Senator Takes Hemp Legalization Victory Lap With Basket Full Of Hemp Products

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) commemorated Hemp History Week on Thursday with what has become an ongoing annual tradition of celebrating the crop’s usage while displaying a basket full of hemp-derived products.

The senator said he could think of “no better way to celebrate than by recognizing our big win last December,” when Congress passed agriculture legislation that included a provision federally legalizing hemp.

“I’ve always believed it’s just absolutely absurd that you could go to your local supermarket and see all kinds of hemp products on the shelves—hemp hearts, hemp granola, hemp ties—and yet because of outdated, harmful federal polices, the hemp for those products couldn’t be grown here in the United States,” he said.

“That’s why I first introduced my bill in 2012, and it was the first of its kind to bring the outdated hemp policies into the 21st century,” he said. “If you can make and sell it in America, you also ought to be able to grow it in America.”

Beside the senator sat a basket filled with an assortment of hemp products, including milk, protein powder and seeds made from the crop.

Wyden started his tradition of bringing the basket to the Senate floor to advocate for hemp reform in 2015. But this year, hemp history week fell on a short week of the legislative session, and so he made his case in a video taped in his office instead, a staffer told Marijuana Moment.

Last year, the senator brought two baskets of hemp products to the floor, decrying the Schedule I status of the crop under federal law that has since been lifted.

In 2015, I began my annual tradition of bringing a basket full of hemp products to the Senate floor during #HempHistoryWeek, in order to highlight the uses, benefits, and opportunities provided by industrial hemp production. pic.twitter.com/dottCbHiYT

— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) December 17, 2018

Like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who also championed the hemp provision, Wyden said that their work “is far from over.” Both senators led a Senate resolution that was adopted on Wednesday, touting the “economic potential” of the crop.

McConnell also marked the occasion by using his hemp pen to note Hemp History Week on his calendar.

The #Senate passed my bipartisan resolution with Senator @RonWyden celebrating #HempHistoryWeek…marking the calendar with my #Kentucky#hemp pen! 🖋️ pic.twitter.com/0GacDYdhQx

— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) June 5, 2019

“I’m going to keep pushing until the Trump administration fully implements the law and updates the regulations associated with it,” Wyden said. “But there’s good news: farmers in Oregon and nationwide are finally well on their way to pursuing the very, very large economic opportunities this industry has to offer.”

Much of the work that is yet to be done falls within the purview of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. The departments are actively developing regulatory guidelines so that farmers and businesses are able to lawfully market the plant and its derivatives.

Lawmakers have also implored federal financial regulators to clarify to banks that hemp is federally legal and that hemp businesses can access credit and qualify for crop insurance, for example.

McConnell Marks Hemp History Week On His Calendar With A Hemp Pen

Photo courtesy of YouTube/Sen. Wyden.

McConnell Marks Hemp History Week On His Calendar With A Hemp Pen

The U.S. Senate adopted a resolution on Wednesday celebrating Hemp History Week.

The measure, which recognizes “the growing economic potential of industrial hemp” and its “historical relevance,” passed in a voice vote.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who successfully championed hemp’s federal legalization last year, celebrated the resolution by tweeting a video of himself using a hemp pen to mark off the commemorative week on his calendar.

The #Senate passed my bipartisan resolution with Senator @RonWyden celebrating #HempHistoryWeek…marking the calendar with my #Kentucky#hemp pen! 🖋️ pic.twitter.com/0GacDYdhQx

— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) June 5, 2019

The resolution, which Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) co-led with McConnell, is nearly identical to another nonbinding measure the Senate adopted last year—except for a few key updates.

It now estimates the annual market value of hemp retail sales in the U.S. is more than $1 billion instead of the $688 million noted in the 2018 version.

And it uses new past tense phrasing to note that farmers “were for decades prohibited under law from growing” hemp “despite the legitimate uses” of the crop, which was finally federally legalized by the 2018 Farm Bill.

As such, the resolution no longer needs to include the qualifier that the U.S. is “the only major industrialized country that restricts hemp farming” that prior versions noted.

The new measure marks the fourth year in a row that the Senate has formally recognized Hemp History Week.

Last year, McConnell used a hemp pen to sign off on the final version of the Farm Bill before it was sent to President Trump’s desk.

Separately on Wednesday, an official with the Federal Reserve pledged during a Senate hearing to clarify for banks that hemp is now a legal crop and that they can offer financial services to hemp businesses without fear of being punished for it by regulators.

Read the full Hemp History Week resolution below:

Senate Hemp History Week re… by on Scribd

Federal Reserve Official Pledges To Tell Banks They Can Service Hemp Businesses

Photo courtesy of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

This Lawmaker Just Brought Cannabis Products Onto The Senate Floor

A member of Congress just brought two baskets full of cannabis products onto the floor of the United States Senate.

But not the kind that gets you high.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), as part of a weeklong series of actions on Capitol Hill in support of industrial hemp, pointed to his collection of non-psychoactive cannabis-based foods and cosmetics during a speech on Wednesday.

“It is Hemp History Week again, and that is why I’m back on the Senate floor to talk about the only Schedule One controlled substance that you can sew into a t-shirt and wear through TSA,” he said.

Directing a staffer who accompanied him on the floor to hold up the hemp products, Wyden said:

“He’s got a few Schedule One snack bars. He’s got some Schedule One hand soap. He’s even wearing a Schedule One necktie. The point is, they’re all perfectly legal products you’ll find on shelves in stores throughout the nation, but because the hemp had to be imported, none of it could be considered fully American-made.”

Wyden, who talked about seeing many hemp foods stocked on the shelves of his local grocery store, decried the fact that the products can only be made with crops that are grown in other countries and imported to the U.S.

“There can’t be many policies on the books that are more anti-farmer than that one,” he said. “Hemp growers in places like Canada and China must just be laughing all the way to the bank. They’re cashing in, while our farmers have their hands tied by the current hemp restrictions.”

“If you can buy it at a supermarket in America, our farmers ought to be allowed to grow it in America.”

Hemp and marijuana are both varietals of the cannabis plant. And, under current federal law, they are both treated as illegal Schedule I substances (with some limited exceptions).

On Tuesday, the Senate unanimously approved a resolution that Wyden introduced recognizing hemp’s “growing economic potential” and “historical relevance.”

The nonbinding measure was brought to the floor by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who separately filed a bill to legalize hemp and has announced plans to insert its language into the larger Farm Bill that is moving through Congress.

The standalone bill already has nearly a third of all senators signed on as cosponsors.

“Hemp is not a drug, and treating it like one was wrong from the get-go,” Wyden said in the Wednesday floor speech. “Smoking hemp would be nothing but a waste of time, breath and lighter fluid. It defies common sense that our laws consider hemp to be dangerous and addictive like crystal meth. Having one too many hemp granola bars might give you a stomach ache, but it you aren’t going to land in the hospital.”

Happy #HempWeek! I’m headed to the Senate floor to speak in celebration of #HempHistoryWeek and to encourage my Senate colleagues to end the anti-farming restrictions on growing industrial hemp.

— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) June 6, 2018

The Oregon senator also gave a bit of a lesson on the crop’s important role in American history.

“Before growing hemp was made illegal, hemp was among the predominant American crops for generations. It was grown in the fields of Mount Vernon,” he said. “It was threaded into the ropes and sails of the first ships made for the United Stats Navy.

“If hemp was easier to rhyme, it might even have its own lyric in ‘America the Beautiful’ right alongside the amber waves of grain.”

Wyden also took to the Senate floor bearing a bounty of hemp products last year:

Photo courtesy of JD Lasica.