Watch a video about the University of Kentucky’s Industrial Hemp Research Program at MyDaytonDailyNews.com.
As a group in Ohio continues its push to legalize pot for recreational and medical use, more than a dozen other states are actively looking to re-establish hemp — marijuana’s less intoxicating cousin — as a plant legally-grown for industrial purposes.
A provision in the 2014 federal Farm Bill allowed for universities and state agriculture departments to begin cultivating hemp for research and limited commercial purposes so long as the state’s government passed appropriate legislation.
That hasn’t happened in Ohio.
And unlike pot measures in other states, even if ResponsibleOhio’s amendment were to get on the ballot and approved by voters, it has no language that would allow Ohio farmers to grow industrial hemp.
But nearby, advocates in Kentucky — including U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the state’s top agriculture official — are touting hemp as a potentially lucrative new industry that could help ease the plight of struggling tobacco farmers.
They say the plant is a natural and sustainable solution for producing fibers that can be woven into clothing, made into paper or strengthen plastics; its seeds can be pressed into oils for skin care products and cooking.
“We want to make Kentucky synonymous with hemp like Idaho with potatoes,” Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer said this spring during a news conference held at the state’s last remaining tobacco processor. “Hemp equals jobs and true economic development.”
Back to the future
Judged by drug laws on the books today, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be common criminals.
The two founding fathers cultivated hemp, an elemental ingredient in the rigging and canvas sails that helped defeat the British navy and gain independence for America.
During World War II, hemp was considered so important in the war effort against Germany and Japan that the U.S. government unveiled a film encouraging farmers to increase production.
But anti-drug efforts virtually wiped out industrial hemp production in the U.S. by the late 1950s. The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 — spelled marihuana in the act — didn’t outlaw the production of hemp but made planting it wholly unprofitable, said David Williams, co-principal investigator at the University of Kentucky’s Industrial Hemp Research Program.
“It was taxed to the point you couldn’t afford to grow it,” he said. Hemp then became illegal with the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.
Williams oversees the growing and testing of 25 different varieties of cannabis sativa at the university’s Spindletop Research Farm north of Lexington. Some of the stalky strains will grow into emerald green mini-forests a dozen feet high or more before being harvested this fall.
Despite the height of its stalks, industrial hemp is low in THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the molecule that gives marijuana its psychoactive potency.
THC levels in industrial hemp generally fall below 1 percent; marijuana may average about 10 percent but can go much higher, according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.
To get any semblance of a high, one would have to “power-smoke” 10-12 hemp cigarettes very quickly, which would be “almost impossible for a person to withstand,” according to the North American Industrial Hemp Council.
“The relationship with marijuana really complicates the progress or the evolution of the industrial hemp industry,” Williams said. “I look forward to the day when it’s a commodity and far less of an oddity.”
Law changes sought
Kentucky led the nation in hemp cultivation until the Civil War. Most antebellum-grown Kentucky hemp went to the Deep South for use as baling rope and bagging for cotton bales, said Williams, also a professor of agronomy.
Although the market for hemp-related products is much different today, Williams said, the state’s climate and soils are still conducive to high yields of industrial hemp — not unlike Ohio or any other region able to successfully grow corn and soybeans.
Williams said there is a potential market for the plant’s fibers, which can replace synthetic fibers in plastics and composite materials, as well as food-related uses.
But for the industry to go much beyond the research stage, changes to federal law are needed.
McConnell and fellow Kentuckian and Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who is also one of 16 GOP presidential candidates, co-sponsored a U.S. Senate bill earlier this year that would remove hemp entirely from the 1970 Controlled Substances Act.
When hemp seeds bound from Italy for research plots in Kentucky were snagged by the DEA last year, McConnell helped get the seeds out of federal custody.
Unlike Ohio, where the issue is off the radar, Kentucky politicians of all stripes are lining up to support industrial hemp.
Scott Sondles, who grew up in Marysville and now lives in Columbus, took note of the strange bedfellows in the state’s capital when he was a senior at the University of Kentucky.
“All the Democrats and Republicans — both sides — were trying to legalize it. A light bulb went off,” said Sondles, who approached his cousin, Michael Bumgarner, and told him: “We need to get involved in industrial hemp.”
Bumgarner, who grew up in Mechanicsburg in Champaign County, said he was about to get married and knew there was no way his fiancé would let him “get into the marijuana business.”
“The word hemp is scary to people. It was to me,” said Bumgarner, who also now lives in Columbus. “I was among the millions and millions of people who had no idea what hemp is and what it is not — the difference between industrial hemp and marijuana.”
The two co-founded a skin-care products company called Hemp & Honey Plus, based in Marysville, that handcrafts hemp-related product lines, including body cream, hand butter, lip balm and soap.
Bumgarner and Sondles say hemp seed oil provides the perfect balance of Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids humans require, whether incorporated into a diet or rubbed onto skin.
Boosting hemp products, they say, also could help struggling farmers.
“It’s all about giving small farmers — and large farmers — an option,” Bumgarner said. “If they have 10 acres it might make sense. If they want to make a profit from it and it’s just going to waste, they could easily grow hemp. You wouldn’t grow corn in 10 acres.”
Bumgarner, who used to show cattle in 4-H at the Champaign County Fair, was a member of the Future Farmers of America in high school and is a current member of the Ohio Farm Bureau.
He and Sondles would like to one day grow and process their own industrial hemp, or at least source it locally to avoid costly shipping charges.
The two import their hemp seed oil from Canada, a modest hemp producer along with countries in Europe. The lion’s share of the world’s hemp is produced in China.
U.S. retail sales of hemp products totaled at least $620 million in 2014 — a more than 20 percent increase over the previous year, according to the Hemp Industries Association. It’s unclear how much value was added after raw material or a finished product arrived in America, but proponents of industrial hemp believe more of that money can be kept onshore.
“New businesses are rapidly entering the market now that American farmers in a handful of states are finally beginning to grow the crop legally,” said Eric Steenstra, executive director of the Summerland, Calif.-based Hemp Industries Association, when the numbers were released in May.
In September, the association will hold its national conference in Lexington.
Little traction
So far the movement seems to have gained little traction in Ohio.
“When you look at the issues farmers have in improving water quality and taking care of our property tax issues, industrial hemp is pretty far down the list,” said Joe Cornely, Ohio Farm Bureau spokesman.
That could change if the organization begins to hear more from members, he said.
“Ohio farmers are like farmers everywhere else,” Cornely said. “They’re interested in opportunities to diversify.”
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