A Northwest Oklahoma lawmaker intends to re-explore the industrial future of hemp cultivation in the state after the COVID-19 pandemic and the legalization of medical marijuana set aside the growing industry.
Senator Roland Pederson, R-Burlington, is one of three senators in the state of Oklahoma and six statewide representatives listed as the authors of a joint interim legislative study, passed last week, on development. rural through the production of industrial hemp.
Last Friday, the Speaker of the State House, Charles McCall, R-Atoka, approved the joint study of the House, along with 81 more people, for the upcoming 2023 legislative session.
The study said it was pending Senate approval, but Pederson said it was unclear whether the study still needed the approval of Pro Tem Senate President Greg Treat, who has already accepted 41 of the 60 studies. of the Senate proposed on July 1.
Senator Roland Pederson
Hearings for interim House and Senate studies will be broadcast live from August.
Pederson’s joint study, he said, seeks to see if legislation is needed for the state to establish industrial hemp production, with various issues such as hemp plant uses, seed production process, and hemp uses. ‘agricultural equipment in hemp production, to be discussed.
The retired Burlington farmer and educator said he was interested in finding out how to move industrial crop production to his district, which includes much of northwest Oklahoma.
“Other states are really moving forward with (hemp production) and are finding use in it,” Pederson said Monday.
Agronomist Josh Bushong, of the Oklahoma State University Extension Office, said hemp can be harvested for fiber from its stem or oil from its seeds. Many different products are made with hemp, such as textiles, household insulation, kitchen ingredients and beauty products.
Lawmakers would also specifically consider raising the proven legal limit on tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels in industrial hemp from 0.3% to a fixed 1%.
Oklahoma residents seeking relief from diseases ranging from chronic pain to rheumatoid arthritis are turning to alternatives like CBD oils and medical marijuana. (News and archive photo of the Eagle)
Bushong said Oklahoma’s two most worrying environmental factors, weather and strong winds, could stress the hemp plant, which some publications said could suggest hemp’s THC content could rise too high. legal.
Farmers would then have to eliminate the entire crop, while there are no special crop insurance policies to cover this risk, Bushong said.
“It’s one of those things where you have to play that risk,” he said. “It looks worse in western Oklahoma, where there’s more wind.”
This is why hemp, along with marijuana, is grown in controlled environments such as greenhouses.
CBD Boutique and Wellness Center shows information about CBD in 2018. (Enid News & Eagle File Photo)
The two cannabis plants are often confused with each other, Bushong said; both produce different levels of THC, the psychoactive ingredient responsible for the latter’s known psychoactive effect.
However, hemp also produces high levels of cannabidiol, or CBD, a non-psychoactive ingredient, which makes hemp labeled as a fiber-type plant rather than a drug. CBD from hemp stems and flowers can be extracted in what is known as CBD oil, used as an anti-inflammatory and topical antidepressant / anxiety. However, hemp seed oil does not contain CBD and the maximum limit of 3% THC.
Until the passage of U.S. agricultural law in 2018, hemp was classified along with marijuana as a Class 1 controlled substance under the country’s Controlled Substances Act of 1970. However, farmers could still grow hemp under DEA oversight.
The same year, the then governor. Mary Fallin signed into law the Oklahoma Industrial Hemp Agricultural Pilot Program, which allowed universities (or farmers working with universities) to grow hemp seeds for industrial purposes. The state Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry oversaw the program, giving it a revolving fund of various participation fees. The program became permanent a year later, while Redland Community College in El Reno began a state-sanctioned hemp pilot program.
However, Pederson said he believes Oklahoma’s new medical marijuana industry has left hemp in part as a viable crop, as lawmakers struggled to cope with a state voting measure passed in mid-2018. , shortly after federal and state changes in hemp production.
Then, after the COVID pandemic hit 2020, Pederson said, lawmakers were unable to bring stakeholders together either, so the plan to revise the hemp again was dropped.
In 2020, 3,885 acres of hemp were allowed in Oklahoma, below the 21,635 acres of 2019, according to Vote Hemp, a Washington group that tracks the state of hemp legalization nationwide.
Bushong, with OSU Extension, said his main concern with industrial hemp production in Oklahoma is that there has not been a market as large as expected. After the state pilot program began, he said, the price of hemp and CBD fell.
Bushong said he knew a man in Hennessey who had invested a lot of money to extract oil from the seeds, but prices were too high to sustain the harvest.
“Now that we have a certain supply, we have an excessive price and now the demand is not so high,” Bushong said. “It’s one of those things from ‘Which comes first: the crop or the market?’ There is potential there, but not a current market for it. “
