The RP in Newsweek: Inside the Movement to Legalize Hemp

This morning’s Newsweek/The Daily Beast features a cover story by The RP on the growing national movement to legalize hemp.  Here’s an excerpt:

Poor, poor pitiful hemp.

Its cooler cannabis cousin, marijuana, gets all the buzz — generational bards from Bob Dylan to Snoop Dogg sing Mary Jane’s praise; cancer and AIDS patients declare her glory.

And even though smoking hemp won’t make you feel high — just really stupid for trying (as well as a sharp burning sensation in the lungs) — the Feds still crack down on it because they think it kinda…sorta…looks like the wacky weed that threatens to send our nation back into reefer madness.  Just another innocent casualty in the War on Drugs.

In recent weeks, however, it appears that hemp might have the last (sober) laugh.  That’s because a bi-partisan, blue-grassroots effort to secure federal legalization of industrial hemp production might not only prove successful;  it could also provide a model for solving far more pressing issues within our hyper-partisan, dysfunctional democracy.

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To understand why the hemp movement is going mainstream, consider one of its strongest advocates: first-term Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer.  The GOP official shocks the hemp stereotype: He’s neither the liberal hipster nor the bow-tied libertarian, each hoping the movement will bring us a step closer to legalized marijuana.  Instead, the 40-year-old, rosy-cheeked beef cattle farmer is part and parcel of his rural, small town, socially conservative upbringing, a culture that’s traditionally been most hostile to hemp legalization…mostly because, well, they fear it will bring us a step closer to legalized marijuana.

And Comer, a political comer who’s popular with both the Mitch McConnell GOP establishment and the Rand Paul Tea Party, is passionate about agriculture.  Seeing his vocation under siege, particularly upon the decline of tobacco, Comer risked ridicule by campaigning on an issue that many lampooned, and few of his constituents understood.  But he stubbornly embarked on a statewide educational campaign with a simple, irrefutable message: Hemp is not marijuana.

Click here to read the full article at Newsweek/The Daily Beast.