Will Mississippi Legislature legalize hemp production in 2020?

As the 2020 Mississippi Legislature prepares to convene Tuesday, the future of hemp in Mississippi is hazy.

There were a few attempts to legalize hemp production in the 2019 session, but all failed.

Now, as farmers in surrounding states are already cultivating and selling hemp, Mississippi remains one of only three states where production is illegal.

A task force on hemp production met three times last year and weighed pros and cons of the issue. Farmers crowded into a room in the Capitol to hear about a new crop they might soon plant. Agricultural experts explained the benefits and hardships of growing hemp without taking a hard stance on the issue, but law enforcement officials on the task force were deeply critical of hemp legalization.

The task force ultimately produced a report that included these findings, though it doesn't include a recommendation on whether or not to legalize hemp.

Last year, the House passed a bill legalizing hemp production. That bill stalled in the Senate.

'As bipartisan as you could get'

This session, there will be new leadership in the Senate, but when the incoming lieutenant governor was asked about hemp legalization, Delbert Hosemann didn't have an answer.

“I don’t know about that one," Hosemann said. "I have to admit, I haven’t worked on hemp at all.”

It looks like Hosemann will have to work on it on this upcoming session.

Democrats and Republicans came together in 2019 to support it in the House, and Rep. Dana Criswell, R-Olive Branch, said he intends to file another bill in the 2020 session.

“This would not have happened on the House side without the Democrats,” Criswell said. “... This is about as bipartisan as you could get. This thing happened because the Democratic Black Caucus got on board with the amendment I had in the House last year."

When asked why the Senate didn't pass his bill in 2019, Criswell said some lawmakers didn't understand the difference between hemp and marijuana.

“They don’t even wanna use the word marijuana they’re so afraid of it,” Criswell said. “...I think it’s taken a year of education."

Hemp belongs to the same species as marijuana, but smoking hemp does not get you high. Hemp can be processed for numerous commercial purposes, such as fiber, car interiors, plastics, and the hemp extract oil commonly known as CBD.

From the 2019 session: 'This will not get you high': Hemp legalization revived in Mississippi House

Hemp is already being processed here

Still, top state law enforcement officials are wary. They said that because hemp and marijuana look similar, legalizing hemp will create new headaches for officers trying to make arrests for marijuana.

"Drug traffickers are going to take advantage of any loophole or any opportunity they can to peddle their wares in the community," John Dowdy, director of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, said at a September hearing.

Criswell said this is a moot point.

Hemp is "already being transported through our state because it's legal and you can't stop legal commerce," he said, so law enforcement will have to deal with it regardless.

Criswell noted that there's a hemp processing plant currently operating in Mississippi.

That company is called Kengro.

Brent Brasher is the founder and president of Kengro. He said the hemp fiber the company produces is compressed into a hay bale, and those hemp bales don't confuse police.

His company has been processing hemp for about a decade, Brasher said, and "it's never raised a flag." While growing or cultivating hemp is illegal in Mississippi, processing it is not.

However, Brasher does have a concern with hemp legalization in Mississippi. If farmers grow it, how and where are they going to process it?

Kengro has been growing and processing a similar, fibrous plant called kenaf since the early 1990s, and Brasher said he was able to use the same equipment to process the inner part of hemp fiber for animal bedding.

According to Brasher, building a facility that does what Kengro does is not cheap.

There was a group looking to build a similar facility in a different state, and Brasher said he heard it was going to cost $19 million dollars.

"I just don't see the market there to justify building a $19-million facility," Brasher said.

That's just for processing industrial hemp.

'It's got to be calculated'

The process for extracting the CBD oil is much more complex, Brasher said.

CBD is a growing industry. In 2018, the federal government approved a CBD treatment called Epidiolex to treat epilepsy. Some people take CBD for other reasons, such as to treat anxiety or depression or to help them sleep, though there are questions about its effectiveness.

While industrial hemp can be planted and harvested with big machinery and relatively little labor, hemp grown for CBD is much more needy, Brasher said.

Many Mississippi farmers don't have the labor necessary to harvest it by hand and hang it up to dry, he said.

Industrial hemp is like cotton in some ways, Brasher said, but growing hemp CBD is akin to growing sweet potatoes — and Brasher doesn't have plans to do that.

Still, Brasher supports hemp legalization in Mississippi.

"But I also don't wanna see a bunch of farmers get burned. There's some opportunity there, but it's got to be calculated," he said. "... If they pass a bill and make it legal this year, I’ll probably plant 50 acres."

Is Mississippi falling behind?

Andy Gipson, Commissioner of the Mississippi Department Agriculture and Commerce, was defensive about whether Mississippi was falling behind when he gave opening remarks at one task force meeting.

Gipson said some states have "rushed out there."

One of those states is Tennessee, and Fred Cawthon, president of the Tennessee Hemp Industries Association, said there are lessons to be learned and reasons to be cautious.

Tennessee has been farming hemp since 2015, Cawthon said, as part of a federally approved pilot program. But since the U.S. Congress passed the 2018 Farm Bill legalizing hemp production on the federal level, there was an explosion of Tennessee farmers interested in growing hemp, according to Cawthon.

As Brasher predicted, Cawthon said, "One of the biggest issues right now in our state … is having enough processors that can purchase your crop from the farmer."

Prices in the Tennessee hemp market "have bottomed," Cawthon said, pointing to a recent auction in Tennessee where hemp sold at lower than expected prices.

However, Cawthon said that Tennessee hemp — even with the recent price drop — has been more profitable than soybeans or corn.

For hemp to be successful in Mississippi, Cawthon said farmers need to start out slow, build a base level of production, and make sure there's infrastructure and a supply chain in place to support that hemp production.

"It's all about infrastructure. If you can't take a product to market, you don't have a product," Cawthon said. "Are there processors in place that you will have relationships (with) and a buying point for your farmers?"

Under federal law, states have to approve individual farms for growing hemp, and Cawthon suggested that states might want to consider limiting the total number of permits they issue.

Asked whether Mississippi should legalize hemp production, Cawthon advised, "Move forward, but move forward with caution."

Contact Giacomo "Jack" Bologna at 601-961-7282 or gbologna@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @gbolognaCL.