Grows Like a Weed

Getting ready for another push to legalize agricultural hemp in New Mexico

Hemp: It’s been as popular as it is pragmatic for quite a while, as far back as the mid-1700s, when rope and yarn and even paper were made out of it. Then, in the 1990s, it started making a comeback, in clothes, in hoodies, in shoes, in backpacks.

Like a wildfire set among its drought-resistant stalks, its popularity spread. It was trendy. It was sustainable. It was, in short, cool.

But there was a problem: The crop could legally only be grown in countries like Canada and China, frustrating in light of its economic power. It accounted for nearly $581 million in US sales in 2013, the most recent trend, extracting a compound known as CBD for pain-relieving oils and lotions.

So this Friday, Jan. 29, outside the Roundhouse, legislators and activists and farmers take their turn to rally in what has become a perennial push to legalize hemp agriculture in New Mexico—outlawed since the late 1930s strictly out of guilt by association for being a cousin to the marijuana plant.

The non-psychoactive member of the family contains minimum traces of THC, and for decades now, farmers have not been allowed to cultivate the stalks, although you would not get high even if you smoked a field of them. But with every Legislative session, hope springs eternal, even though Gov. Susana Martinez, a crime- and-punishment Republican, vetoed similar legislation last year.

"I think the governor is sufficiently studied up on the matter now, and we're optimistic that she's going to call it this year," says Doug Fine, 45, a New York native who's written books on the subject and lives on a 42-acre goat farm outside Silver City; Fine claims he wouldn't mind growing his own crop someday.

"If this bill is signed, our farmers are off to the races," Fine says, referring to Democratic state Sen. Cisco McSorley's Senate Bill 3, which seeks to establish a research and development fund that would operate under the auspices of New Mexico State University and be licensed and monitored by the state Agriculture Department.

It's pretty much identical legislation to a bill he floated last year, SB 94. And there's no indication either way from the governor's office if she's changed her mind on the idea.

Last session, Martinez said she had a problem with the bill because state and federal laws were at odds with each other.

"Given the similarities between growing hemp and marijuana, this legislation could also create serious challenges for law enforcement in investigating drug crimes," she wrote.

"Additionally, I am concerned by the inconsistent language used throughout this bill to describe the purposes for which industrial hemp may be cultivated. Some descriptions appear limited to research and development whereas others broadly include commercial production. Any permission to cultivate hemp for commercial purposes under this legislation would, of course, also be contrary to federal law."

But this year, McSorley and Fine and other activists have ammunition: It's good for the economy, and nearly half the country, from Oregon to Colorado to Kentucky to Vermont, has gotten onboard and legalized it under a special provision in the federal 2014 Farm Bill, which removes the stigma of the crop as a Schedule 1 controlled substance and, in effect, gives the states the opportunity to grow it under university-run programs.

Since then, Fine says the production of hemp in the US has increased from 350 to 6,000 acres across the country.

The way Truchas activist Jerry Fuentes sees it, legalizing hemp could only lead to more jobs, more dollars and a local product that could serve to undercut the price of imports and drive prices down, from textiles to car parts and beyond.

It also sounds like something Martinez would like, Fuentes notes, given her State of the State Address and the emphasis on bringing more industry to the state.

"And there's no better industry than the agricultural industry," Fuentes says.

Last fall, Fine said as much, in a letter he penned to Martinez in response to her veto earlier in the year, in which he explained the particulars of the 2014 Farm Bill and its special provision. Martinez received it, not coincidentally, with a basket full of hemp products, including a red chile rub, all courtesy of Seebinger Hemp in ABQ.

"The reason is simple: we want to join the billion-dollar North American hemp industry, which is growing 24% annually," he wrote. "It means profits in the ground with low water demand for those hundreds of New Mexico small farmers, right from the first harvest."

And if that doesn't convince Martinez, maybe a recent letter from a Colorado company will.

Ed Lehrburger is president of PureVision Technology Inc., which has been processing industrial hemp since in 2014 in Fort Lupton. Last week, he joined the growing ranks of supporters for New Mexico hemp agriculture, telling the governor he's ready to buy the crop.

At Santa Fe Hemp, in business since 1997 on Water Street, owner Kathleen Savage says she looks forward to the day when hemp is legal and it doesn't have to be imported at a higher cost to the US and then sold to retailers such as herself.

"I'd rather see it grown in the US," says Savage, 60, whose business, ever since the 2008 recession, has taken a hard hit, forcing her to shift to organic cotton, too.

Conventional cotton, she says, "is terrible environmentally. It's the third largest polluter on the planet. It uses so much pesticides, it's poisoning water tables. Hemp is a weed, it doesn't require pesticides, and it's a great rotation crop. Plus, if we're talking about paper, it's only one season to grow a hemp crop versus 25 years for a tree to grow. ... It's a wonderful source for paper."

Which brings us to the dissemination of fact and fiction with regard to the plant. Contrary to what you learned behind the bleachers, the US Constitution was not written on it, but it's been said that some working drafts might have been.

If the tree-based paper reaches Martinez, all she has to do is sign her name.

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