If you had told me that I’d be talking passionately about the 2012
Farm Bill on a crafting website, I would have never believed it,
but a recent proposed amendment to the monster bill could have a big
impact for green crafters by making it legal to grow hemp in the U.S.
But will it pass?
Wait….what? That’s right! It’s legal to import hemp products –
including hemp fabric and clothing – but growing hemp is illegal in the
United States. Farmers have been fighting for decades to legalize this
cash crop, and I was totally thrilled earlier this week when Raw Story
reported on a late addition to the Farm Bill that could do just
that.
What is hemp?
Hemp is kind of a wonder plant. It requires little water and
few pesticides to grow (unlike a
certain other fiber that I will not name…cough…cotton…cough). Hemp
fabric is strong and versatile. It actually gets stronger with wear and
tear, which means that when you craft with hemp you’re not only
creating something with an eco-friendly material but that your finished
product will stand the test of time.
Hemp also improves the soil where
you plant it rather than sapping its nutrients.
The trouble with hemp is that right now if you want to dye it,
sew with it, or use it at all, you have to first import it from China
or Canada. Not too great from a cost standpoint or from an
environmental one.
Not only is hemp an amazing fabric but hemp farming wouldn’t
be too shabby for our economy, either. According to Raw Story, hemp is
a $400 million industry in the U.S. now…imagine the extra revenue and
new jobs we’d create if we could actually grow the stuff here!
Legalize Hemp: The 2012 Farm Bill Amendment
The Farm Bill amendment – sponsored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow of
Michigan – sounds pretty simple. It would legalize industrial hemp
production. Clean and simple. You can’t smoke industrial hemp. Well, I
mean, I guess you could, but it wouldn’t be any fun. The cash crop
wouldn’t be sold as a drug, only for creating food, fiber, and other
hemp products for consumers.
Unfortunately, The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Wednesday that things aren’t looking
so hot for hemp legalization. Even if the amendment passes, the Obama
administration and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency are saying that
even if the bill passes with the amendment intact, they do not plan to
declassify hemp plants as a controlled substance. That means that even
if the Farm Bill says it’s OK to grow hemp, farmers risk DEA raids on
their crops, sort of like medical marijuana growers and dispensaries in
California do now.
This isn’t the first time that the DEA has squashed attempts
to legalize hemp. North Dakota began allowing hemp farming back in
2007, but the DEA put the kibbosh on that. When California tried to
launch a hemp farming pilot program late last year, pressure from the
DEA was a big reason why Governor Jerry Brown didn’t sign that program
into law.
Unfortunately, as long as hemp is stigmatized as a drug, it
looks like hemp farming in the U.S. is going to stay just out of reach.
The folks making the rules strike me as painfully ignorant about what
hemp is and what it is not. When I wrote my governor – Sonny Perdue – a
few years ago to express my support for hemp farming here in Georgia,
the response I got back could really be boiled down to, “hemp plants
look too much like pot plants.” Seriously?
Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by seabamirum
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