Hemp Industry Association VS DEA

We start off our show talking with Joy Beckerman over the phone. Joy has been part of the hemp movement for a quarter of a century and considers herself a grassroots activist. She specializes in consulting on everything Cannabis and hemp related. She was elected to the National Board of Directors for NORML, which she considers one of the greatest honors of her life after supporting the organization for over 27 years. She also sits as president of the Hemp Industries Association. She has spent years educating lawmakers and the public on industrial hemp policies. She dives right into the thick of it by explaining what is in the “Farm Bill.” As a result of Section 7606 Agricultural Act of 2014 (“Farm Bill”), we had a “seismic shift in Cannabis policy.” This bill defined two things; first, it defined industrialized hemp for the first time in U.S. history as any part of the plant, Cannabis Sativa L, that is used for industrial purposes with no more than .3% of THC on a dry weight basis. This definition ultimately distinguished hemp from marijuana. It also defined a term called Agricultural Pilot Program as the study of growth, cultivation, or marketing of industrial hemp. This is an amendment which says, institutions of higher learning and State Departments of Agriculture can now come up with rules for these agricultural pilot programs, in the states that allow the cultivation of hemp. The hemp industry is creating a market under this research umbrella, which Joy Beckerman states is a very responsible way to reintroduce hemp into the marketplace. Joy is adamant that research is the best way forward in the hemp industry, because with it comes a multitude of federal protections that come with state laws in compliance with this research bill. Two years after this bill was enacted the DEA, USDA, and the FDA came together to issue a joint statement of principles which completely butchered the legislative intent by declaring unlawful restrictions on the hemp plant. So the Hemp Industry Associations came together with lawmakers to write letters to the agencies demanding clarification on this. The DEA was protesting and pushing back on all the progress the hemp industry had made over the last couple of years. Recently, the Hemp Industry Association took the DEA to court over this in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.