In our polarized political climate, most major policy proposals are instantly rebuked by the other party for political gain regardless of merit or how the policy fits with the opposing party’s ideology. Think of the Republican party’s about-face on market-based healthcare reform, including the individual mandate that forms the core of Obamacare—an idea originally proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
So it’s refreshing that—after top Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, flirted with the idea of reducing marijuana-related incarceration and completely legalizing the production of hemp—Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has come out in favor of allowing the production of hemp in the United States.
The distinction between marijuana and hemp is the former refers to a strain of the plant prized by pot enthusiasts for its high THC content, which gives it the “feel-good
sensation, while the latter has minimal THC and has applications from textiles to paper to food.
Now I don’t want to give the senator too much credit—McConnell will forever be hopeless in his continued support of the failed prohibition of marijuana. But any policy that legalizes something that so obviously should be legal is something to be celebrated.
While I understand how people could have reservations about marijuana and the drug trade that led them to support marijuana prohibition, there is absolutely no reasonable argument to support the illegality of hemp production.
Several law enforcement groups in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky oppose legalizing the growing of hemp because they claim they’d have trouble distinguishing industrial hemp from cannabis grown for marijuana.
Of course, they’re not any paragon of efficiency right now. Though it’s impossible to pin down with any precision how much of the pot trade is intercepted by law enforcement, the most wildly optimistic, propagandist estimate is around 10%. It’s hard to imagine what it would look like for law enforcement to flounder even more. It’s even harder to justify preventing productive economic activity in the name of a misconceived war on drugs that has never been anything more than a lost cause.
So what is the rationale for the illegality of manufacturing hemp? The answer is that a minuscule amount of THC is present. And as THC is classified as a Schedule I drug, anything containing it is illegal to possess or produce. That tiny amount of THC—a small fraction of the amount found in marijuana cultivated for recreational and medicinal use and far too low in concentration to have any effectiveness—dominates the economic and public health benefits of the rest of the plant.
And the benefits of hemp are nothing to scoff at. Hemp uses minimal water and pesticides and fixes nitrogen from the air, adding nutrients to the soil. The fiber can be used to make paper or textiles and the seed is one of few plant-based sources of omega-3 fatty acids.
Here’s the kicker: All of these products are produced in Canada and imported into the U.S. This leaves American farmers to grow only soil depleting, water-intensive crops like soy and corn that require copious amounts of toxic pesticides.
The European Union recognizes the advantages of hemp and subsidizes its production. Meanwhile, the United States subsidizes corn–a low quality food strongly linked to our nation’s obesity epidemic—and prohibits growing nutritious hemp.
The illegality of hemp production doesn’t just prevent good, productive activity from happening. It also makes us lose faith in our government. How can we trust our government to act rationally on healthcare or any other concern when it maintains policy that’s so obviously misguided and pointless?
Our government’s ridiculous prohibition of hemp production is maddening. It’s almost enough to make a person disavow the government, slap teabags on a hat, and go to a Glenn Beck rally.
Don’t make me do that. Let’s legalize the production of hemp.
What do you think about hemp? Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
