The Raleigh Hemp Society made a significant step in March when the Student Senate passed the Hemp Growth and Research Act. With this bill in hand, the RHS now has leverage that it can use to show NC State administrators that the students have recognized the benefits of hemp.
The bill asks that NC State begin the process of registering with the NC Department of Agriculture to join the 19 other states (reporting on exact numbers varies) that have legalized hemp production for research in pilot programs under Section 7606 of the 2014 Farm Bill.
“[Researching hemp] is not something that NC State can do on their own, it’s something that we would have to get approved by the Department of Agriculture first,” said Zack King, president of the North Carolina Association of Student Governments who sponsored the bill.
Hemp can be used in a wide range of products from clothing and medicine to a more green alternative to concrete, but though it is legal for individual states to produce hemp for academic research, any other use of hemp still falls under the same classification with marijuana, heroin, DMT, LSD and ecstasy as part of Schedule I of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act signed into law by President Richard Nixon which still determines the actions of the DEA.
The Hemp Growth and Research Act passed without a detractor, something that does not happen often, according to King. Of the 53 voters present, 15 abstained.
Though the Senate has passed the bill, King still sees legislative action to be several years away.
“It’s more of a lobbying and ‘voice of the students’ type thing saying where we stand to promote this issue more than it is something that is going to be impactful in the next year or two just with the way the sessions are set up,” King said.
King offered to help the president of the Raleigh Hemp Society, Andrew Klein, to draft a piece of legislation to present to the Senate in January.
“I feel that any movement toward growing hemp is a great thing,” Klein said in a text. “The fact that the students are interested and making moves to get things done is exciting.”
President Barack Obama’s signing of the 2014 Farm Bill opened the door for hemp production for academic research but only if hemp is first legalized by the state.
“It’s going to take both student interest and support from faculty to convince our government to pass a bill that was in line with Section 7606 of the 2014 Farm Bill,” Klein said.
NC State’s student body carries particular weight on this issue because the university’s undergraduate agricultural and textiles programs, the programs that stand to benefit the most in terms of research grant money, are consistently listed among the best in the United States.
Gov. Pat McCrory signed the pro-hemp legislation H.B. 1220 into law last summer, which allows for the use of cannabidiol, a compound found in marijuana and considered a “hemp oil.”
However, House Bill 1220 states that the hemp extract must be acquired from “another jurisdiction.”
Other supporters of hemp legislation among NC lawmakers include Congressman Walter B. Jones, who has sponsored a bipartisan bill to remove federal restrictions on the domestic cultivation of industrial hemp, and Congressman David Price who voted for the final passage of the 2014 Farm Bill and supported a later appropriations bill prohibiting the DEA from taking enforcement activity in contravention to the Farm Bill provisions.
