Congress is set to legalize hemp

Lawmakers are poised to fully legalize hemp after a decades-long campaign, setting the stage for the resurgence of a once-common crop that disappeared during the war on drugs.

The legalization provision, championed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and included in the Senate’s farm bill, would officially classify hemp as an agricultural commodity and remove it from the federal controlled substances list. Lawmakers are also expected to advance the measure when they meet next month to draft the final, bicameral version of the legislation.

Hemp landed on the list because it is, like marijuana, a form of the cannabis plant. But growers and farm-state politicians argue the two have been unfairly lumped together, depriving farmers of what could one day become a major commodity crop.

In Kentucky, in particular, hemp has been touted as a panacea for cratering tobacco sales and falling crop prices. Growers there have pinned their hopes for future profits on it. But as legalization looks ever more inevitable, the question now is whether industrial hemp can deliver on decades of hype and promises.

Advocates say the industry is poised for an explosion, particularly as new supply chains develop and researchers discover additional uses for cannabidiol oil, which can be derived from hemp. There are also concerns, however, that the industry may grow too quickly, forcing the price of hemp down to unsustainable levels before there’s adequate demand for it.

“There’s no question that industrial hemp is economically viable,” said Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., an architect of the legalization plan. “I get a call from a farmer every other day. More and more farmers want to grow it.”

The saga of American hemp is essentially one of mistaken identity, farmers say....

"The legalization provision, championed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and included in the Senate’s farm bill, would officially [??? emphasis added] classify hemp as an agricultural commodity and remove it from the federal controlled substances list."

FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument

Patriots are reminded that, regardless what FDR’s state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices wanted everybody to think about the scope of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers (1.8.3) when it wrongly decided Wickard v. Filburn in Congress’s favor imo, FDR’s justices wrongly ignored the following.

They ignored that a previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified the basic reading skills interpretation of the Commerce Clause, that the states have never expressly constitutionally delegated to the feds the specific power to regulate INTRAstate commerce, including agricultural production.

"Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"
"State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added]." -Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited. None to regulate agricultural production is given, and therefore legislation by Congress for that purpose is forbidden [emphasis added]." —United States v. Butler, 1936.

So wherever Sen. McConnell went to law school, I hope that somebody else paid his tuition.

On the other hand, when buyer and seller are domiciled in different states, then because of Commerce Clause, when Congress says “jump,” buyer and seller must typically ask “how high?”

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