Industrial hemp and it’s blossoming future in Texas is a popular topic these days, admits Joshua McGinty, AgriLife crops expert.

“There’s a lot of people who show up for and against hemp production,” said McGinty, an assistant professor and extension agronomist at Texas A&M. “But either way, they show up – and pay attention.”

At 7 a.m. Wednesday, McGinty will offer his presentation “Current Legal Status and Possible Hemp Production in Texas” at the Victoria Community Center, 2905 E. North St.

Since Texas hemp production was made legal as of Sept. 1, many South Texas farmers have wondered whether the controversial crop is also profitable.

“It tends to boost attendance wherever we go with that,” said McGinty, who has already given at least several presentations about hemp growing.

Industrial hemp is the agricultural cultivation of strains within the Cannabis sativa species, which also includes marijuana.

But unlike marijuana, hemp is defined as containing less than 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, a chemical that can intoxicate when ingested.

Industrial hemp, McGinty said, is used primarily in three ways.

Its fibers can be fashioned into textiles; its seeds can be used for cooking, livestock feed and other applications; and cannabidiol or CBD, a nonintoxicating chemical it produces, can be harvested and administered to treat all sorts of ailments from insomnia to anxiety to chronic pain.

While there soon may be money to be made, the market for industrial hemp is still uncertain in Texas, particularly with those centered on hemp seeds, McGinty said.

That’s in part because while hemp production may be technically legal, a lack of regulations effectively mean the plant cannot yet be cultivated in Texas, he said.

”You can’t actually grow it until the Texas Department of Agriculture puts in place the regulations around it,” McGinty said.

Those guidelines are expected to be implemented as early as spring 2020, he said.

Also still to be determined, he said, are the best methods and approaches to growing industrial hemp in South Texas.

Looking to Oklahoma as an example, McGinty said Texas agricultural officials may establish unique requirements for hemp, such as field inspections just before harvest.

With hemp and marijuana so closely related, farmers of the legal plant might accidentally harvest a plant bearing an illegal percentage of THC.

That’s why farmers should be wary of some environmental effects and the importance of picking the right hemp strain, he said.

But most of all, he said, farmers should be aware of the law, which McGinty said he will explain.

“By far the most important thing is where we are at legally. There’s a lot of people gearing up for hemp in Texas, but you need to pump the brakes a little bit until we have a set of regulations to work off of,” he said.

A lot of the focus when it comes to news about cannabis naturally goes to the states that have legalized adult-use and medical marijuana. But it’s important to remember that more than a dozen states in the U.S. still don’t have anything approaching a decent medical cannabis program.

One of those states is my home state of Kentucky. Progress toward medical marijuana in the Bluegrass State has been sporadic and painfully slow. Earlier this year, a bill made it out of a committee in the Kentucky House of Representatives, but went no further.

So, next year activists and advocates from all over the state will descend on Frankfort to do it all again. And with things progressing more each year, there is a lot to be optimistic about going into 2020. “Our odds are improving. Citizens are speaking about cannabis more & more which in turn is making our legislators feel more comfortable,” Jaime Montalvo, founder of Kentuckians for Medical Marijuana, told The Marijuana Times.

“We’re fortunate to have a tenacious fighter like Representative Jason Nemes in the House. He and Rep Diane St. Onge worked their caucus hard to gather 53 Co-sponsors & 65 yes votes during the 2019 session. That’s over half the representatives sponsoring the bill, and over 2/3rds that say they’ll vote yes. 

“Hopefully 2020 will give legislators the courage to move medical cannabis legislation forward in Kentucky.”

Next month Kentucky voters will go to the polls to decide who will be governor. Both current Governor Matt Bevin (R) and his Democratic challenger – Andy Beshear – have expressed support for medical cannabis, although Beshear has said it’s something he would like to see on a statewide ballot.

So what it all really comes down to is the Kentucky General Assembly. If you live in the state make sure you find and contact your legislator and make sure they know you support medical marijuana. Besides the Internet, there are also mail and phone options available for contacting your state reps.

Kentucky has emerged as a nationwide leader when it comes to industrial hemp, but there is still a long way to go for hemp’s medicinal cousin in the Bluegrass. And although hemp’s very powerful champion – Kentucky Senator and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) – seems to be aware of broader cannabis issues, there is nothing to suggest he would intervene on behalf of medical marijuana patients in Kentucky and throw some clout around in the statehouse.

So it’s up to us, the people of Kentucky, to seize the momentum and get medical marijuana across the finish line in 2020.

Farmers harvesting the first batch of legal hemp Friday said they could be looking at Michigan’s next big cash crop.

For the first time, nearly 600 farmers are harvesting legal hemp across the state. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development issued the first industrial hemp licenses to farmers earlier this year, allowing local entrepreneurs to enter the market for hemp-infused healthcare products -- promoted as a treatment for headaches, chronic pain and anxiety -- that consumers are finding everywhere from retail storefronts to shelves in Family Video stores.

Hemp is a fast-growing strain of cannabis with extremely low levels of THC, which means users can experience therapeutic benefits without getting high. The crop also has environmental benefits; it takes less water, is naturally resistant to pests and can be introduced into rotations with other cash crops like corn and soybeans to clean pollutants from the soil.

“The de-stigmatization is a big part of building this supply chain, understanding there is a lot of opportunities economically for framers, theres a lot of benefits to consumers," said Andrew Blake, co-owner of Blake’s Hard Cider and manager of the family cider mill. "There’s also probably some benefits touted out there that isn’t correct that we need to educate and understand. Getting the scientific community behind it and studies done, all of that is important as we try to build this out.

Stakeholders in Kinder Products Unlimited, a new business venture launched in partnership with Blake’s Orchard & Cider Mill, celebrated the harvest of seven acres of industrial hemp Friday in Armada. In addition to an indoor greenhouse operation, three acres were planted at a remote outdoor location removed from the orchard’s public fairgrounds to test how well the crop would fare on Michigan farmland.

Blake has plans to plant 20-50 acres of hemp next season. He partnered with childhood friend and attorney Gino Roncelli and cousin Rebecca Blake to launch the new band, which manufactures and sells CBD-infused products using Michigan-grown hemp.

Hemp is used a variety of commercial and industrial goods, but Michigan consumers are most familiar with ingestible products. Roncelli said hemp stalks and stems can be used to create various fibers and textiles, though those goods are several years away due to a lack of any regional production facilities.

“There’s probably not a great use for it at this moment,” Roncelli said. “There should be though, and someone is going to take that opportunity and use it.”

Blake represents the third generation of his family to farm in Armada since his grandfather opened a cider mill in 1946. The operation expanded significantly in the last 73 years and now includes 880-acres of farmland, a sprawling fairground packed with popular fall attractions, a tasting room and production facility for wine and hard cider products Blake launched in 2013 after returning to the family business.

Blake’s Hard Cider is the largest producer of alcoholic cider in the Midwest and 15th-largest in the U.S. From The business on track to sell 300,000 cases this year, all created in a 40,000-square-foot production facility behind its Armada tasting room.

Much of the infrastructure is already in place to begin producing CBD-infused teas, which is key to Blake’s vision for keeping the business vertically-integrated. Blake said the foray into CBD-infused products is a natural extension of his family’s self-reliant entrepreneurial spirit.

Hemp-based self-care products like oils, ointments, facial creams, bath bombs, gummies and even dog treats are already available on Kinder’s online marketplace and the farm’s retail outlets. Four flavors of canned CBD-infused teas will be available later this year, pending FDA approval.

Roncelli said the Michigan hemp market is expected to rapidly expand in the coming years and could replace soybean crops. The alternative crop could be especially for farmers who struggled with the effects of flooding and an ongoing trade fight with China which cut exports of Michigan agricultural commodities like soybeans.

One acre with 1,200 hemp plants can yield roughly $20,000 worth of crops -- a figure that blows other cash crops out of the water -- but Blake said the value will likely drop as other farmers begin planting their own crop.

“This is all very exploratory, but we’re all very excited about the opportunity,” Blake said. “As more people get comfortable and understand what it is and isn’t, we hope to be the educating piece.”

Free cannabis came before legal cannabis. Gifting joints or edibles to sick people who, being sick, couldn’t afford to buy — and couldn’t find relief anyway else besides someone else’s compassion — was central to the ethos of the early marijuana legalization pioneers.

And free weed for some was a boss three-dimensional chess move: busting a career waitress in her 60s known for handing out weed brownies to dying AIDS patients was, for the prohibitionist establishment and for law enforcement, almost as bad a look as busting a pot dealer with a lover dying of the same disease.

This is how medical marijuana became a thing, and providing space for sick and disabled people to come and smoke weed — weed quite often given to them, poor people on fixed incomes — is how retail cannabis stores began. And so one “funny” thing about legal, recreational commercial cannabis was that it made free cannabis illegal, or at least cost-prohibitive.

Charging tax on medicine given away for free was one reason why Dennis Peron, the aforementioned healer-dealer, opposed 2016’s Adult Use of Marijuana Act 20 years after being central to the passage of the country’s first medical-marijuana law, 1996’s Compassionate Use Act. Once legalization kicked in, giving free cannabis to the indigent and ill — a practice known as “compassion” — without paying tax on the “sale” became an outlawed act (although compassion was already on its way out in an increasingly commercial medical-marijuana industry).

Almost three years after voters approved legalization, lawmakers have re-legalized compassion. Earlier this week, among other cannabis-friendly bills passed by the state Legislature, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary Act (the latter is the aforementioned brownie-provider). Sponsored by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the bill allows cannabis providers to gift certain products away to certain people without paying California cultivation and excise taxes, which can exceed 25%.

The California cannabis industry has been clamoring for tax relief since before the first legal gram was sold. High tax burdens are seen by many as the chief driver behind high prices at legal dispensaries — where $20 grams and $75 or $80 eighths are not uncommon — and why California’s underground cannabis economy is still estimated at four times (or more) the size of its legal weed marketplace.

But the Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary Act is more a throwback to those bygone outlaw days. Various cannabis compassion programs, including the Sweetleaf Collective, which still doles out cannabis to AIDS and HIV sufferers in San Francisco, and Operation EVAC, which provides the same to military veterans with PTSD and other afflictions, are now re-legalized. And, the hope goes, there’s now encouragement for more, similar programs.

“For decades, compassion programs have played a critical role in helping low income people with serious medical conditions access their medicine,” Wiener said, according to High Times. “Access to medical cannabis has allowed so many people living with HIV, cancer, PTSD, and other health conditions to survive and thrive. Taxing programs that give away free medical cannabis, and thus have no revenue, makes no sense and has caused far too many of these programs to close. SB 34 will allow compassionate care programs to survive and serve those in need. Many people will be healthier as a result of today’s action by the Governor.”