Virginia Marijuana | VA Marijuana Virginia Marijuana News and Info
A new government program is allowing approved scientists to cultivate and test industrial hemp. Hemp is illegal to grow in the United States because it one variety of the cannabis plant. The first approved plots have been planted in Blacksburg, Virginia. Virginia State and James Madison Universities are participating in this test project too.
The test plants are growing at different rates. Some look promising, while others are less than stellar, according to WVTF. The recently approved government program is restricted to an approved university or government site only.
Associate Professor of Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences at Virginia Tech, John Fike said, “There’s been a real challenge in getting the seed here this year. We started back in late fall. We were looking at what varieties were available trying to find materials that we could bring in and test.”
He also said, “So here I am planting these plots like the 7th of July and they should have been in the ground May 7th maybe.”
To clarify some of the regulations, Virginia Department of Community Services representative Elaine Lidholm said, “We did get a lot of calls when the leg first passed. There was frankly just a misconception out there that the General Assembly passed the law and therefor the next day you could go out and grow hemp and that was not the case. First of all, most laws in VA don’t take effect until July 1st even though they’re passed in winter, but there was really not an opportunity for just any farmer to say, ‘hey I want to grow hemp.’”
Virginia Industrial Hemp Coalition founder Jason Amatucci said, “There is a reason why people used this crop in 10-Thousand B.C. and it was among the first crops that humans grew and had agriculture with. And the reason being, it’s a wonderful natural resource.”
Amatucci also said, “We’re the only industrialized nation in the world that makes hemp illegal and will not allow it to be grown.”
In the U.S., hemp products can be consumed legally, but the plants cannot be grown for commercial use.
