Schumer: “Why are we buying hemp from other countries …?
HURLEYVILLE – Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced that he will be co-sponsoring the Hemp Farming Act of 2018 in a bipartisan partnership with the majority leader and primary sponsor of the bill, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to help expedite industrial hemp growing within the state, along with the rest of the country.
Schumer was at the Center for Discovery in Hurleyville on Friday saying the federal government’s placement of industrial hemp strains as a Schedule 1 narcotic is misguided and counterproductive. Currently, the U.S. is one of the largest importers of hemp-based products, with approximately $600 million of hemp products imported annually and the schedule 1 status of hemp is impeding U.S. citizens from capitalizing, he said.
“Why are we buying hemp from other countries when we have hundreds of acres already growing here in our backyard and we could grow a whole lot more,” said Schumer. “As with most things, it’s the federal government messing it up and they’ve gotten in the way of industrial hemp reaching its full potential.”
Hemp, although it shares the same genus and species as medically and recreationally used cannabis, is very low in the psychoactive compound THC; in fact, it has been bread to be that way for over hundreds of years. Only the stem fibers are used in industrial hemp products, not the flower of the plant which is the portion containing the resinous compounds that contain THC.
Between Orange, Ulster and Sullivan counties, there have already been 454 acres of land, the bulk of which is in Orange County, approved for industrial hemp agriculture; however, Schumer believes this amount could be greatly increased if the Schedule 1 status were changed.
If the Hemp Agriculture Act of 2018 is passed, it will make hemp federally legal and leave the discernment of whether, or not, hemp production should be allowed to the individual states.
