Farmers in Colorado made history when they harvested a hemp crop. The first in the United States since 1957 when the U.S. government banned hemp. Led by Springfield, Colo. farmer Ryan Lofin who planted the 55-acre hemp crop back in May, Lofin and hemp advocates across the nation came to his farm in October to harvest the historic crop. Technically, Colorado won’t be granting hemp growing cultivation licenses until 2014, but Lofin just couldn’t wait. “It’s time for this to happen,” he said.
Hemp is a genetic “cousin” to marijuana, but contains little to none of the THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana associated with the “high” sensation. And although hemp hasn’t been grown domestically for decades, in 1998 the U.S. began to import food-grade hemp seed and oil for various uses. In the 1700s, American farmers were required by law to grow hemp in Virginia and the other colonies. It was a widely used crop for hundreds of years in the United States. Cut to 1957 when the U.S. government banned hemp over confusion about its relationship to marijuana, and the plant from which the paper for the The Declaration of Independence was sourced remained banned from America’s soil until now. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recorded the peak of industrial hemp production in America in 1943, with more than 150 million pounds on 146,200 harvested acres.
News Hawk – The General @ 420 MAGAZINE ®
Source: Huffingtonpost.com
Author: Matt Ferner
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Website: This Is What The End Of Hemp Prohibition Looks Like
