By Phil Riske | Managing Editor
(STATE CAPITOL) – The House will now consider a measure (SB1225) to create a committee to study whether industrial hemp farming would be a worthwhile undertaking in Arizona.
The bill, which was passed by the Senate Thursday afternoon on a 19-11 vote is the result of federal legislation to legalize hemp use.
The 2014 Farm Bill agreement included a provision to permit institutions of higher education and state departments of agriculture to grow or cultivate industrial hemp. It also requires those sites be certified and registered with their state department of agriculture.
If passed, the 2015 Farm Bill would exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act.
Senate President Andy Biggs of Mesa quipped before he announced his vote in opposition, “I know some of you are very high on this bill . . .”
The Arizona bill would create a bipartisan committee of two members each of the House and Senate, a statewide farm association member, a county attorney, a sheriff, a public member involved in farming who has an interest in growing hemp, the director of the Department of Agriculture and the dean of the Agriculture Department at the University of Arizona to study industrial hemp for its possible future use as a commercial product.
Nineteen states–California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia—currently have laws to provide for hemp pilot studies and/or for production as described by the Farm Bill.
Eight of the states—California, Colorado, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont and West Virginia—sponsored hemp resolutions and have laws to promote the growth and marketing of industrial hemp.
