This week, a key committee in the Georgia House passed a bill that would allow police to arrest people for possession of small amounts of hemp if they didn’t have paperwork that proved it was produced under a license. Meanwhile, Idaho state legislators introduced a bill this week that would legalize hemp and meet federal regulations, removing Idaho’s status as one of the only states in the nation where hemp cultivation is still illegal.
Here are the week’s top headlines you might have missed.
Georgia: State lawmakers have proposed a bill, which recently passed a state House committee, that would allow police to treat transporting hemp without paperwork the same as possessing marijuana. Read more
Idaho: State legislators have introduced a bill that would legalize hemp, meet federal regulations and remove Idaho from the small list of states that have made hemp cultivation illegal. Read more
Maryland: A Baltimore-area legislator has introduced a bill that would prohibit the state from registering a farm to grow industrial hemp if it is within two miles of a residential community with 10 or more residences. Read more
Missouri: Lincoln University is using its Industrial Hemp Initiative to conduct research for its existing audience of small, minority and disadvantaged farmers who are interested in reintroducing hemp to the agricultural landscape. Read more
New York: Sovereign Vines, the country’s “first hemp winery,” has closed in upstate New York, citing the results of an audit from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Read more
Meanwhile, in the Hudson Valley, farmer-focused cooperative is looking to build a cannabidiol (CBD) region and take advantage of new regulations for the production, processing and sale of hemp and hemp extract. Read morePennsylvania: Major CBD hemp processor Commonwealth Alternative Medicinal Options has shuttered in the wake of plummeting pricing, leaving farmers with the all-too-familiar problem of lacking buyers. Read more
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