Twenty-foot-tall fields of research hemp could be blowing in the Davis breeze by next summer, if the state of California can find the money to implement a research hemp pilot program recently made legal by federal law. That’s a big ‘if’.

As I report in the East Bay Express this week, the California Industrial Hemp Act of 2013, combined with the 2014 federal Farm Bill has unlocked the possibility of hemp in California.

Sen. Mark Leno’s Hemp Act of 2013 green-lit hemp if the feds allowed. That seemed like a pipe dream until this Spring, when a “wrap-around” coalition of far-left and far-right legislators exempted research hemp from the 70 year-old War on Marijuana.

Now, California needs to find an estimated $20 million to conduct research hemp pilot programs through the CA. Dept of Agriculture. Fat chance, said Sen. Leno. The money doesn’t exist. California should just stop this non-sense and start growing commercial hemp.

As we report: “Thirty nations grow hemp and it’s found in thousands of consumer products — from Converse sneakers to BMW interior panels. ‘It’s apparently only illegal when it’s growing in the ground,’ Leno said. ‘Every one of our Western trading partners, plus China, grows it today. What do we need to spend millions of research dollars to find out?'”

…

“Hemp never was and never will be a drug, so it’s unfortunate that in the last sixty years it has been confused with one,” he continued. “It was never confused before, and it shouldn’t continue to be confused. … It’s only our country that is confused. There are no European countries that are confused. Canada is not confused. Mexico is not confused. China is not confused.”