Lawmakers backing hemp production try to separate it from pot in public’s eye
Marijuana’s cousin-without-a-high, industrial hemp, is a step closer to returning to Indiana. Lawmakers have allowed the state seed commissioner to license farmers to grow industrial hemp — if and when the federal government stops treating it like a Schedule I drug. A measure authored by Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Jean Leising, R-Oldenburg, was requested by Purdue University researchers who last summer planted the state’s first legal hemp crop in decades. Purdue researchers foresee Congress ending a federal ban on hemp production in the United States within the next year.
March 2016 – Issue 43