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Wednesday, 09/03/2014 1:11:21 PM

Wednesday, September 03, 2014 1:11:21 PM

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WRAY, Colo. — Behind a tall curtain of corn that hides its real cash crop from prying eyes, the Stanley family is undertaking an audacious effort to expand its medical marijuana business to a national market.

For years, the five Stanley brothers, who sell a nonintoxicating strain of cannabis that has gained national attention as a treatment for epilepsy, have grown medical marijuana in greenhouses, under tight state and federal regulations.

But this year, they are not only growing marijuana outdoors by the acre, they also plan to ship an oil extracted from their plants to other states.

The plan would seem to defy a federal prohibition on the sale of marijuana products across state lines. But the Stanleys have justified it with a simple semantic swap: They now call their crop industrial hemp, based on its low levels of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

“The jump to industrial hemp means we can serve thousands of people instead of hundreds,” said Jared Stanley, 27, who wore muddy Carhartts and a rainbow friendship bracelet as he knelt down to prune his plants.

Colorado, which has legalized the sale of marijuana for recreational and medical use, has accepted the new designation. But the real question is whether the federal government will go along. If it does, the impact would be significant, opening the door to interstate sales not just by the Stanleys, but possibly by scores of other medical cannabis growers across the country.

But if it does not, the Stanley brothers could be shut down by federal agents.

So far, the Drug Enforcement Administration is offering few clues, insisting in public statements that while it is willing to allow marijuana sales in states that have legalized the drug, it might step in if growers try to sell beyond state borders.

“Any chemical that comes from the plant is still a controlled substance,” said Dawn Dearden, an agency spokeswoman. “When we get into hemp, it gets a little squishy, but it still is illegal.”

The Stanleys’ quest to ship their oil to other states highlights the fraught marijuana legal landscape where state and federal laws conflict and federal agencies can have divergent policies, leaving laws sometimes enforced, and sometimes not.

“This is the mode we will be in for some time,” said Sam Kamin, a law professor at the University of Denver who studies cannabis law. “As marijuana becomes more legal in more states for more purposes, the tension with the federal law will become more pronounced.”

The hazy legality of hemp can be seen in products like hemp granola and shampoo, which are allowed to fill health food store shelves even though they technically violate federal drug laws. All those products are made from imported hemp, which has generally been permitted into the country so long as it has less than 0.3 percent THC.

If the Stanleys ship their oil, industry watchers say, it will be the first time in decades anyone has tried to sell domestic hemp nationwide.

In recent years, hundreds of families with children who have epilepsy have moved to Colorado to try oil made from the Stanleys’ shrubby strain, which they call Charlotte’s Web. The national Epilepsy Foundation has called for it to be available to all patients, although formal research into its effectiveness remains scant. There is a nationwide waiting list of more than 9,000, which the brothers hope to eliminate by expanding their crop from small greenhouses into vast hemp fields.

“We are hoping the enforcement agencies have bigger fish to fry and don’t want to take a bunch of medicine away from sick kids,” Stanley said. “But if they are going to do it, we’re all in. If you are going to be locked up, it’s a thing worth getting locked up for.”

The brothers, who had a Christian upbringing in conservative Colorado Springs, started a small medical marijuana business in 2008 after seeing the relief it brought to a relative sick with cancer. At first, they grew mostly marijuana high in THC that packed a serious psychoactive punch.

On the side, they experimented with breeding plants low in THC but high in another cannabinoid known as cannabidiol, or CBD, which scientific studies suggested was a powerful antiinflammatory that a handful of small studies showed might have potential as a treatment for certain neurological conditions, including seizures and Huntington’s disease.



http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/08/23/bid-expand-medical-marijuana-business-faces-federal-hurdles/UQ8Ea55EtcbyFYR5YHa8HO/story.html
New article about the Stanley Bros. IMO this is very interesting news since NRTI filed for the Charlottes web trademark last spring. I don't think the stanley bros would have allowed that without some kind of legal action unless they knew about it in adnvance and were ok with it. This quality of medicine with NRTI's medical board reminds me of another MMJ company in europe called GWP#...
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