Industrial hemp backer to try again

BOISE – State Rep. Tom Trail is stoked about industrial hemp. But other lawmakers keep killing his buzz about turning the plant – a cousin of marijuana – into an agricultural commodity.

Trail, a Republican from Moscow, is preparing to ask state lawmakers – for the third time in eight years – to support a resolution that would ask the U.S. Congress to legalize hemp as a farm crop. His proposal was killed in committee in 2000, and died on the House floor in 2003.

But the moderate conservative has high hopes: This year, his proposal comes on the heels of newly issued rules in North Dakota that regulate hemp farming in that state.

North Dakota’s no hippie state, Trail said, and in fact, the first person to apply for a hemp farming license under those rules was none other than North Dakota’s assistant House majority leader.

Trail believes that could give his proposal the momentum it needs to pass.

North Dakota’s regulations require hemp farmers to be fingerprinted and to register the locations of their hemp fields. If those are effective, Trail said, he plans to introduce a bill to legalize hemp farming in Idaho.

North Dakota is one of seven U.S. states that have authorized industrial hemp farming. The others are Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana and West Virginia, according to Vote Hemp, an industrial hemp advocacy organization based in Bedford, Mass.

“I’m a bit more optimistic,” Trail said. “About two weeks ago I wasn’t going to do anything, until this news came out.”

Some of the proposal’s past opponents aren’t so reassured.

Hemp is a member of the Cannabis family – the same genus that contains marijuana, but without marijuana’s intoxicating properties. The sturdy, fibrous plant is used to make products including paper, rope, lotions and carpet backing.

But Rep. Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot, said the two plants are difficult to tell apart, and legalizing hemp farming would make it easier to sneak marijuana farms past law enforcement, Lake said.

“It is presently illegal to grow in the United States and obviously I won’t be supporting it,” Lake said. “I think this is just a roundabout way to legalize the growing of marijuana.”

But Trail said Idaho farmers could make millions off the hardy plant, which is grown legally in Canada and Europe. And anyone hoping for a legal high will be disappointed, he said: “To get a kick out of smoking industrial hemp, it would take a cigar the size of a telephone pole.”

Trail said he will introduce the proposal next week in the Agricultural Affairs Committee, which he chairs.