If you'd like to know more about what modern hemp farming looks like, the Mount Holly Farm owned by Laura Freeman will have an open-house party on Saturday. From 1 to 4 p.m., you can see the newly planted hemp crop, which is grown for grain, and see the CBD hemp crop as well. The CBD crop provides cannabidiol oil used in a variety of products. The farm store, Laura's Mercantile, will be open, with Laura's Hemp Chocolates available for purchase. The party also will have samples of the chocolates as well as hemp beer -- New Belgium's new Hemperor IPA - -- and Kentucky Hemp Dawgs. [continues 144 words]
Kentucky agriculture commissioner: 'It's time to legalize the crop' Kentucky is again king of hemp, according to officials who spoke at the first Kentucky Hemp Days event on Saturday. Held in Cynthiana, the festival will be an annual celebration of the crop's revival, which began after Kentucky lawmakers cleared a path for legal cultivation beginning with the General Assembly in 2013 and in Congress in 2014. On Saturday, as a crowd turned out to hear the latest developments a day after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., inserted language in the federal farm bill that will remove hemp from the controlled substance list, distancing it from marijuana. [continues 760 words]
To deal with an explosion in the number of Kentucky newborns exposed to dangerous, addictive drugs by their pregnant mothers, lawmakers this year added a section to House Bill 1, a measure that otherwise streamlines the foster care system. The section -- which becomes law in July, along with the rest of HB 1 - -- expands the definition of child abuse in Kentucky to include neonatal abstinence syndrome. Babies born with NAS go through withdrawal while they are still in the hospital. They can experience trembling, excessive high-pitched crying, seizures, vomiting and diarrhea. Some have more serious problems, such as heart defects. [continues 545 words]
Hemp, which was Kentucky's biggest cash crop for a century before tobacco, is poised for a comeback thanks to bipartisan legislation introduced Thursday in Congress. It's about time. Regular hemp cultivation in this country was banned in 1937. That's when federal law enforcement officials, who feared the repeal of Prohibition would leave them nothing to do, launched the first war on drugs. With a lot of "reefer madness" hype, the government banned marijuana. Also swept up in that ban was industrial hemp, a botanical cousin in the cannabis family that looks similar to pot but can't make you high no matter how much you smoke. [continues 654 words]
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- The U.S. Senate's top leader said Monday he wants to bring hemp production back into the mainstream by removing it from the controlled substances list that now associates it with its cousin – marijuana. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told hemp advocates in his home state of Kentucky that he will introduce legislation to legalize the crop as an agricultural commodity. The versatile crop has been grown on an experimental basis in a number of states in recent years. [continues 877 words]
FRANKFORT -- Four law enforcement officials and a doctor urged state lawmakers Tuesday to say no to a bill that would legalize medical marijuana. For more than an hour, opponents of House Bill 166 told members of the House Judiciary Committee the ills they see in it. Their predictions about passage of the measure included an increase in crime, creation of trafficking problems along the state's borders, an enhancement of economic and social costs, temptations of children to use marijuana and uncertain physical outcomes over long-term usage. [continues 398 words]
FRANKFORT -- Kentucky lawmakers shelved Wednesday a controversial bill to legalize medical marijuana, but supporters of the measure pledged to continue their fight. Some backers of House Bill 166 were in tears after the House Judiciary Committee voted 14-4 to "pass over" the measure. That's a procedure to put off voting on the bill until a later date. The bill's sponsor, Rep. John Sims, D-Flemingsburg, said it's doubtful the proposal will be revisited in this year's legislative session but "anything is possible." [continues 357 words]
For years, Kentucky veterans have approached us with a question that has no good answer: "Why are my comrades in other states able to treat PTSD and pain with medical cannabis while I cannot?" Frustrated and confused, these men and women struggle daily with the effects of post-traumatic stress triggered by the horrors of war and chronic pain from injuries suffered in combat. One is Eric Pollack whose PTSD became so unbearable that he nearly became part of a depressing statistic. In Kentucky, the veteran suicide rate is 10 percent higher than the national average. [continues 694 words]
Lexington's city council will likely take its first vote Tuesday on a resolution supporting state legislation that would make medical marijuana legal in Kentucky. The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council began debate on the issue during a Thursday council meeting after half a dozen people who support making marijuana legal for those with a prescription spoke at the meeting. The council will likely debate the issue during a Tuesday work session and may take its first vote during a specially-called council meeting at 5 p.m. [continues 692 words]
Amy Stalker says she had more control over her own health when she lived in Colorado, where marijuana can be legally prescribed as medicine. Stalker now lives in Kentucky, where medical use of marijuana is banned. A judge dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday against Gov. Matt Bevin and Attorney General Andy Beshear that called for the legalization of medical marijuana in Kentucky. In his opinion, Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate wrote that the Kentucky Supreme Court clearly established in a 2000 decision involving actor and hemp activist Woody Harrelson that the General Assembly has the sole discretion under the state Constitution to regulate the use of cannabis in the state. The courts do not have the authority to intervene, Wingate wrote. [continues 450 words]
He was licensed to grow hemp in Kentucky. Police say they found marijuana instead. Kentucky officials are reviewing a case that could result in a former sheriff being kicked out of the state's pilot program to grow industrial hemp after he was charged with cultivating marijuana. Former Jackson County Sheriff Denny Peyman is thought to the first participant in the hemp program to be arrested for allegedly growing marijuana, hemp's psychoactive cousin. Peyman has been approved to grow hemp since 2015, the year after he lost reelection and left office, according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. [continues 570 words]
Former Jackson County Sheriff Denny Peyman was involved in a marijuana-growing operation and possessed enough anabolic steroids to indicate he was trafficking in the drug, Kentucky State Police have charged. A detective for the state police Drug Enforcement/Special Investigations unit for the eastern half of the state arrested Peyman at his farm south of McKee Wednesday at 4:44 p.m. after serving a search warrant, according to the citation. The citation said the warrant was the culmination of an investigation in which 61 marijuana plants had been found earlier growing at Peyman's farm. [continues 353 words]
Other states allow medical marijuana. Judge asks why Kentucky shouldn't join them. A Franklin Circuit Court judge on Tuesday asked attorneys for the state why Kentucky should not make medical marijuana available to patients who believe it might help them, given that "we've pretty much decriminalized" the drug around much of the nation and even in parts of the state. Judge Thomas Wingate is considering motions by Gov. Matt Bevin and Attorney General Andy Beshear to dismiss a lawsuit filed in June by three Kentuckians who want the legal right to use marijuana as medicine in the state where they live. Wingate said he expects to hand down a decision on the motion in the near future. [continues 649 words]
As the death toll from opioid overdoses in Kentucky and the rest of the Midwest continues to soar, it's truly disconcerting to see that policymakers are taking steps that are not only devoid of medical and common sense, but virtually guaranteed to make matters worse. The recent passage of the ill-conceived House Bill 333, which imposes a three-day limit (with certain exceptions) on opioid prescribing, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the reasons behind the addiction epidemic. All this new law will accomplish is to make matters worse for both pain patients and addicts. The former will suffer needlessly; the latter will die in even greater numbers. [continues 519 words]
Gov. Matt Bevin and Attorney General Andy Beshear want a Frankfort judge to dismiss a lawsuit calling for the legalization of medical marijuana in Kentucky. In a motion filed Monday in Franklin Circuit Court, Bevin's attorneys said medical marijuana is a "political question" that should be decided by the General Assembly, not a judge. "Since at least 2014, the legislature has debated bills advocating for the lawful use of medicinal marijuana in every legislative session," attorney Barry Dunn wrote for the governor's office. "The General Assembly will consider legalizing medicinal marijuana again in the 2018 session. It is solely within the General Assembly's constitutional powers to determine whether to make medicinal marijuana lawful." [continues 534 words]
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Saying its time has come, state Sen. Morgan McGarvey on Wednesday called on the legislature to consider legalizing medical marijuana to relieve pain and suffering of terminally ill people. "It's 2017," McGarvey, a Louisville Democrat, told members of the joint House-Senate Health and Welfare Committee. "I think it's time we had a conversation about medical marijuana without snickering." Members of the committee took no action on legislation McGarvey is proposing for the 2018 legislative session but no one spoke against the proposal and some committee members spoke in favor of the measure that went nowhere in the past two legislative sessions. [continues 676 words]
Like most of small town America, Southern Indiana was unprepared for the opioid crisis. That's what Sam Quinones said, who is an expert on the roots of America's heroin and prescription drug crisis. "It's bad all over the country, but I would say it's probably particularly unkempt in areas such as Southern Indiana," he said. Smaller towns "never had to deal with the issues that come along with opiate addiction like how hard it is to kick, all the ancillary effects of having an addict in the family, aE& the lying, the destruction of family savings." [continues 820 words]
One woman relied on old needles used by her friend's diabetic husband. Another settled for whatever syringes she could find. But for the first time since they started using drugs several years ago, both women have access to fresh syringes. They are getting them through a needle exchange in Frankfort. "If you can have a new one every time, why wouldn't you?" asked the younger of the two women, who both spoke to the CJ on condition of anonymity for fear of being stigmatized or getting fired. "I think it's awesome that they're doing this. [continues 1730 words]
A partnership that's working to fight drug addiction in eastern Kentucky has received a $100,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission, Republican Rep. Hal Rogers announced Thursday. Operation UNITE, which operates in 32 counties in southern and eastern Kentucky, was founded in 2003 by Rogers to deal with what was at the time primarily an epidemic of addiction to prescription painkillers. Kentucky's Appalachian counties have since seen a surge in overdoses from heroin, as well as opioid painkillers. The competitive grant includes $50,000 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [continues 123 words]
A year ago, I woke in the night with pain so severe I was crying before I was fully aware what was going on. A 50-year-old cop sobbed like a child in the dark. It was a ruptured disc and related nerve damage. Within a couple of months, it became so severe that I could no longer walk or stand. An MRI later, my surgeon soothingly told me it would all be OK. A nurse practitioner handed me a prescription for painkillers -- 180 tablets, 90 each of oxycodone and hydrocodone. [continues 656 words]
The days-old newborn shook and screamed, his tiny chest fluttering with rapid breaths. Even his mother's arms couldn't soothe him. Withdrawal from heroin was Jordan Barkley's first experience of the world. His mom, Amy Kalber, shot up every day for most of her pregnancy. The drugs coursing through her body sickened Jordan, who spent seven weeks in neonatal intensive care, suffering from diarrhea and tremors, sucking on morphine as he weaned off the heroin. "It breaks my heart. It really does," said Kalber, 33, who is now in recovery. "I just couldn't stop. With heroin, you have to do it. You have to get it. It doesn't stop." [continues 1287 words]
Tiffany Wigginton Carnal is in the fight of her life to save her daughter. Lyndi Carnal, 17, has Crohn's Disease, an inflammatory bowel disease that causes inflammation of the lining of the digestive tract, which can lead to abdominal pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss and malnutrition. Lyndi was diagnosed when she was 14. Since that time, she and her mother have spent three Christmases, three New Year's Days and countless other days at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. The medications Lyndi has taken to control the Crohn's and subsequent pain have negatively impacted her heart, kidneys and liver. Lyndi has also had her colon and rectum removed. The medications to control the pain keep Lyndi sedated and unable to function. One of her medications, Dilaudid, is a strong opiate that can be addictive. [continues 464 words]
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say officers in Cincinnati intercepted more than 50 pounds of methamphetamine that was concealed inside a statue of a snail. Authorities say the package, which came from Mexico and was labeled "Mexican stone crafts," contained a decorative snail statue that exhibited "interior anomalies" during an X-ray inspection on Dec. 30. Customs officers drilled a hole into the statue and found 53 pounds of a white crystalline powder that tested positive for meth. Richard Gillespie, CBP's Cincinnati Port Director, says the agency's officers excel at preventing dangerous packages from reaching innocent citizens. The snail's intended destination was Lawrenceville, Georgia. [end]
'It's A Mess.' Nicholasville experienced a surge in heroin overdoses Monday and Tuesday, said Aaron Stamper, chief of Jessamine County Emergency Services. "It's a mess right now," Stamper said shortly before 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. "We've had five overdoses in the last eight hours, and I think in the last 24 hours, we've had nine overdoses." There was one suspected drug overdose death Saturday, but the overdoses that happened Monday and Tuesday did not result in death, said Jessamine County Coroner Mike Hughes. [continues 180 words]
Backers of marijuana legalization on Monday stepped up their pressure on the U.S. Senate to block the confirmation of Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general. Sessions, a staunch opponent of legalization, angered proponents in April when he called pot "dangerous" and said that "good people don't smoke marijuana." Marijuana backers want the issue aired Tuesday when the Senate Judiciary Committee begins Sessions' confirmation hearing. "It's a national thing: This hearing is make or break for the marijuana folks," said Adam Eidinger, who heads a pro-legalization group in Washington, D.C., called DCMJ. [continues 796 words]
Growing up, Evan Blessett was as an avid soccer player and honor roll student. He loved skateboarding and played the drums later in his teen years. But one role that his dad, Doug, never thought his son would play was one of a recovering drug addict. "The thing that gets me is he got past us," Doug Blessett said about his 29-year-old son, who is a counselor at The Healing Place, an addiction recovery center in Louisville. "When my son went through this, I took it personally. You think you would see it, and I didn't." [continues 1428 words]
Legendary boxer Muhammad Ali didn't back down from a fight and also stood up for underdogs. So it's fitting that his center will house this year's annual event focused on battling drug addiction. Recovery from heroin and other drug addiction can take years and many stints in rehab, but it is possible - the central message of hope is the theme of Recovery Rally 2016, a free event from noon-2:30 p.m., Saturday at the Muhammad Ali Center, 144 N. 6th St. [continues 149 words]
Dr. James Patrick Murphy, a nationally-recognized pain medicine specialist, balances guidelines meant to lessen the risks of addiction with a patient's need for pain relief, examines Marta D. Thomas of Old Louisville. Thomas is a volunteer at Kosair Pediatric Convalescent Center and receives radiofrequency lesioning (which melts the covers off nerves so they don't transmit pain for 4-6 months.) 27 October 2016(Photo: David R. Lutman/Special to The C) Cattle farmer Marquis Smith is in pain, but he doesn't get sick leave. [continues 1207 words]
Tara Moseley was in her early 20s, homeless and addicted to opioids for nearly a year when she walked into The Healing Place in Louisville. Her drinking had escalated after high school and she had stopped going to class two weeks into college. A broken leg led to a five-month opioid prescription and that led to a physical dependence on pain pills. When pills became scarce on the street, she switched to heroin. She needed a bed the day she showed up at The Healing Place and agreed to go through detox. After that, when the staff suggested she try their residential recovery program, she said yes. [continues 962 words]
Ismael Gonzalez-Gonzalez was supposed to be deported nine years ago, but Cuba wouldn't take him. Instead, he wound up in Louisville and, police say, emerged as a local boss directing the flow of drugs in the Louisville area and beyond for a Mexican cartel. It's unclear how Gonzalez, a convicted felon who was arrested in a surprise drug raid last summer, first entered the United States before he ended up in Louisville, where he settled into a house in Jeffersontown. Many details about his case remain hidden in sealed federal court records. [continues 769 words]
After over a year of waiting for a needle exchange, the Clark County Health Department will open its syringe exchange at the end of January. The needle exchange, located at 1301 Akers Ave. in Jeffersonville, will start Jan. 26 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and be open each Thursday from then on. Dr. Kevin Burke, the Clark County health commissioner, said he hopes the program will eventually provide services two days a week and operate the needle exchange at other locations. [continues 625 words]
Clouded by controversies surrounding the recreational use of pot and a common view that it is a gateway to more serious drug abuse and addiction, medical applications of marijuana are not clearly understood. Based on the reams of disclaimers included with every prescription, all forms of medicine have some unwanted -- and potentially harmful -- side effects. Certainly, marijuana will not be the exception. But it's hard to collect facts when research is not being conducted. The federal Food and Drug Administration requires scientific clinical trials involving thousands of patients to determine the benefits and risks of any possible medication. So far, researchers have not conducted enough large-scale clinical trials to determine if the benefits of the marijuana plant outweigh its risks in patients it is meant to treat, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. [continues 505 words]
A Kenton County jury recommended a 38-year sentence last week for a Covington man who sold heroin five times to a confidential informant with the Covington Police Department, according to the prosecutor's office. Donte Little will be 72 years old when he's released if he serves the full sentence. The 33-year-old was convicted of four counts of trafficking in a controlled substance and one count of complicity to trafficking in a controlled substance. The Covington Police Department's narcotics unit, known as the "D Team," purchased more than 14 grams of heroin from Little on five different days during the fall of 2014, prosecutors said. Investigators testified video and audio recordings were made of the transactions, which totaled more than $2,300. [continues 210 words]
And so another session of the Kentucky Assembly comes to an end without passage of a comprehensive cannabis bill. State Senator John Schickel assured the 75 percent of our citizens who are supporters of cannabis law reform that there would be hearings in the interim and something might get done next year. That's interesting because it's the same thing they have been told for the last five years! One wonders, with 23 states and the District of Columbia having medical cannabis laws, and four states and D.C. having passed recreational cannabis laws, exactly what could possibly be learned from hearings in the interim that haven't already been brought forward? There have been dozens of hearings right here in Kentucky over the last five years. I doubt if our legislators will find anything new on this subject. [continues 360 words]
Recently I read a national article about a medical team that looked the other way while a patient was smoking marijuana in the bathroom. On a closer reading of the article, the medical case was from over 20 years ago. First mistake: not doing the math (we'll get to this in a minute). Second mistake: concluding that the answer is "medical" marijuana. Did you know that the two major compounds that are medicinal in marijuana are already 100 percent legal here in Kentucky? [continues 557 words]
In a recent op-ed piece, Frank Rapier, the director of the Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area based in London, made a few statements that I think a great deal of Kentucky residents should take issue with. Rapier begins his column by claiming that the push for marijuana is propagated by corporations that make money off its sale. I would say that is completely true; but to view that in a negative light is overtly hypocritical. Both our state and federal governments are heavily influenced by special-interest monies. Rapier's job is to help aid the state in the government's war on drugs. A war that, in 2014, led to the arrest of seven times the number of people for possession of marijuana than for distribution or trafficking. [continues 552 words]
Big Business, Not Public Safety, Is the Goal In Colorado, Teen Pot Use Has Increased Only a Fraction of Prisoners Convicted for Possession In response to the column, "Stop waste of money, lives in criminalizing pot," let me say that I agree with Sen. Perry B. Clark on one point: America is being bamboozled. We are being bamboozled by Big Marijuana. For several years now, we have witnessed a highly financed, deceptive campaign to legalize marijuana. It started with the premise that marijuana is medicine. Marijuana may contain medical components, but so does opium. We don't smoke opium to get the pain-killing effects of morphine. How could you dose smoked marijuana? [continues 341 words]
FRANKFORT, Ky. - Kentucky's evolving battle with drug abuse will continue into the 2016 General Assembly as lawmakers intensify efforts against synthetic drugs that can slip into communities via the Internet, wreaking sudden havoc. The legislature has enacted at least four bills targeting synthetics since 2010 and is seeking to amp up penalties for traffickers next year following an outbreak in Lewis County of the toxic synthetic drug called "flakka." "They are no less dangerous than anything else out there, and in many cases, more dangerous," said Van Ingram, head of the state Office of Drug Control Policy. "It seems to pop up in a certain community and makes a run for a short time. Then it fizzles out there and shows up somewhere else." [continues 1242 words]
Seventy seven years after marijuana prohibition began with the claim it would turn people into violent murderers, remember "'Reefer Madness" and little Timmy killing Grandma with a skillet, pretty much all the claims about the harms of marijuana use have been proven to be false. Not one of the predicted outcomes cited by prohibitionists have happened. Ohio is currently in a battle for legalization and the Cincinnati Enquirer has been following and reporting on it. In a column titled, "Who are the opponents of issue 3, which will legalize marijuana and is on the ballot this fall, the paper reports what the reasons for opposing legalization are. It seems to come down to 3 items. [continues 341 words]
VANCEBURG, Ky. - In six months, Ashley lost 50 pounds, blew through $15,000 of a settlement and sold her house for $700. She lost feeling in her fingertips. Her hands turned raw and scaly, almost black. She was convinced her old man talked to people through the vents, that strangers lurked outside and that she was once in a high-speed chase - sirens blaring - with the law. She stayed awake for nine straight days, rarely ate and drank even less. A stench clung to her body. In the shower, she could feel something seep out of the pores in her face. She never could get clean enough. [continues 1887 words]
Kentucky law enforcement officials are pushing state legislators to stiffen the penalties for possession and trafficking of synthetic drugs. Possession of synthetic drugs like flakka, a new illegal drug that has been seen in pockets across the commonwealth and has inundated Lewis County, is only a misdemeanor under state law. No matter how many times a person is arrested or how much they're caught with, they can only be charged with a Class B misdemeanor for possession. And a first-offense trafficking charge is a Class A misdemeanor. [continues 258 words]
Stivers Argues Exchange Provision Wasn't Meant to Allow Program As Needle Dispensary Senate President Robert Stivers has requested an opinion from Attorney General Jack Conway on whether Louisville's needle exchange program overreaches the authority granted in the contentious heroin bill passed in the last legislative session. During the numerous conference committee meetings about the heroin bill, the proposal for a local-option needle exchange program didn't set well with conservative legislators who believed the program would only condone more drug use. [continues 296 words]
COVINGTON, Ky. (AP) - Venturing into the epicenter of Kentucky's fight against heroin addiction, national drug czar Michael Botticelli on Thursday touted needle-exchange programs as effective grassroots initiatives to combat the spread of infectious disease and to steer heroin users into treatment. Botticelli, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, also urged the medical community's vigilance against overprescribing pain medications. He called for mandatory medical education for prescribers as a way to stop the abuse of painkillers. [continues 548 words]
It's been one year since the Northern Kentucky Heroin Impact Response Task Force came out with a "Call to Action" to fight the heroin epidemic. On Tuesday night the group, made up of business leaders, law enforcement, health care workers, prevention and recovery leaders and families, will introduce the next phase of the attack on heroin. Their plan has inspired 17 free overdose-prevention clinics providing 129 free kits containing a life-saving drug, naloxone. With five documented rescues, the latest is a boy who was celebrating his 15th birthday with heroin and overdosed in Covington. [continues 822 words]
There is a new normal in our communities. For some children, stumbling across used, dirty needles at the park is more common than a pick-up game. Heroin addiction is a big disease with an even bigger negative impact on everyone. Kentucky has the third-highest drug overdose ranking in the United States. Of the 722 drug overdose death fatalities autopsied in 2013, 31.9 percent were attributed to heroin, compared to 19.6 percent in 2012. The estimated cost of substance abuse in Kentucky is over $6 billion. [continues 650 words]
With heroin use continuing to outstrip Kentucky's ability to treat addicts, Louisville's only no-fee drug recovery facility plans to nearly double its capacity for men. The Healing Place on Friday will announce a two-year, $20 million expansion of its West Market Street men's complex, increasing detox beds from 24 to at least 50 and long-term recovery beds from 250 to 426 - a move officials say is driven primarily by the heroin epidemic. Karyn Hascal, head of the nonprofit organization, said once-rare heroin has "overwhelmed" the facility and now accounts for 90 percent of clients in detox and 60 percent to 70 percent in the recovery program. She said waiting lists had grown so long they stopped keeping them. [continues 737 words]
Researchers and Farmers Are Producing the First Legal Crop in the State in Generations Murray, KY. (AP) - Call it a homecoming for hemp: Marijuana's non-intoxicating cousin is undergoing a rebirth in a state at the forefront of efforts to reclaim it as a mainstream crop. Researchers and farmers are producing the first legal hemp crop in generations in Kentucky, where hemp has turned into a political cause decades after it was banned by the federal government. Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul advocate for it, as does state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, a Republican who is running for governor next year. [continues 692 words]
MURRAY, Ky. (AP) - Call it a homecoming for hemp: Marijuana's nonintoxicating cousin is undergoing a rebirth in a state at the forefront of efforts to reclaim it as a mainstream crop. Researchers and farmers are producing the first legal hemp crop in generations in Kentucky, where hemp has turned into a political cause decades after it was banned by the federal government. Republican U.S. Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul advocate for it, as does state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, a Republican who is running for governor next year. [continues 277 words]
State Is Gauging Economic Power of Long-Banned Plant LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Hemp has turned legitimate in Kentucky, where researchers are starting to plant test plots that will help gauge the economic potency of the nonintoxicating plant banned for decades due to its family ties to marijuana. As part of the comeback, University of Kentucky agronomy researchers planted a small hemp plot Tuesday in central Kentucky. The seeds used were part of a shipment from Italy that was released last week after a legal standoff between Kentucky's Agriculture Department and the federal government. [continues 520 words]
The long-delayed hemp seed arrived at the Kentucky Department of Agriculture in Frankfort about noon Friday, after being released by U.S. Customs in Louisville. The seeds were imported from Italy for as many as eight pilot projects that the Agriculture Department will conduct with universities across the state. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration had seized the seeds and demanded that the state obtain a controlled substance permit to import and plant them. The DEA said that even though the federal Farm Bill that Congress passed earlier this year allows growing hemp for research, the plant, Cannabis sativa, is the same as marijuana even though it has negligible amounts of high-inducing THC. [continues 359 words]
Inside Kentucky
