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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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