Thursday afternoon the USDA announced a temporary removal of the rules requiring hot hemp crops to be disposed of via DEA methods, and drop the DEA accredited lab testing requirement.

This comes after a commenting period opened at the end of October of 2019 by the USDA. The comment period resulted in approximately 4700 responses left with the agency. The top complaint was the DEA registered testing requirement. Specifically that there would not be enough registered labs to handle the demand of the first hemp harvest under the new program.

“We now better understand how the limited number of DEA-registered labs will hinder testing and better understand the associated costs with disposing of product that contains over 0.3% THC could make entering the hemp market too risky,” USDA wrote.

There are 47 laboratories currently registered with the DEA. Many states do not have a registered laboratory, therefore requiring state, tribal and federal law enforcement agents responsible for testing hemp crops to send samples out of state within a tight, 15-day testing window. But there is a caveat to this which makes it temporary.

“DEA will still expect states to work with their laboratories to try to achieve certification for the 2021 crop year,” Greg Ibach, undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told members at the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) meeting this week in Arlington, Virginia.

The second part of temporary suspension is the requirement of a harvester to use a DEA-registered reverse distributor or law enforcement to dispose of non-compliant plants. This will allow producers to use on-farm practices to dispose of hot hemp crops to render them non-retrievable or non-ingestible.

The following are now listed as methods of disposing on site:

Plowing Under

Mulching / Composting

Disking

Bush Mower / Chopper

Deep Burial

Burning

This suspension is taking place for this season only. Vote Hemp was quick to call out on Twitter inaccurate reporting, noting that the suspension of these rules will only be for one year. As well, Vote Hemp among others online has noted that this is something that should continue for the industry to be successful.

Ibach advised that they will delay it for one year. This will help for the season but is not what we wanted or needed for the industry to be successful. He also said they're still reviewing the comments and looking at other proposals on sampling and disposal of hot crops. (2/2) — Vote Hemp (@votehemp) February 27, 2020

Along with this, the Texas Department of Agriculture announced via Commissioner Sid Miller, it’s going to change some of its own rules. Texas will now allow plants, clones, & tissue culture. Miller said of the smokeable hemp ban, “Call it something else other than smokable hemp.”

You can listen to

Daulton Davis O’Neill of Green Light Events and Leah Lakstins of Higher Ed Hemp Tours speak about it on Shades of Green Talk Radio

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