Hemp legislation moves forward with relative ease

Janet Jarrett’s family has a history with hemp. In his younger days, her father raised the plant and used its fiber for rope on the farm. Now 94, his daughter says he still doesn’t forgive the government for making growing hemp illegal. “He can’t get good hemp ropes anymore. He always liked to rope with them better, and the plastic ones are too stiff,” says Jarrett, a dairy farmer in Valencia County. New Mexico might be changing that law soon, as least incrementally. So far, the hemp issue seems to be cruising through the legislative session. “What’s old is new again,” Jarrett says. “I think there’s a real opportunity to maybe reestablish some of the things in a less hysterical way.” A bill that would allow the state to grow hemp for research purposes recently jumped through three Senate committees with little opposition before passing the upper chamber by a 33-8 vote. Janet Jarrett Though similar bills have failed the legislature in over the past 15 years, this time lawmakers have something they’ve never had before—cover from the feds. “There seems to be a whole change in the attitude and people are embracing it,” says Jaime Chavez, a field organizer for the National Latino Farmers and Ranchers Trade Association. Like its psychoactive counterpart, marijuana, hemp is a distinct species of cannabis. It can be used to create products as diverse as paper, oil and biofuels...more