Hemp Legalization Amendment Attached to Farm Bill

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has proposed an amendment to the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012 that has been welcomed by hemp activists. Suitably, the amendment was introduced at the end of the third annual Hemp History Week. Wyden's amendment would legalize the production of industrial hemp at the federal level.

In a press release Wyden stated:

Industrial hemp is used in many healthy and sustainable consumer products. However, the federal prohibition on growing industrial hemp has forced companies to needlessly import raw materials from other countries. 

My amendment to the Farm Bill will change federal policy to allow U.S. farmers to produce hemp for these safe and legitimate products right here, helping both producers and suppliers to grow and improve Oregon's economy in the process.

Since 1937 American farmers have been effectively banned from growing hemp, a variety of Cannabis sativa that has no psychoactive effect. While illegal to grow domestically hemp can be legally imported to the United States under current law.

ReasonTV recently spoke with Eric Steenstra, president of Vote Hemp, about the uses of hemp, the history of its prohibition, and the fondness George Washington had for the crop.

Comments

[SIV]

Fuck the Farm Bill. I'd rather see it go down than pass with a hemp program.

[Aresen]

You are not going to see the Farm Bill go down, so you might as well take what you can get.

[Groovus Maximus]

And I'd rather be making love to fence knothole (kidding) right now, but we don't always get what we want. It needs to be debated in committee and has a better chance of actual passage, as no one wants to kill a farm bill, "Why do you hate farmers, Washington?" Besides, last time I checked, hemp is a agrarian product and should logically be in a farm/ag bill anyway. (SLD applies.)

A standalone bill would die. Shitty, but true.

[Brett L]

Seconded. Although, I see GM's point, fuck the farm bill. Break out the foodstamps and hemp legalization and burn the rest of it.

SLD about food stamps. Not in favor of them, but we shoot that dog later.

[SIV]

Rand Paul voted for the farm bill. I guess that makes him less libertarian than Jim DeMint.

[John]

Is Ron Wyden actually less of a douche bag than your typical Congress critter or am I imagining things?

[Sudden]

Ron Wyden may be the one Democrat I actually most respect. He's all but endorsed Paul Ryan's Medicare reforms (kinda odd considering his critique against PPACA was that he wanted single payer instead). And this. If more Dems were like Wyden, the Dems might actually be the more libertarian friendly party.

[ant1sthenes]

He seems like the sort of Democrat that liberaltarian fusionists want libertarians to believe is the norm on Team Blue. Probably not as good as a Rand Paul, but maybe closer to a Jeff Flake or Tom Coburn?

[John Thacker]

Wyden is easily the best Democrat in the Senate. I would love it if the whole caucus were like him.

[Aresen]

I can hardly wait until Holder's minions start raiding farmers who are legally growing hemp.

[Groovus Maximus]

Don't give him any ideas, Canucki. It would be the ultimate conflation of Wickard and Raich.

[Aresen]

You have to admit that the scene of two branches of the Feds fighting it out would be popcorn-worthy.

[Groovus Maximus]

Popcorn worthy? That right there is politico junkie pornography! Which, by the by, might even throw another wrenched monkey into the mix...(curse you Rule 34)

[sloopyinca]

You know who I'd like to see fight it out, Thunderdome-style?

The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of the Interior. And I mean to the death. Afterward, when 90% of the people "working" in those departments is dead, Americans will realize they served no purpose and will call for the shuttering of them permanently.

Do this with two federal departments annually, exempting the DOJ, DOD and State since they actually serve a purpose. But, have the same type program on a smaller scale within those departments...since there is waste there after all.

[sarcasmic]

Fuck the DOJ. The federal government has no business in law enforcement.

[Episiarch]

I agree with you, but George Washington didn't.

[sarcasmic]

Funny how people object to abusing power until they have it.

[pmains]

It seems to me that if Congress can pass laws, and the president has authority to execute said laws then the Federal Government has legitimate business in law enforcement.

[RBS]

I believe he means criminal law specifically. And he's right.

[Brett L]

DOI doesn't have the manpower. They'd be overrun.

[T]

Interior will ride into battle on the grizzlies they're secretly breeding in Yellowstone. HHS is gonna get slaughtered.

[tarran]

HHS has access to smallpox cultures.

[T]

Grizzly bear cavalry, tarran. What is smallpox in the face of that?

[tarran]

A recipe for revenge from the grave.

[R C Dean]

I've always heard revenge is a dish best served feverish and covered in oozing sores.

[James Anderson Merritt]

The headline implies that the amendment IS attached to the Farm Bill, rather than merely being proposed as an addition. What's the REAL story? If the Farm Bill passes and Obama signs it, is hemp legalized? Or must there be reconciliation in conference committee, during which any hemp provisions may be stripped? Facts would be helpful, either in the article or the comments.