If hemp was illegal to grow in the US for so long, how is it so prevalent?
Written By: David Cook
Until the 2014 farm bill, there was no industrial hemp being grown in the United States. Yet you’ve probably been familiar with a few hemp products since well before the enactment of the bill in 2015. So how is it that? How does your lotion have hemp, how are your clothes made out of it, how do they sell hemp seeds on grocery store shelves?
It’d seem the answer is clear on the Custom and Border Patrol website, updated 10/26/2017 that states;
”Federal law prohibits human consumption and possession of schedule I controlled substances. Products containing tetrahydrocannabinols (THC), the hallucinogenic substance in marijuana are illegal to import. Products that do not cause THC to enter the human body are therefore legal products.
The following hemp products such as clothing hats, shirts, shoes, cosmetics, lotion, paper, rope, twine, yarn, shampoo, and soap, (containing sterilized cannabis seeds or oils extracted from the seeds), etc. may be imported into the U.S.”
Hemp has a history of being imported into the United States. However, the Controlled Dangerous Substances Act came into effect in 1971 and challenged this historic norm, as it made no difference between a genius or strain of cannabis and listed it as a Schedule 1 narcotic. Hemp was still able to get around this as an import product, since it had not psychoactive or addictive properties, which could be argued that the Schedule 1 classification was not fitting. In fact, hemp products counter every one of the three attributes used to classify a Schedule 1 narcotic;
The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision
In 2004, a Circuit Court judge made a final decision in a case between Hemp Industries Association vs. DEA, making importing none psychoactive sterile hemp explicitly legal. Up until then, the DEA’s position was based on their powers interpreted through the Controlled Dangerous Substances Act, which gave them power to regulate the entire cannabis genus. Hemp has progressed since then and is no longer being fought. Today, the main legal issue is importing enough productive seeds for the pilot crops the new farm bill allows for, and adjusting regulation moving forward.
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