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Farm Bill with Hemp Legalization Passes Senate

Farm Bill with Hemp Legalization Passes Senate
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By The Associated Press/West Kentucky Star Staff
Dec. 11, 2018 | WASHINGTON, D.C.
By The Associated Press/West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 11, 2018 | 05:27 PM | WASHINGTON, D.C.
Hemp's supporters are cheering a final agreement on the federal farm bill that would legalize the crop that's making a comeback in Kentucky.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the crop is "ready to take off" and has the potential to become a significant cash crop.

“This could be big,” McConnell said on WKYT in Lexington before the vote. “I don’t want to overstate this. We all know how important tobacco was to Kentucky a few years ago, but there’s excitement about hemp.”

“There’s hemp all over America right now. It’s all imported,” McConnell said. “There’s no reason by American farmers shouldn’t be able to grow this crop.”

McConnell has played a key role in turning hemp into a legal crop by removing it from the federal list of controlled substances.

Growing hemp without a federal permit was banned decades ago because of its ties to marijuana. Hemp and marijuana are the same species, but hemp has a negligible amount of THC, the psychoactive compound that gives marijuana users a high.

The 2014 farm bill allowed hemp to be grown on an experimental basis. Kentucky farmers planted 6,700 acres (2,710 hectares) of hemp in 2018.

"At a time when farm income is down and growers are struggling, industrial hemp is a bright spot of agriculture’s future," McConnell said Tuesday morning. "My provision in the Farm Bill will not only legalize domestic hemp, but it will also allow state departments of agriculture to be responsible for its oversight."

The farm bill is a multibillion-dollar legislative package to fund agriculture and food aid programs with an estimated price tag of $867 billion over a decade. It passed the Senate 87-13. 
 
The vote comes less than one day after the House and Senate reached an agreement on the bill, which for months had been caught up in tense negotiations over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. 
 
The bill reauthorizes crop insurance and conservation programs along with the legalization of industrial hemp. 

The House is expected to pass the legislation soon and send it to President Donald Trump for his signature.
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