????

The highest grade BUD is around 25%. Hemp leaves are between 0.05 and 1%.

Here are the facts:

*Industrial hemp has a THC content of between 0.05 and 1%. Marijuana has a THC content of 3% to 20%. To receive a standard psychoactive dose would require a person to power-smoke 10-12 hemp cigarettes over an extremely short period of time. The large volume and high temperature of vapor, gas and smoke would be almost impossible for a person to withstand.

http://naihc.org/hemp_information/hemp_facts.html

[Le Taz Hot]

9. Yeah, I need to do a correction too.

Instead of

"Hemp leaves are between 0.05 and 1%."

Should read:

Industrial hemp is between 0.05 and 1% (THC).

[glowing]

16. which means that its ridiculous to say it shouldn't be produced and used

Do you know how valuable hemp is? You can make paint out of it... vibrant colors without chemicals. You can use as paper products.. its a weed, no tree destroyed (the declaration is on hemp paper I believe). Back in the day it was a national crop. People had to grow it. It was patriotic. Shoot using hemp to make clothing rather than cotton is one of the best things for the ecosystem. Less water, less special needs, and the fiber lasts longer than cotton ever could think about. People, as long as they don't grow too fat, can wear hemp pants for years and years, and they last.

Because we don't produce hemp in this country, getting "hemp" product is currently expensive. Having an available American source, opens up a whole new cash crop to our country.

[joshcryer]

20. I like it for its nutritional value alone, it's a really great plant.

I would love to do some kenaf-hemp experiments but I dunno about the legality of that (OK, I do know about the legality of that, so I'll stick to kenaf).

[joshcryer]

19. I tried to find that number for 25% but I can't, I'm not sure where I read it. I stand corrected.

Sorry for the misinformation, but I still don't believe hemp in its current state is really as great as it could be with good old hybridization. If the THC growers can make it so that buds are freaking excreting "THC crystals" then the opposite should be possible, whole hemp seeds void of THC that are as big as grapes, etc.

As far as cross pollination, oh well. Legalized marijuana will mean corporations growing the stuff anyway, probably with lots of synthetics, etc. I knew a guy who was actually a big smoker who was opposed to legalization for that reason. :)

I knew another guy who actually made $10k for sitting on his ass letting weed grow in his backyard, while his elderly mom tended it (she knew what it was but as far as I know she didn't get any profits).

[Fly by night]

23. Re: "Legalized marijuana will mean corporations growing the stuff ..."

Er, no.

Medical cannabis has been legal in California since 1996 and is now legal in 16 states and the DC. NONE of those states have large corporations growing and selling medical cannabis, though they certainly could. (Some of them have large grow ops and overpriced dispensaries making their owners millions BUT none of them are employees of large corporations.)

Likewise, Canada, Portugal, the Netherlands and other countries have some variation of medical marijuana programs and NONE of them involve large corporations. Even GW Pharmaceuticals, which is producing an oral spray of whole-plant cannabis in Great Britain, is a very small company (now).

Here in Tennessee, our proposed Safe Access to Medical Cannabis act restricted the size of grow ops by our licensed producers. There are many ways to control production, but the practicalities of producing top-drawer medical cannabis will probably work to help restrict the size of production operations in our state and elsewhere.

[joshcryer]

25. Yeah, it's currently illegal at the federal and highly regulated at the state level.

Delegalize it completely, make it recreational as opposed to medical, and think the tobacco companies among others will be going nuts to exploit the drug to their highest potential. I can even imagine them patenting a GMO variant and then suing coops out of existence for using their patented marijuana genes.

[Fly by night]

26. I don't know what "delegalize" means. Few are calling for unregulated cannabis.

Virtually no one who is trying to eliminate pot prohibition is calling for a laissez faire approach. "Tax and regulate" are the key words in evey state initiative to remove criminal penalties for cannabis use and production/distribution that I am aware of.

You keep talking about tobacco. It is highly taxed and has been regulated for forever (e.g., no underage sales). In fact, regulations re: tobacco are increasing rather than diminishing. It has also become so uneconomical to grow that most US tobacco farmers quit growing years ago.

No one knows what the future would bring if we changed our cannabis laws. As for me, I predict an outbreak of science, common sense, compassion AND legal smiles; and the slow strangulation of the police state propped up by this insane war on some drugs.

[cui bono]

5. KnR

[Le Taz Hot]

10. One last kick

before this hits oblivion. :hi:

[xmas74]

11. Won't let it hit oblivion quite yet,

at least at 9:10 am Central time.

Will also pass on article to friends outside of DU.

[Fly by night]

12. Another kick for science, common sense and nonpsychoactive hemp farmers.

And my continuing thanks to mmj growers for keeping on keeping on.

[ensho]

13. kick

nt

[EFerrari]

14. Kick

[Harry J Asslinger]

15. A kick for the versatile hemp

And all the good it can bring.

[hunter]

17. I'd pay extra for California grown hemp clothing.

Replacing the ag-chemical intensive California cotton crop with hemp would be a good thing too.

[B Calm]

18. Hemp still grows wild here in Indiana. I can take you down a section of RT 14

where it's growing on both sides of the road. You'd think you were travelling through the pages of High Times magazine. Right now they're all starting to grow big tops and flowering out.

[Shagbark Hickory]

21. It's actually become an invasive species. It's not a native plant.

[B Calm]

24. Yeah, it's hard to kill off. The plants I see everyday are as tall as eight feet or even more.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

22. Yay! Great news!

C'mon, Jerry!

Sign it, OK?

Recommended.

[mdmc]

27. ..