Lawmakers have begun writing a bill legalizing industrial hemp in South Dakota in 2020. 

The legislative Hemp Study Committee is building off the failed 2019 bill that would have legalized industrial hemp. However, the 2020 bill's language will be finalized after the U.S. Department of Agriculture announces its hemp program guidelines, which are expected by the end of the year, according to Rep. Lee Qualm, R-Platte. 

The hemp committee's meeting on Monday was the first time legislators gathered since Gov. Kristi Noem announced in a Wall Street Journal column that she plans to veto the hemp bill again in 2020 because law enforcement can't tell the difference between marijuana and hemp.

The tension between the two branches over hemp continued on Monday.

Noem claimed in her column that Texas prosecutors have dropped marijuana cases after its hemp law went into effect, but Qualm handed out a document from Texas' top officials negating Noem's statement. Legislators also heard about the "Purpl Pro," a new tool that can test a plant's THC level in the field.

Noem's list of 315 questions she wants legislators to answer about hemp also came up again on Monday, with Rep. Tim Goodwin, R-Rapid City, saying he wants Noem's Cabinet to answer her questions because that's the executive branch's responsibility. 

"She put them out, her Cabinet shouldn't just sit on their hands. They should answer them," Goodwin said. "They haven't worked on one answer yet, so they should do their job." 

Goodwin said he wants a formal request that Noem's staff answer her question, and Qualm responded he didn't believe they needed to formalize that, saying, "I'm pretty sure someone is listening (to the meeting) from the administration."

Goodwin brought the issue up again later in the meeting, questioning who's going to answer the questions. Qualm said he has no intention of answering Noem's questions, but they'll likely be answered after the USDA releases its guidelines and during the 2020 session.

What's in the hemp bill?

The proposed bill for the 2020 session will require permits from the state and background checks for owner-operators before they can grow hemp, and anyone in possession of hemp without a permit can be charged with a felony.

There was some concern among legislators on Monday that a background check will only be completed on the owner-operator and not all the employees handling it on a farm, but Qualm said the manager is responsible for employees and the operation.

The proposed bill will have a minimum amount of acreage required to grow hemp in South Dakota, but that exact number is still up in the air. Legislators on the committee want to keep the minimum acreage low to allow farmers to try growing hemp without having to plant a large crop.

The state's hemp program will also be separate from the nine tribes in South Dakota, who are considered separate entities from the state when it comes to USDA approval of their hemp programs.

Rep. Nancy York, R-Watertown, said she wants to pass a bill that only legalizes industrial hemp that can be used in the textile industry and not for medicinal purposes such as CBD oil.

Rep. Oren Lesmeister, D-Parade, responded that hemp grown for only fiber also has oil, and they'll have a "huge pushback" if legislators leave out the CBD part of it. Their job as legislators is to allow South Dakotans to grow it and let federal agencies such as the USDA regulate it nationwide, he said.

Rep. Randy Gross, R-Elkton, pointed out that a lot of conventional agriculture products can also be used in medicinal products.

"The newness of this scares us. That does not mean we should not allow our producers the opportunity to take part in it," Gross said.

The hemp bill would have likely passed during the 2019 session if it hadn't included CBD oil, Qualm said, but that's an important part of it. He said he was skeptical about CBD oil until a year ago, but now he's a "firm believer" in using CBD oil because he knows too many people benefiting from it. However, it needs to be regulated, he said.

"I believe Big Pharma is not happy with CBD because it's going to change the amount of opioids that are being used," Qualm said.

How other states are policing hemp

The committee continued to hear from officials in states where hemp is already legal. During two hours of discussion on Monday, legislators heard about the hemp programs in neighboring states from Anthony Cortilet, the hemp program supervisor at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, and Major Aaron Hummel with the North Dakota Highway Patrol.

Hemp was legalized in Minnesota in 2015, and the number of licensed hemp growers has boomed since then. The state had 600 applications for a hemp grower license, and about 10,000 acres of hemp are being grown in the state this year, according to Cortilet. 

Cortilet said he works with law enforcement daily because they're dealing with a plant that is legal if it has a THC content below 0.3 percent and is illegal if it's above that level. Most law enforcement in Minnesota isn't opposed to hemp, it's just a matter of knowing when to intervene, Cortilet said. 

Hemp that's grown for grain or fiber typically has a very low THC level, and hemp that's grown for a CBD product is typically where they see plants near that 0.3 percent cutoff, he said. Lee Ford and his father Danny Ford talk about the benefit and challenge of growing hemp, as one of 20 farms chosen in the state for the pilot year Ken Ruinard / Independent Mail, Anderson Independent Mail

Law enforcement's concerns are an issue in every state, and it'll be an issue if South Dakota legalizes hemp, he said. But it shouldn't be a hindrance to legislators passing a law and having a good hemp program, Cortilet said.

"However, you do need to take that into consideration and the Department of Ag really needs to be prepared that whoever ends up with your hemp program is going to have to be prepared to work with law enforcement quite a bit because you want to protect the farmers that are really trying to do it right, and the ones that do it wrong give it a bad name," Cortilet said.

North Dakota Highway Patrol had some hurdles in the early stages of the state's hemp pilot program, but law enforcement doesn't have any problems with it now, Hummel said. They haven't had an instance where a vehicle's hemp load turned out to be marijuana, according to Hummel. 

Hummel said the only change he would like to see is requiring hemp transporters to have a manifest or paperwork showing the content of their load. They also hope to have state agriculture staff begin providing training to North Dakota law enforcement about hemp, he said.

A intense scent hangs in the air at the 15-hectare La Chacra medicinal cannabis farm in central Colombia, where marijuana plants blossom in the warm closeness of its huge, heavily-secured greenhouse.

It is one of the world’s biggest crops, but the farm, run by cannabis company Clever Leaves, has only managed to export a few marijuana derivatives because of the tight regulations threatening to choke Colombia’s ganja industry.

Colombia was one of the first countries to regulate the cultivation, commercialization and export of marijuana products. But businesses that invested in cannabis complain delays in regulatory adjustments are stemming exports and discouraging potential investors.

The problem is especially serious given competition from other Latin American countries like Uruguay, they say.

Clever Leaves, which has investors from the United States and runs the farm in the central province of Boyaca as well as a sophisticated laboratory outside of the capital Bogota, sent 360 grams (12.7 ounces) of dried marijuana to Canada in February – the first legal export of cannabis from Colombia. In July, it dispatched a 6,000-bottle shipment of supplements to London.

Colombian-Canadian growers PharmaCielo exported a similar quantity of derivatives to Switzerland at around the same time, after three years in business.

“We would like if everything was faster, better, but we’re a sector that’s growing, setting up,” said Clever Leaves executive Julian Wilches. “It’s going to take time.”

Colombia, one of the world’s top producers of illegal drugs, has complicated regulations that demand legal cannabis growers get permissions from bodies ranging from agriculture and medical authorities to the anti-narcotics police and drug regulators.

Security regulations are stiff – requiring growers to have cameras, high electric fences around crops and regular contact with the police. The movement of plants to the lab is monitored by satellite and sometimes accompanied by bodyguards. Workers at the farm sign in with their fingerprints.

Authorities take between 12 and 18 months to award licenses and growers must then wait between 3 and 6 months to get yearly permissions that establish the size of their crops and regulate the production of derivatives, like oils and creams.

“Colombia took the initiative first, but today it’s recognized for taking way longer than people expected,” said Juan Diego Alvarez, a Latin America executive at grower Khiron . “We’re in authorities’ hands, for them to finish the regulations.”

The government has defended its progress and said there will be advances in rules before the end of the month.

“Everything had to be learned, to be addressed,” Julio Aldana, the head of the country’s food and drug regulator said at a recent event.

“The only way for this not to be a bubble is for us to do it responsibly,” Aldana said, referring to the desire for the industry to expand gradually.

Medicinal cannabis could eventually bring in $6 billion a year, making it Colombia’s third-largest source of foreign exchange, the government has said.

But the export headaches are already harshing the mellow of foreign investors, who initially poured some $400 million into the industry over three years.

The risk is that businesses will look elsewhere in the region, to countries were production and export look set to prove easier, experts say.

“Before the feeling from investors was that there was enormous potential – they gave money to whoever had a license, but now they are evaluating more,” said industry analyst and consultant Alfredo Pascual. “Years have passed and they want to see results.”

Swift regulation in Uruguay, Peru, Mexico and possibly Brazil could erase Colombia’s initial head-start, businesses warn.

Uruguay recently made its the first commercial shipment of medical cannabis – 10 kg (22 lb) of dried flowers with high levels of active ingredient THC destined for patients in Australia.

In Mexico the supreme court has ordered the health ministry to issue regulations within six months on medical marijuana use, saying its failure to do so after legalization in 2017 had put rights at risk for patients, including children.

“Agro-industrial giants are nipping at our heels – I’m referring particularly to Mexico, Peru and Brazil, who know how to develop the agro-industrial sector,” said Clever’s Wilches.

“Or we get it done or the others will do it and the opportunity will have passed us by.” (Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb Editing by Chris Reese)

How crucial are supply-chain protections? The answer could be traced to the ongoing vaping crisis.

The current public-health emergency has killed at least a dozen people and has hospitalized hundreds more. Aside from the human cost, the tragedy has also raised questions about many aspects of vaping, including its meteoric rise in popularity with young people, its lack of regulatory oversight, and its profitable existence in illicit markets.

More importantly, for any business in any industry, this crisis also highlights the need for ensuring the integrity of supply chains.

Rising Death Count, Warnings

While there is no consensus on the underlying cause of the fatal lung illnesses seen today, multiple incidents suggest that a possible supply-chain breakdown is responsible for a chemical exposure of contaminated aerosol vapor. And, for many, that exposure may have been fatal.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has mobilized to uncover the cause of the rising number of respiratory distress cases, as have various state and local health agencies. Likewise, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) even launched its emergency operations center to more immediately grapple with the problem, one evidenced in at least 46 states and the Virgin Islands.

Although health officials are reviewing the possibility of assorted e-cig contaminants, and are even looking at the vaporizers themselves, one possible source for the problem that has garnered a substantial amount of attention is the use of a particular vitamin E additive. This substance only recently became a supply-chain component for THC vape producers, many which self-mix ingredients for illicit-market sales.

Illicit Sales

Vitamin E acetate is not known to be harmful when it is consumed orally, and little is understood about what happens when it is heated and/or inhaled. And, although it’s premature to cite the vitamin E additive as the primary cause in this ongoing health crisis, it is important to note that it already has surfaced as a possible factor in multiple hospitalizations — especially with patients who had purchased e-cig or THC vaping products on the illicit market.

In fact, it is the illicit marketplace of vaping that has also attracted increased scrutiny, and for good reason.

Given its popularity and its lack of transparency in supply-chain dynamics, some observers see illicit sales as making up an incredible three-quarters of the more than $50 billion in U.S. cannabis sales recently recorded, illustrating the challenge in using regulatory oversight to promote product safety.

With no testing constraints, many illicitly sold vape products are often found to contain a range of contaminants, from mercury to pesticides. Even synthetic marijuana has surfaced in some illicit-market products that were not advertised as such.

Unfortunately, the lack of regulatory oversight with vaping also extends to legal markets, too. And it’s troubling to know that at least one vaping death has been linked to a product purchased in a state-licensed retail site in Oregon.

Supply Chain Protections

There are many reasons why protecting the supply chain should be a top-of-the-page priority for most companies. These include things like improving logistics, enhancing quality control, and addressing inventory concerns or long-term operations. All of these impact the bottom line of businesses in some way.

Organizations that rely on multiple suppliers can never attain the same levels of product consistency they otherwise would see by maintaining one trusted and well-understood source of materials — or, in the case of vape concentrates, ingredients.

Likewise, a secure supply chain also saves money for companies by promoting liability protections. Whether in responding to lawsuits or health epidemics, it’s imperative that companies know exactly what is in their products. That’s increasingly important today, regardless of industry, and it undoubtedly will be highlighted in the wave of lawsuits sure to come from the unfortunate vaping illnesses and deaths. If untested or consumer-tampered ingredients are part of any vape company’s supply chain, health risks are posed, and they can have an economic consequence.

Finally, it’s also important to recognize that supply-chain protections can have a correlation with consumer trust, as well. And that trust comes with a price tag. It might be one thing when supply-chain breaches lead to product recalls, but it’s entirely different when people are being hospitalized.

As the facts in this current health crisis emerge, the importance of supply chain protections will continue to receive renewed focus. That’s important for any vaping-related business interested in trying to protect its future. Most importantly, it may also save lives.

Cannabis can treat both pain and insomnia in people who want to avoid prescription and sleep medications, a study has found.

The study, published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, looked at 1,000 people taking legalised marijuana in an American state.Researchers in the US found that among the 65 per cent of people taking cannabis for pain, 80 per cent found it was very or extremely helpful.

Eighty-two per cent of these people were able to reduce, or stop taking over the counter pain medications and 88 per cent were able to stop taking opioid painkillers.

The study suggested that cannabis could lower opioid use. However, the researchers noted that more needs to be done to understand the potential therapeutic benefits of cannabis.

Traditional over the counter medications and painkillers can help, however they may have serious side effects. Opioids depress the respiratory system, meaning that overdoses may be fatal.

"People develop tolerance to opioids, which means that they require higher doses to achieve the same effect. This means that chronic pain patients often increase their dose of opioid medications over time, which in turn increases their risk of overdose," said Julia Arnsten, professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Although less common, sleeping pills can lead to dependence, and can also cause grogginess the next day, interfering with people's work and social lives, she said.

As a consequence, some people have started taking marijuana to help with their symptoms, according to the study.