You may not have realized it, but this week is "Hemp History Week," which is a project of the hemp industry and nonprofit organizations to not only raise awareness about hemp as an industrial fiber and its other uses, but also to advocate for hemp companies, researchers, farmers, and a change in federal hemp policies.Two North Dakotans are tired of waiting on the federal government to come around on hemp farming, so they are pushing the issue and their desire to grow hemp themselves. On Tuesday, May 18, 2010 farmer Wayne Hauge and North Dakota Speaker of the House David Monson "filed a legal action against the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit[,]" according to a news release found on PRNewswire online.
Both Hauge and Monson have received state licenses under the North Dakota industrial hemp program to grow non-drug industrial hemp for the past four growing seasons. The problem for the farmers is that the DEA has delayed approval of the farmers' federal applications for over three years.
According to the news release, for more than a decade North Dakotans have been trying to put in place a licensing program to allow farmers to grow non-drug industrial hemp. The state doesn't require federal permission to grow the crop, but farmers would put themselves at risk of being raided by the DEA and forfeiture of their farms without such permission. This is why Hauge and Monson have sought federal approval.
Monson is quoted in the news release as stating, "'[i]n this time of economic hardship, American farmers should not be hamstrung by an irrational and counterproductive federal policy that preempts legitimate and rational state prerogatives to grow non-drug industrial hemp."'
Eric Steenstra, president of Vote Hemp, a hemp farming advocacy group, says a successful lawsuit would require "'the DEA to implement reasonable and timely procedures for granting licenses for the cultivation of industrial hemp[.]"'
To read the news release on PRNewswire online, click here.
To read the Petition for Review, click here.
To learn more about Hemp History Week, click here.
Posted: 05/19/10
