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Of hemp and GOP ‘fans’

Posted July 24, 2016 - 12:01am

By Annette Jordan

Many people know Asheboro’s Bob Crumley as a personal injury attorney and entrepreneur. What they may not know — I certainly didn’t before hearing him speak to the Asheboro Rotary Club this week — is his role as a crusader to restore North Carolina’s hemp industry.

Before you dial 911 and report him for cultivating the “demon weed,” it’s all perfectly legal.

A little history …

Dating back to Jamestown, Va., hemp was a staple in America, providing fiber that could be used for clothing, paper, rope, medicine and a host of other uses. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were hemp farmers. The first two copies of the Declaration of Independence were written on hemp paper. Betsy Ross’ first flag was made of hemp cloth.

Because of our location and soil types, North Carolina, along with Tennessee and Kentucky, once led the nation in producing the plant. In fact, Robbins, in nearby Moore County, was such a center for Tar Heel production, it was once called Hemp and provided most of the rope the Navy used in World War II.

Enter William Randolph Hearst.

The California publishing magnate, in conspiracy with the plastics industry, led a successful campaign to destroy the industry. In the 1930s, post-Prohibition America, he persuaded federal authorities the new evil was not alcohol, but marijuana, and marijuana should be defined as any plant from the cannabis sativa family, no matter what its THC levels. (That’s the ingredient that gets you high.)

Since then, hemp, a cousin of marijuana but containing very low THC levels, has been classified as a controlled substance — in the same Schedule 1 category as heroin.

So why do Crumley and his partners want to bring it back? Is it a good idea? Is it dangerous?

The “why” is simple. The tobacco buyout, he explained, has necessitated the need for a cash crop replacement. While hemp doesn’t come close to matching tobacco’s lucrativeness, Crumley pointed out farmers can get much more per acre for it than many other crops — for example, a guaranteed $900 an acre for hemp (currently in Kentucky) compared to $80 to $100 per acre for soy beans.

Crumley and his partners believe the multi-purpose, low-THC hemp has been falsely demonized, but convincing lawmakers and law enforcement took some doing. In 2014, they created the N.C. Industrial Hemp Association and successfully pushed through legislation that, under a tightly-controlled permitting process, will allow hemp to be grown again here. His group is in charge of shepherding farmers through that process, and expects the first production in North Carolina to be up and running in 2017.

I’ve given you the highlights. Coming soon we’ll have a Focus piece with more details.

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Source: http://courier-tribune.com/opinion/staff-columns/hemp-and-gop-fans