HEMP Issue #6

HEMPCRETE’S FUTURE | CBD COCKTAILS | CANADIAN GROWTH

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A farmer displays healthy topsoil on a farm practicing regenerative organic farming techniques.

Read more about regenerative farming on page 62.

editor’s note

sign the 2018 Farm Bill over a livestream on my computer. The moment felt surreal, like trying to read a message stuck behind a pane of warped glass.

Advocates had been working towards this point for decades, and it had finally arrived, carrying with it both the flatness of reality and the joy of a long-held goal finally reached. As I scrambled to publish the news on HEMP’s website, I couldn’t stop thinking about just how many contradictions were trapped in this single, celebratory event.

The 2018 Farm Bill was a momentous occasion for the hemp industry — perhaps the most important in the plant’s long history — and yet the president made no mention of hemp as he flourished his pen. The law he signed defined hemp as less than 0.3 percent THC, a line widely acknowledged to be an arbitrary distinction. The Farm Bill had codified a massive chasm between the “cannabis” industry and the “hemp” industry, despite the fact that both are concerned with the same plant and all the same cannabinoids (except one). And perhaps most significantly, the law unleashed a gigantic market, powered by growing hype around CBD, without putting forth any of the regulations that were necessary to support that market’s growth.

In the months after the Farm Bill’s signing, we have seen the consequences of these contradictions. We’ve seen the celebration and new investment worthy of such an exciting development, but we’ve also seen police in Oklahoma and Idaho seize entire trucks filled with hemp flower, claiming the buds were marijuana. We’ve I WATCHED PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

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seen Texas officials arrest a man for possessing hemp-derived CBD oil, declaring it was a felony, even if it was THC-free. We’ve seen New York regulators crack down on storefronts selling CBD, with the state’s health department citing the fact the substance was “not approved as safe to eat” by the FDA. (The New York Times then reported that the health department claimed CBD was unsafe, in a perfect example of just how deep the confusion runs: No, the health department was only saying CBD was not yet approved as safe.)

We put together this issue of HEMP in those first surreal post-legalization days. In this liminal space, from where I am writing right now, not only is the future of the hemp industry uncertain as we wait for federal regulations to come down, but our very present is muddled. The moment is crude oil after a harvest, waiting to be refined, filled with potential.

Through the confusion, however, HEMP’s values have remained clear. We still know that we want sensible regulations that support small farmers, make amends for the war on drugs’ racist policies, improve affordable access to quality medicine, address the climate crisis, and ensure safe products for consumers. In this issue, each story can be viewed as our attempt to make sense of the current moment and put forth clear ideas of what the hemp industry can be.

Julia Clark-Riddell Executive Editor, HEMP

PHOTO COURTESY PATAGONIA

The first months of federal hemp legalization have been filled with confusion and potential, like crude oil after a harvest, waiting to be refined.

ISSUE SIX

Hemp is harvested on Kenneth Anderson’s farm outside Lexington, Kentucky, where he’s growing for GenCanna. Read more on page 50.

features

INSIDE CANADA’S MASSIVE MOVE TO LEGALIZE CANNABIS & HEMP 32

In late 2018, Canada’s Cannabis Act officially came into effect. Whether you view it purely from an acreage standpoint, as a newly opened market, or as a business opportunity with their neighbors to the south, Canada’s move is going to change the hemp game in a big way. By Kate Robertson KENTUCKY’S BIG MONEY HEMP 50

Inside GenCanna: The vertically integrated company with massive investment looking to set the industry standard. By Julia Clark-Riddell

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PHOTO BEN DROZ

FAST FASHION, HEMP TEXTILES, AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS 62 What we wear can either help battle climate change or exacerbate it. By Joel Hathaway

ISSUE SIX

Field leader Keith (left) helps harvest Hudson Hemp’s 2018 crop.

contents EDITOR’S NOTE 02 FROM THE ARCHIVES 87 HINDSIGHT 88 politics

industry

culture

STATE OF HEMP: A DECADE OF D.C. ADVOCACY 11

THE WALLS BLOCKING HEMPCRETE’S ACCEPTANCE 20

REGENERATIVE FARMING & THE PUSH FOR SOCIAL EQUITY AT HUDSON HEMP 40

THE AGE OF CANNABINOID ENLIGHTENMENT 15

Despite stringent restrictions on research, cannabinoid science has grown by leaps and bounds over the last three decades. In 2018, it culminated in the approval of the first FDAapproved, cannabis-derived pharmaceutical.

How did we get here? By Annie Rouse

Though hempcrete is healthier for both a building’s occupants and the planet, high costs and lack of research stand in the way of widespread adoption. By Kit O’Connell HOW TO SOURCE VIABLE HEMP SEEDS 29

Whether sourcing domestically or internationally, U.S. hemp farmers have a myriad of options. But ensuring they don’t run afoul of the law and still receive quality, high-CBD seed requires a bit of knowhow. By A.J. Herrington

In an industry that often seems disproportionately male and white, Hudson Hemp Company is bucking that trend, committing themselves to social and environmental justice. By K. Astre CBD-INFUSED COCKTAILS: THREE RECIPES FOR A HAPPIER HAPPY HOUR 72

The art of the CBD-infused cocktail is gaining popularity, and for good reason. Adding CBD to your nightcap has a few not-so-surprising benefits that are totally worth raising a glass.

By Liz Schoch

THE LIST: HEMP FOR SELF-CARE 79

Here are HEMP’s picks for 2019’s best hempbased products for regenerative relaxation —— because you deserve to be pampered.

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PHOTO COURTESY HUDSON HEMP

A federal hemp lobbyist recounts the years he worked for the hemp legalization cause on Capitol Hill, culminating in the 2018 Farm Bill —— and considers what the future could bring. By Ben Droz

Hudson Hemp’s farm in New York state features the crop grown in aesthetic, swooping rows.

Publisher

Eugenio Garcia Creative Director

Todd Heath Executive Editor

Julia Clark-Riddell Associate Editor

Joel Hathaway Copy Editor

Katie Way Contributing Editor

Ben Droz Account Executive

Shelby Nelson Support Associate

Andy Gavin Advertising

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facebook.com/hempmagazine instagram.com/hempmag twitter.com/hempmag CONTRIBUTORS

Isabelle Kuhn Andrew Martin Kit O’Connell Kate Robertson Jim Richardson Annie Rouse Jeremy Sachs-Michaels Liz Schoch

On the Cover The Highland Hemp House,

built by Hempitecture, is constructed in Bellingham, WA. Photo by Kristen Angelo

H E M P. C O

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HEMP TODAY MEDIA, LLC

PHOTO JEREMY SACHS-MICHAELS

Kristen Angelo Peter Crosby Francisco Freeman Ryan Garcia Emily Joan Greene K. Astre A.J. Herrington Robin A. W. Kelley

contributor

SP OTLI G HT is the cofounder of Anavii Market, an online retailer of premium verified CBD oil, and a newly elected member of the Hemp Industries Association Board of Directors. She is writer, producer, and narrator of the podcast series, “Anslinger: The Untold Cannabis Conspiracy.”

You can follow her life’s work on ThinkHempyThoughts.com.

ANNIE ROUSE

is a freelance writer from San Diego, California covering hemp and cannabis. His work has been published by HEMP, High Times, OC Weekly, and other publications.

A.J. HERRINGTON

is a freelance journalist based in Toronto. Before developing a cannabis beat, she was the online and social media manager at Toronto’s alt-weekly NOW Magazine, where she was nominated for a Digital Publishing Award. Find her advice column, Weedsplainer, at Lift & Co. and more of her Canadian news coverage at Weedmaps.

is the editor-inchief of the Ministry of Hemp. A gonzo journalist from Austin, Texas, his work has also appeared in Yes! Magazine, Truthout, Firedoglake, The Establishment, and the Texas Observer.

KIT O’CONNELL

KATE ROBERTSON

is a nutritionist and creator of the Inspector Gorgeous blog, where she creates plant-based, low-sugar recipes. She enjoys food photography, old cookbooks, and vegetarian sushi. You can find her work at inspectorgorgeous.com LIZ SCHOCH

#hempmag 09

state of hemp

Advocates gather for the Hemp Industries Association Lobby Day in 2017.

The author is smiling on the far right.

VICTORY FO R H E M P : A DECA DE O F D.C . ADVO C ACY A federal hemp lobbyist recounts the years he worked for the hemp legalization cause on Capitol Hill, culminating in the 2018 Farm Bill — and considers what the future could bring.

Wo r d s a n d P h o t o s B y B e n D r o z

I first arrived in Washington, D.C. in 2008. President Barack

Obama had just been elected, bringing a new wave of electrified idealism, fresh ideas, and the perspective of the nation’s first black president to the White House. The entire city felt different. It was in this wave that I began my working with Vote Hemp, a longtime federal hemp lobbying organization, following the insatiable passion for hemp I had felt for years.

I could not have been more excited to get my feet wet and my hands dirty.

For the hemp industry in 2008, the most important piece of federal legislation to follow was the Industrial Hemp Farming Act, a perfectly elegant and concise bill that fit beautifully on a single sheet of hemp paper. Sponsored by Ron Paul, a Republican representative from Texas, and introduced before the Tea Party movement began, the bill was like an outcast in an era of increasing party-line gridlock. While a handful of representatives on both sides of the aisle supported the bill, cannabis prohibition still reigned strong, so the legislation had no chance of passage. But that didn’t stop me from dedicating my life to changing this reality.

In 2009, I moved to D.C. to work full time, around the clock, to legalize hemp in America. There had already been a national movement throughout the country, so I had much to talk about with advocates from different states. I walked the halls of

the Capitol, going door to door, getting as many meetings as I could, and talking about hemp to anyone that would listen.

Congressional staffers were open to quick briefings on the individual hemp movement in their states, despite the ongoing ban on any type of hemp cultivation. Through countless meetings with Congressional staff, the movement grew — slowly. In 2009, we launched Hemp History Week, a nationwide effort to educate and lobby for hemp, and in 2010, it was recognized on the House floor.

On December 20, 2018, President Donald Trump signed federal hemp legalization into law, but guaranteeing the stark sweeps of a presidential signature on hemp legalization certainly did not happen overnight. To the quintessential grassroots movement, this historical moment was the result of decades of activism and advocacy. In order to understand the true importance of this Farm Bill, it is important to understand the history of the modern hemp movement.

OUT FROM TOTAL PROHIBITION

It all started in 1985, with the first publication of “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” by the legendary Jack Herer.

This landmark book wove together the story of cannabis prohibition, while highlighting the incredible history of hemp.

It bought to light pieces of the American past that had been

#hempmag 11

Congressman Thomas Massie hangs a handmade hemp paper plaque, made by Elisha Shalom of Artisan Hemp, showing the language of “The Hemp Amendment to the Farm Bill of 2013.”

buried for decades, and centuries, in the Library of Congress and beyond. With contextualization of modern history, Jack Herer immediately sparked the modern hemp movement.

In 1994, the Hemp Industries Association was formed by a coalition of companies that sold imported hemp products. That same year, Canada began pilot hemp programs, and in 1998, Canada began producing hemp, which became a robust export to the U.S. health food market.

Throughout the next decade, the DEA would continue to deny the opportunity for a legitimate hemp industry in the United States. In a model for legislative activism at the state level, dozens of states filed bills, time and time again, to legalize hemp. Many bills passed, many bills got vetoed, and many resolutions then passed unanimously. This led to a beautiful patchwork of pro-hemp laws in place, without a vehicle to legally grow hemp. Even as the medical marijuana industry took root, hemp was not yet defined.

2013 was a watershed year for hemp. The grassroots movement across the country, and hundreds of meetings on Capitol Hill, had created a swell of momentum and the green waves started coming to shore. On Valentine’s Day that year, Sen. Ron Wyden introduced the Senate Hemp Farming Act. This time, he was joined by Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Later in the year, when the Farm Bill came up, Colorado’s Rep. Jared Polis (now governor of the state) introduced House Amendment 208. This was the first time hemp had ever received

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a vote. It not only passed with a healthy bipartisan margin, but was vastly improved and expanded on behind closed doors by the Majority Leader. The result was SEC 7606 of the 2014 Farm Bill, the now renowned piece of legislation that allowed states to immediately begin moving forward with pilot hemp programs.

With language and precedent under our belts, and support from our emboldened coalition, we looked at new federal actions. Inspired by the “Rohrabacher Amendment,” an amendment that stopped the federal government from using funding to target state-legal medical marijuana companies, we looked at omnibus appropriations language.

Just days before a vote, law enforcement in Kentucky seized a shipment of viable hempseeds destined for James Comer, then Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture. Comer sued the DEA to get the hemp, and Congressman Thomas Massie filed an amendment specifically to protect hemp pilot programs.

Late that night, two separate hemp amendments passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, directly followed by passage of the “Rohrabacher Amendment,” which was first introduced in 2001.

Hemp in Congress had reached entirely new heights, and with it came a shift in advocate understanding of what was possible.

We knew we had the votes to legalize hemp farming … and so the question became how. We knew that filing our language as an amendment in the Farm Bill was our best bet, and it all came together as well as we could have ever expected.

RIGHT: The Hemp Industries Association met for its annual conference in 2015 in Lexington, Kentucky.

“Hemp has alr eady demonstrated that it can be pr ofitable and will be an impor tant new tool for family farmers.” — E r i c S t e e n s t r a A BIG PUSH FROM CANNABIS LEGALIZATION

The mid-2010s were characterized by a rising tide for hemp, with more and more companies, events, and conferences coming onto the scene every year. Articles about and support for hemp were now a daily occurrence. Hemp went from an extreme niche product sparsely available at food co-ops, into a widely known superfood available across the country, as part of a growing natural foods industry lead by Whole Foods and USDA Organics.

It’s important to remember: 10 years ago, cannabis still carried a harsh taboo, medical marijuana was just beginning, and recreational cannabis wasn’t yet on the table. The knowledge that hemp was different from marijuana was still esoteric. Five years ago, there were major waves across the states that were just beginning to reach Capitol Hill.

While many in the hemp industry are quick to distance themselves from cannabis, it’s clear to me that the cannabis legalization movement further spurred support for hemp.

Election after election showed lawmakers that support for cannabis was strong. Then, new laws and significant tax revenues pushed cannabis into the mainstream, and with it, evermore education on the plant.

By the time hemp was introduced into the 2018 Farm Bill, it was already well understood to be fundamentally different from marijuana. Meanwhile, acceptance for marijuana continued to grow as states raced to pass stronger laws to create opportunities for consumers and businesses.

A big focus of the hemp industry recently has been on hemp-derived CBD, in part riding on the coattails of marijuana activists bringing the medical value of the CBD compound to the forefront of the converstaion. But hemp is so much more

than any singular cannabinoid, and that was always the attitude from the start.

Eric Steenstra, co-founder Vote Hemp and the Hemp Industries Association, always had a much larger vision: to help farmers with a new commodity.

“American farmers are struggling and hungry for new crops that are profitable,” he told me after the signing of the 2018 Farm Bill. “Hemp has already demonstrated that it can be profitable and will be an important new tool for family farmers.”

SO, WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

Hemp legalization is much bigger than the current market can project, and it is part of much larger global shifts in agriculture, sustainability, and domestic manufacturing. I believe that the hemp movement can inspire other changes in countless industries.

This new seed of innovation was planted by American hemp farmers, who make up a large part of our culture and economy. Yet family farms have been in crises for decades, and bankruptcies are still on the rise. Even today, over half of U.S. farms are not profitable. By helping the farmers first, hemp can transform our economy, help get us off of subsidized GMO corn and soy, and maybe even make widespread sustainable farming profitable. The supply chain of hemp can now be modernized and commodified.

Jack Herer famously said, “I don’t know if hemp is going to save the world, but it is the only thing that can.” Just in the past few decades since he has said that, we have seen even more mounting crises in our agriculture systems, domestic manufacturing economies, climate, and ecosystems. We still do not know if hemp can save the world. But now, for the first time in the modern era, it has a chance to try.

#hempmag 13

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T H E AG E O F C A N N A B I N O I D ENLIGHTENMENT Despite stringent restrictions on research, cannabinoid science has grown by leaps and bounds over the last three decades. In 2018, it culminated in the approval of the first FDA-approved, cannabis-derived pharmaceutical. How did we get here?

By Annie Rouse

PHOTOS COURTESY GW PHARMACEUTICALS

In the early 1990s , seven years into his practice, neurologist

Dr. Ethan Russo hit a crossroads in his career. He had to decide whether to continue prescribing increasingly toxic drugs to his patients, which were providing less and less benefit, or transition his research to traditional plant medicine to try to find a solution for migraine problems.

So Dr. Russo packed his bags and headed to the depths of the Peruvian Amazon, where he could find the greatest number of plants used to treat headaches. While studying in the Amazon, he found a multitude of plants that were effective, but there was a catch. Many of the plants he found beneficial for migraines had one commonality: trace concentrations of dimethyltryptamine (DMT).

DMT is naturally produced in the human brain while we sleep and is believed to create our dream stimulation. In the U.S., the Department of Justice regulates DMT as a Schedule I narcotic, with no known medical benefit. But during Dr.

Russo’s studies, he found that the plants containing DMT at very low doses effectively treated headaches. Given the U.S.’s stance against DMT, Dr. Russo knew the chances of commercializing a migraine pharmaceutical using a plant containing it would be nearly impossible.

But while Dr. Russo wrapped up his DMT plant research, California passed Proposition 215, legalizing medical cannabis.

After the bill’s passage, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) quickly recruited Dr. Russo to lead research on studies for the use of cannabis to treat migraines.

Over the next several years, Dr. Russo attempted to study these effects. But even though the research was approved by the FDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse refused to approve the floral material needed to perform the studies.

Despite the road blocks, Dr. Russo kept writing and editing research related to cannabis, quickly becoming a near ubiquitous name on the published cannabis studies. Eventually, two doctors

#hempmag 15

by the names of Geoffrey Guy and Brian Whittle took notice, requesting Dr. Russo join them at their newly formed company, GW Pharmaceuticals.

The partnership would go on to birth the first FDA-approved cannabis medicine, derived from the plant and relying on cannabinoid medicine: Epidiolex.

DEFINING CANNABINOIDS

In the retellings of many informal cannabis historians, the medical breakthroughs on cannabis surface in the 1990s.

However, in reality, the 1990s’ burst of cannabis research was only a resurgence of understanding about the plant’s medical and therapeutic attributes.

First, in the early 1800s, Dr. William O’Shaughnessy published some of the first recognized medical applications of cannabis. Then, in the late 1800s, according to Dr. Russo, another doctor by the name of Sir William Osler reported that cannabis was the “best treatment for migraines.” By 1934, the League of Nations reported that cannabis contributed to relief as “a mild counter irritant… for the relief of neuralgic pain; to encourage sleep; and to soothe restlessness,” but these supporting studies were lost with prohibition.

However, none of this 1800s and early 1900s data seemed to matter much in the present until scientists discovered how endogenous cannabinoids and phytocannabinoids like CBD and THC interacted with the brain and body.

“There are too many (breakthroughs) to count,” Dr. Russo says, but says the biggest breakthrough “would be the way cannabis relates to the endocannabinoid system. Basically, we have this plant

that has been used for thousands of years, and this physiological system that is not just in humans. But [this breakthrough] helps explain why cannabis is such a versatile medicine with certain diseases where other pharmaceuticals are not.”

It was in 1988 that two researchers at St. Louis University, Allyn Howlett and William Devane, discovered that mammalian brains have receptor cites that respond to cannabis compounds. More research soon followed, with a 1990 study mapping the DNA sequence of a cannabinoid receptor and a 1992 study finding the first endocannabinoid, produced by the human brain itself.

Dr. Russo describes the basic functions of the endocannabinoid system (ECS) as “eat, sleep, protect, and forget.” Once people started to understand the relationship between the ECS and cannabis-derived cannabinoids in the 1990s, it sparked scientific outcry to remove cannabis restrictions and open pathways for plant research.

Rescheduling requests weren’t met, but this didn’t deter cannabinoid scientists, particularly Dr. Guy and his colleague

16 thehempmag.com

Dr. Whittle. The duo proceeded to meet with the United Kingdom’s Chief Inspector (of the drugs branch), where they convinced the United Kingdom Home Office to grant a research program license.

In the UK, GW Pharmaceuticals began procuring high-CBD varieties of cannabis and exploring drug delivery methods. At the same time in the U.S., National Institute on Drug Abuse researcher Dr. Aidan Hampson discovered that cannabinoids like CBD and THC had antioxidant properties. By 2003, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued patent 6630507, federally recognizing the antioxidant and neuroprotective properties of cannabinoids.

EXPLORING CANNABINOIDS

The 2000s and beyond proved to be a clarifying decade for cannabinoids, as research mounted in favor of their medical and therapeutic benefits. By 2003, Dr. Russo had joined GW Pharmaceuticals full time as their senior medical advisor, serving as the liaison between clinicians and scientists while running the Phase I through Phase III clinical trials over the next 11 years.

These trials included the development of Sativex (a 1:1 CBD to THC pharmaceutical) and the newly FDA-approved Epidiolex (a 98 percent CBD pharmaceutical).

The clinical trials allowed cannabinoids to officially be tested on human subjects under medically accepted controlled environments, while providing GW Pharmaceuticals the opportunity to research, assess, and patent cannabinoid ratio outcomes and ingestion mechanisms.

To date, the company holds over 40 patents for various appli-

cations that are narrow in focus. Plenty of the patents relate to cannabis and THC — not to hemp — but they still represent a growing trend relevant to the hemp industry: Cannabis medicine is increasingly focused on cannabinoids themselves, and how those cannabinoids can be incorporated in pharmaceuticals.

REFINING CANNABINOIDS

As GW Pharmaceuticals expanded research, Dr. Russo focused on the synergistic effects of cannabis, later popularizing the term “entourage effect” to define the actions between the cannabinoids, terpenoids, and other compounds found in a whole plant extract. Dr. Russo explains cannabis as “an archetypal botanical medicine, meaning there is far more response from the total plant than single compounds.”

The most noticeable proven effect of this interaction can be experienced when comparing the effects of the synthetic THC pharmaceutical, Marinol, with other whole plant cannabis material.

While GW Pharmaceuticals’ patents may open medical research into cannabinoid pharmaceuticals, the entourage effect offers an exciting future for cannabinoids and terpenoids and the finely tuned therapeutic possibilities for resolving individual problems.

With hemp now federally legal, the FDA can openly take a stance on cannabinoid regulation. And because hemp has been defined as any cannabis plant with less than 0.3 percent THC, a legal market around individual cannabinoids (minus THC) is primed to explode. GW Pharmaceuticals has preached their willingness to keep cannabinoid “swim lanes” relating to pharmaceuticals, supplements, and food, but the FDA will make their own regulatory decision.

The question is, how will the FDA react? Their current stance is that Epidiolex is the only FDA-approved CBD product, but that steps could be taken “providing potential

regulatory pathways for products.”

The regulatory body requires any new dietary ingredient (NDI) to undergo approval within the FDA’s NDI process, an expensive pathway that only a handful of companies can afford. Major supplement brands will likely applaud this pathway, as it will remove smaller competitors from the market.

Conversely, proving that CBD and hemp extract were marketed prior to 1994 when the NDI restrictions were implemented would significantly benefit the marketability of cannabinoid products from the smallest producers to the largest conglomerates.

For now, the hemp industry is left to wait and see how the U.S. government decides to regulate cannabinoids, which in large part have been understood thanks to a few leading researchers, including one neurologist who went to the Amazon in search of a migraine cure.

#hempmag 17

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Hempitecture workers build the Highland Hemp House, one of the largest residential hemp projects in the United States.

T H E WA L L S B LO C K I N G H E M P C R E T E ’ S ACC E P TA N C E Though hempcrete is healthier for both a building’s occupants and the planet, high costs and lack of research stand in the way of widespread adoption.

B y K i t O ’ C o n n e l l | P h o t o s by K r i s t e n A n g e l o

#hempmag 21

Hempcrete waits to be poured into molds at the Highland Hemp House in Bellingham, Washington.

Hempcrete, a building material made from the woody

core of the hemp plant, could revolutionize sustainable architecture and engineering. If, that is, we can overcome a number of frustrating barriers that stand in the way of widespread implementation.

Made from just a few simple ingredients (often just hemp hurds, water, and lime), hempcrete is resistant to numerous hazards, including pests and fire. Hempcrete buildings even become carbon-negative over time as the walls absorb the carbon dioxide that’s exhaled by occupants.

But hempcrete is labor-intensive and can be expensive from a materials perspective. Perhaps because of this, engineers and architects are still reluctant to use it.

That doesn’t mean we should dismiss hempcrete, according to Matthew Mead, founder of Hempitecture. Hempitecture recently completed work on the Highland Hemp House, an ambitious hempcrete retrofit to a home built in 1969 in Bellingham, Washington.

“Every project that’s well executed creates a precedent, and that precedent can be shared,” Mead says.

As awareness spreads and engineers learn about of the potential of hempcrete, many of the barriers to building with hemp are likely to subside.

THE IMMENSE POTENTIAL OF HEMPCRETE

Like many things related to the hemp plant itself, the benefits of hempcrete are plentiful. They’ve already been proven in Europe, where hempcrete is relatively commonplace. “Europe is light years ahead of us,” Mead says.

Typically, hempcrete is used as an insulator, built around a building’s support structure. Made from the inner core of hemp, or hurd, hempcrete takes on many of the properties of the

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original plant. Hempcrete is resistant to pests, mold, bacteria, and even fire.

Hempcrete insulates while still being gas permeable, which makes for a healthier home. And its R-value — the factor which measures its ability to reflect energy — makes hempcrete as good or better than other common forms of insulation. Since it comes from a fast-growing plant, advocates argue that hempcrete is far more environmentally sustainable than concrete, a popular choice in modern “green” buildings.

EXPENSE AND LABOR STILL HINDERING ADOPTION

Hempcrete is usually mixed batch-by-batch on a building site by combining hemp hurds with water and a natural binder such as lime. The mixture is poured into forms built around the building’s structure and allowed to dry. The process is slow, laborintensive, and difficult to fully automate. Additionally, it’s hard to guarantee that every batch of hempcrete will be consistent.

For cost, the biggest factor increasing price is that most hemp hurd needs to be imported from overseas.

“We’re bringing material from the other side of the world,” Mead says. “In fact, shipping costs of the material are often higher than the material itself.”

While Mead argues the long-term savings in health and energy efficiency make up for the cost, price still inhibits wouldbe hemp builders. Although the supply of U.S.-grown hemp is rapidly increasing, it’s mostly grown for CBD. Mead says the core of these plants is too “knobby” for use in hempcrete.

If we encourage farmers to grow other forms of hemp besides varietals grown strictly for CBD, the costs of hempcrete will come down. Mead says dual-purpose plants that can be used for both hemp food and hemp fiber are increasingly common on Canadian hemp farms.

At the moment, the process of building with hempcrete is arduous and expensive.

#hempmag 23

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A Canadian company called Just BioFiber is producing modular hempcrete blocks.

The “Harmless House,” built by Sooke Construction in British Columbia, utilized the blocks.

If we encourage farmers to grow other forms of hemp besides varie tals gr own s tric tly for CBD, the cos ts of hempcr e te will come down.

PHOTOS COURTESY JUST BIOFIBER

THE FUTURE: MASS-PRODUCED HEMP BLOCKS

In October, Mead attended the International Hemp Building Association’s 8th annual International Hemp Building Symposium in Brussels, where he says he “was blown away by the progress they’ve made.”

As part of his visit, he toured the IsoHemp factory, which mass produces hundreds of standardized hemp blocks a day.

While Mead believes there will always be a role for custom-poured projects, he thinks mass production holds the key to hempcrete’s widespread acceptance.

There are signs of progress in that direction on this side of the Atlantic. Based in Alberta, Canada, Just BioFiber pioneered a modular building system that uses what look like oversized Lego blocks to create structurally sound buildings. The cores of their blocks are made from hempcrete, packed into a proprietary exterior that makes them completely load-bearing and weatherproof. With an abundance of hemp in Canada, the blocks can easily be made

from domestically grown plants, which further brings down costs.

“It’s a pre-engineered product so every block is the same,” says Terry Brooks, Just BioFiber’s vice president in charge of business development and sales. “We know how it’s going to perform when you put it in a structure.”

Just Biofiber made headlines recently when their blocks were selected for a self-storage facility in British Columbia, which was created using hemp and other green materials. Projects like this are proving that hemp building blocks are both reliable and much faster to work with than other forms of hempcrete.

“You can stack up a couple of hundred blocks a day,” Brooks says.

Because of that ability, Brooks says his team can build two floors of an average house in 21 days. By comparison, pouring hempcrete at Highland Hemp House took about two months, even with Hempitecture’s experience and innovations in hempcrete pouring techniques.

#hempmag 25

26 thehempmag.com

LEFT and BELOW: Construction on the Highland Hemp House has so far taken more than 500 batches of hempcrete and over one thousand hours of labor. The house is still not yet complete.

A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT FOR RESEARCH

The final barrier to hempcrete’s acceptance is overcoming the skepticism of many architects, engineers, and designers. Both Brooks and Mead suggest more research is needed to make hempcrete part of the standard builder’s toolbox.

According to Brooks, “Engineers have three books: wood, concrete, and steel. That’s it.”

To that end, Hempitecture is partnering with design students from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, and an advisor from The Boeing Company,

who are performing a study to document hempcrete’s fire resistance. While many similar studies have already been performed in Europe, differing systems of measurement make it difficult to use the results of those studies in the U.S. Mead hopes hemp building advocates will work together to share their research and further the field, until hempcrete is considered fully “code ready.”

“There has to be some means to pull people together, no one should be working in a silo,” he says.

“That’s really going to take a collaborative effort.”

#hempmag 27

HOW TO SOURCE V IABLE H E M P SE E DS Whether sourcing domestically or internationally, U.S. hemp farmers have a myriad of options. But ensuring they don’t run afoul of the law and still receive quality, high-CBD seed requires a bit of knowhow.

B y A . J . H e r r i n g t o n | I l l u s t r a t i o n by F r a n c i s c o F r e e m a n

With hemp newly legalized at the federal level, farmers

across the country are eager to begin planting the crop. But acquiring seed can present questions to the new hemp farmer: How can one be sure to purchase high-quality seed only? What are the legal issues involved?

The quality of hemp seed can vary greatly, and inferior choices can be costly. For example, in Oregon, a group of growers is suing three seed dealers for selling defective seed that they say caused more than $21 million in damages. According to one plaintiff, what was sold as feminized seed for a high-CBD strain produced poor quality flower and pollen that ruined a nearby marijuana field.

PHOTO EMILY JOAN GREENE

CERTIFIED HEMP SEED NOW AVAILABLE

One way to ensure that hemp seed is high quality is to purchase seed approved by a certifying agency, such as the Association of Seed Certifying Agencies (AOSCA), says Wendy Mosher, CEO of New West Genetics in Fort Collins, Colorado.

“Certified seed means a very specific thing to farmers,” says Mosher. “It’s not a broad, catch-all term at all. It means that it’s been approved by AOSCA, which is a large seed-certifying agency to which North America belongs.”

New West Genetics has developed the first hemp seed bred in the United States to be certified by AOSCA, a varietal known as NWG-ELITE. The Colorado Department of Agriculture created the country’s first hemp seed certification program in 2016. To qualify for certification under the program, hemp varieties must perform well in five diverse growing regions across the state. The varietals must also show that they’re not prone to THC levels above 0.3 percent.

Mosher says that New West Genetics set out in 2014 to breed varieties of hemp with enhanced cannabinoid profiles that could be cultivated on a large scale using traditional farming equipment. The company bred and grew millions of plants, selecting only about 0.5 percent of those each season that best exhibited the desired traits.

“It’s a highly selective process to get plants stable and to continue to do exactly what you want [them] to do,” Mosher says.

With the successful certification of NWG-ELITE in January 2018, New West Genetics made the seed available for purchase by farmers in states that have legalized hemp agriculture.

Chris Boucher is the CEO of Farmtiva, an agricultural company that farmed 55 acres of hemp in California’s Imperial Valley in 2018. He says that farmers should protect themselves by buying seed from a reputable breeder.

“It’s very important that you buy a stable seed … meaning that they’re hopefully not going to go to 0.3 percent [THC],” says Boucher.

Farmtiva is breeding hemp varieties high in CBD and will be marketing them to farmers participating in California’s newly legal pilot program.

Prior to the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, Boucher says the regulations governing the purchase of hemp seed varied from state-to-state, meaning farmers had to be careful to be fully compliant with the rules for their jurisdiction. In West Virginia, a farmer was sued by federal prosecutors for purchasing seed in Kentucky and transporting it across state lines. On the application to grow hemp, the farmer had indicated that he would be importing seed from abroad.

#hempmag 29

The qualit y of hemp seed can var y greatly, and inferior choices can be costly.

Today, Boucher says that provisions in the 2018 Farm Bill take the legal ambiguity out of transporting hemp seed from state to state.

“It really gives the buyers and the sellers a legal interstate transportation avenue,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about it if you’re shipping seeds from a registered grower to another registered grower, as long as your paperwork is correct.”

That clarification can give growers valuable peace of mind.

“It alleviates all of the potential legal headaches — that the DEA could seize your seed, or say it’s marijuana, etc. So now there’s a whole paper trail that is in place that really secures the industry as a whole,” says Boucher.

IMPORTING HEMP SEED

Besides buying from domestic breeders, farmers can also acquire hemp seed from companies in Europe and Canada. Many foreign breeders have representatives in the U.S. that can help arrange a purchase for import. But those varieties are usually best adapted for the region in which they were developed, and the strains highest in CBD percentage have been bred domestically.

“Unfortunately, there are no CBD strains that are on the international imports list because CBD [strains] are an American invention,” says Boucher. “The Europeans are trying, and they are stealing our genetics left and right, but you have to get your high-end CBD seeds stateside and you don’t need a DEA permit for that.”

In an email to HEMP before the 2018 Farm Bill, Dirk Fillpot, a communications coordinator at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said that importing hemp seed is legal if strict requirements are met.

“Farmers are able to import industrial hemp seeds if they meet the conditions of the Federal Seed Act, including labeling requirements. They would need to also apply for an import permit and a phytosanitary certificate for the shipment,” Fillpot wrote.

Fillpot could not be reached for further clarification after the Farm Bill’s passage, due to the government shutdown.

Customs and Border Protection advises on its website that imports of viable hemp seed will be permitted with the proper paperwork: “Non-sterilized hemp seeds remain a schedule I controlled substance and therefore may only be imported into the U.S. with a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Application for Permit to Import Controlled Substances/Domestic and/or Scientific Purposes form.”

30 thehempmag.com 32

The application, DEA Form 357, is available online.

A healthy and profitable hemp field starts with quality genetics. Acquiring superior seed can be costly and requires attention to the details of regulation, but with due diligence in strain selection and compliance, it’s possible to make hemp a successful part of a farmer’s business.

TIPS FOR SOURCING HEMP SEEDS Look for seeds certified by the

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Search for certified seed sellers

that have genetics suited to your climate.

Consider importing seeds only

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INSIDE CANADA’S MASSIVE MOVE TO LEGALIZE CANNABIS & HEMP In late 2018, Canada’s Cannabis Act officially came into effect. Whether you view it purely from an acreage standpoint, as a newly opened market, or as a business opportunity with their neighbors to the south, Canada’s move is going to change the hemp game in a big way. B y K a t e R o b e r t s o n | I l l u s t r a t i o n s by R y a n G a r c i a

If yo u as k D a vid Re n d im on ti’ s two daughters what

their dad does for a living, you’ll get two different answers.

“Gillian will tell all of her friends, ‘Dad’s in biotech and health,’” he says on the phone from Quebec. “And Sidney will say, ‘Dad sells weed.’”

The CEO of LiveWell, a Canadian hemp company based in Ottawa, Ontario, is part of a new wave of entrepreneurs flush with capital and poised to take advantage of cannabis policy shifts throughout North America. And even though his daughters are teasing, Rendimonti says that in a way, they’re both right. After three decades of roles in pharmaceuticals and supplements at companies such as Wyeth, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, he shifted his focus to hemp a little over a year ago — specifically, cannabidiol (CBD), which was illegal to extract from hemp plants in Canada until October 2018.

That’s when the Canadian government passed the Cannabis Act, which legalized and regulated recreational marijuana and eased the laws that had applied to industrial hemp since 1998. That’s when cannabis sativa plants with less than 0.3 percent delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) were exempted from the Controlled Drug and Substances Act and placed under the Industrial Hemp Regulations.

Since 1998, the number of acres farmed for hemp in Canada has steadily grown, and then jumped by approximately 75,000 acres to 140,000 acres total from 2016 to 2017, according to Health Canada.

Under the Cannabis Act, CBD will remain a controlled substance and can only be purchased from licensed retailers in Canada, supplied by a licensed producer. But the new law also allowed the country’s 1200-plus hemp licensees to sell CBD-rich biomass to a licensed company to be extracted for isolate for the first time. In past years, farmers — largely concentrated on the flat prairies of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba — have only been able to grow a limited number of approved cultivars for hemp grain and fiber instead of for cannabinoids.

This policy shift, combined with the 2018 Farm Bill in the United States, means that Canada’s more cannabis-friendly banking and securities institutions are drawing in different kinds of players, investment, and a flurry of consolidation.

On December 3, LiveWell announced a merger with U.S.based Vitality CBD Natural Health Products — a reverse takeover that will allow the company to raise capital on Canada’s securities exchange and lean on Vitality’s proven hemp CBD cultivation success in New Mexico and Montana.

The strategy? To secure a solid foothold in the hemp CBD supply chain in both the United States and Canada, projected

by Chicago’s Brightfield Group to be worth as much as $22 billion by 2022 — potentially even more valuable than THCinfused products.

As CEO of the newly formed company, Rendimonti’s vision is to create CBD-infused topical ointments, drinks, sublinguals, and other consumer products from the isolate

#hempmag 33

“In Canada, we are world-renowned farmers and there is no doubt about that. But what we do in Canada is just by sheer brute force: massive acreage, massive machines, massive combines producing hundreds if not millions of tons of biomass.” — C r a i g G o o d w i n the company will extract. He’s also just secured his first major deal: two weeks after our interview, LiveWell announced a binding letter of intent to supply hemp-derived CBD isolate to Canadian cannabis giant Tilray. Just days later, Tilray announced a $100 million joint venture, split 50/50 with beer conglomerate Anheuser-Busch, to develop cannabis-infused drinks, some of which are sure to be powered by CBD. “You know, I don’t think we’re going to be the number one cannabis and hemp company globally in every part of every part of the business,” Rendimonti reflects. “But we sure are setting ourselves up to be a leader in CBD from industrial hemp.”

PLAYING CULTIVAR CATCH-UP W I T H U . S . H E M P P R OD U C E R S

LiveWell and Tilray are hardly alone in the race to supply the world with hemp-derived CBD, which can be produced at a much lower cost than Canada’s ultra-regulated, hyper-controlled indoorgrown cannabis.

But in British Columbia, executives at the 10-year-old Naturally Splendid, headquartered just outside of Vancouver in a town called Pitt Meadows, don’t sound as thrilled by Canada’s new laws.

For one, president and co-founder Craig Goodwin says the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance even had to lobby the government to allow existing hemp farmers to sell off any CBD-rich flower biomass they had from this year’s harvest. Farmers were being asked to leave thousands of dollars on the table, according to Goodwin, who says even if the plant contained the lower end of CBD at 6 percent, “you’re talking somewhere upwards of $60,000 [or $45,000 USD] an acre when farmers are used to a yield of $1500 an acre.”

“So when farmers are looking at all of these vast riches, they’re going, ‘Oh my God, it’s already a profitable crop. And I get to take CBD off it no matter how low the expression in Canada?’ That’s where farmers’ mindsets are,” Goodwin says. “What they’re not recognizing — and maybe because too many dollar signs are dancing in their heads — is that in Colorado, Kentucky, we’ve heard numbers in excess of 20 percent CBD. We’ve heard crazy numbers out of Colombia and South America. And in fact many parts of Europe, like Italy, are reporting high-teens, low-20s percentages for CBD.” Now, Goodwin says the pressure is on Canada’s breeders to match those CBD-rich genetics in competing markets and on the industry to develop new techniques to efficiently grow and harvest CBD. Last May, the large Canadian cannabis company Aurora announced its CBD strategy would include acquiring a controlling stake of Hempco, another established player in the hemp industry.

“The extraction of CBD allowed for under the new Act is a key component of our growth strategy, and we are well positioned to take advantage of this enormous opportunity,” said Hempco CEO

34 thehempmag.com

Diane Jang in a press release. “Together with our strategic partner and majority shareholder Aurora Cannabis Inc., we are now in prime position to develop quality new products and take our hemp business to the next level.”

Reps at Canada’s largest cannabis company, Canopy Growth, could be even further ahead than Aurora and Hempco. On January 11, the company announced that they had harvested more than 190 million sq. ft. of CBD-rich hemp genetics rich in Saskatchewan.

They expect to extract approximately 7000 kg (nearly 15,000 lbs.) of CBD isolate from the harvest.

This high-CBD harvest is an impressive feat in a country where only pedigreed hemp cultivars — plants which have been bred to breed true or plants that have gone to seed at least three times with proven, consistent cannabinoid content and no morphological variations — can be planted legally for industrial production. Seeds can be imported, but they have to be listed on the Organ Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Seed Schemes or by the Association of Official Seed Certifying Agencies (AOSCA). According to Jordan Gabriel, a senior quality and regulatory consultant with Cannabis Compliance Inc., it’s so closely regulated to prevent cultivars with higher concentrations of THC from accidentally taking over acreage. And this heavy regulation is a blessing and a curse.

“Hemp companies who have been producing professionally for the past four years, they’ve been producing it for seed and for fiber, they haven’t been looking at cannabinoid content whatsoever other than to make sure that they aren’t producing any THC, in line with the regulations,” says Gabriel on the phone from Carleton Place, a small town near Ottawa. “So the problem that they’re finding is that a lot of startup hemp companies can’t find a cultivar of hemp that gives them a very high yield of CBD […] Unfortunately what we’re also finding is that the United States has much better cannabinoid content for some of their cultivars, but these cultivars don’t have the same level of strict control. So it’s difficult to exactly figure out how to bring them up north and plant them. At the same time, it’s also difficult to see how well they would fare in the different climate.”

In addition to genetics, Goodwin says farmers will have to learn entirely new hemp-growing techniques, adding that he’s seen CBD-rich cultivars grown more like tobacco in states like Kentucky, where plants won’t knock into each other and CBDpotent trichomes can be preserved. Scaling up will be difficult for Canadian farmers.

“In Canada, we are world-renowned farmers and there is no doubt about that,” he says. “But what we do in Canada is just by sheer brute force: massive acreage, massive machines, massive combines producing hundreds if not millions of tons of biomass. That’s what we do in Canada. CBD cultivation isn’t about brute force. It’s a much more delicate, a much more subtle farming technique that, if

you want the truth, still isn’t even fully developed yet. There are a thousand questions to ask.”

And then there are bureaucratic challenges.

Naturally Splendid spent more than $2.5 million CAD on Prosnack, an energy bar company that manufactures Elevate Me bars, and on building a new facility under the impression that they would also have a dealer’s license that would allow them to extract and formulate CBD-rich products.

Instead, they’re still waiting — an unfortunate circumstance that has entrepreneurs worrying that they’ll lose this small window of opportunity before the rest of the world follows suit.

“So there is no hemp CBD market,” Goodwin says. “The government, by trying to be cautious in their regulatory framework, have actually created a bigger than ever underground black market, an unregulated market with no quality controls for CBD.” WILL OVERREGULATION SIMPLY LEAD TO A LARGER ILLICIT MARKET?

“You know, I describe CBD these days as the new Frank’s Red Hot Sauce — they put that sh*t in everything,” cracks Ronan Levy, the chief strategy officer at Trait Biosciences, a cannabis biotechnology company based in Toronto.

“And you know, it’s great in one way because it’s opening people up to explore and understand CBD and cannabinoids in general, but if you have some people who are fast and loose with the applications or potential benefits of it, you’re going to have a backlash associated with that from people who are skeptical and dismiss its utility,” Levy says. “And I think that’s the biggest risk. As an industry we’ve got to be prudent about the claims we make.”

Of course, the most common risky claims thrown around the hemp industry pertain to CBD and its potential benefits, which researchers are still trying to figure out — a project that will hopefully be easier in a post-prohibition world.

Epidiolex, a kind of cannabis-derived CBD medication, was recently approved by the FDA for treatment of seizures from Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome in the United States, a decision based on several clinical trials. And while there have been some studies pertaining to CBD, much of it isn’t yet conclusive. Instead, anecdotal evidence abounds when it comes to the cannabinoid’s analgesic, anti-insomnia, and anti-anxiety effects, with some reviewers on many cannabis websites and product blogs swearing by its power.

That isn’t stopping massive companies like tobacco giant Altria, Corona owner Constellation Brands, Coors, and pharmaceuticals conglomerate Sandoz from acquiring an interest or creating a joint venture with Canadian cannabis companies.

36 thehempmag.com

This influx of money from established brands with deep pockets is likely to disrupt alcohol, tobacco, and pharma sales in North America.

In a way, CBD has seemingly been everywhere: in mainstream media and alt-health blogs alike. But it’s still rare to see CBD-infused lattes on the menu at coffee shops or the CBD-infused negronis Canadians read about in the New York Times. This is at least in part because Canadian regulations have placed CBD, even if it is derived from hemp, under the authority of the nation’s cannabis program.

On the cannabis side of the equation, illegal dispensaries are being shut down and store owners face serious consequences under the Cannabis Act for operating. The new licensed, legal retailers — a mix of private and public ventures under provincial jurisdictions — are cautiously opening. But they don’t always have product to sell: just 12 weeks after legalization, the province of New Brunswick laid off several recent hires simply because there wasn’t enough supply to serve customers.

As of September 2018, there were 342,103 Canadians registered for medical cannabis products and a growing number of export and research partners in the cannabis space in countries such as Israel, Jamaica, Germany, Colombia, and more.

And it’s early days for product selection: legal products are still largely limited to cannabis flower, oils, and a small selection of topicals, and the regulations surrounding pre-packaged edibles or extracts are still in the consultation process — those products won’t hit the store shelves until October 2019.

Those edibles regulations, based largely on reports from legal cannabis states like Colorado, will likely limit each edible product to 10 mg of THC per package, but they likely won’t limit CBD. Shirley Toms, senior quality and regulatory consultant at Cannabis Compliance Inc., says it is a good idea to limit cannabinoids in products to protect people who accidentally consume an infused product or who wants to avoid taking too much.

“But it doesn’t stamp out the black market perhaps all that effectively because those amounts are considered small in the black-market consumption crowd,” she says. “And the other criticism that you hear is, what does that mean for packaging? It’s not as environmentally friendly as we tend to move towards, so having all these these discrete units individually packaged has the potential to generate a disproportionate amount of wrapping.”

As those regulations evolve through the consultation process, it may give the hemp industry more time to understand just how much staying

Tilray announced a $100 million joint venture, split 50/50 with beer conglomerate Anheuser-Busch, to develop cannabisinfused drinks, some of which are sure to be powered by CBD.

power CBD will have, or if it could go the way of the Goji berry before Canada is able to produce a consistent, regulated supply.

In the meantime, just about everyone will also be developing new emulsification techniques that will make hemp oil water soluble for consistent beverage products with stable shelf lives.

That’s something Levy, who also founded Canadian Cannabis Clinics and CanvasRX, says is sorely missing from the illicit market and one way regulated hemp players can compete.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever had the opportunity to try [illicit market drinks] out, but by and large, they are all uniformly terrible,” Levy says.

Naturally Splendid’s emulsification technology is called HempOmega, a microencapsulation technique that turns oil to a water-soluble powder, and is already being used with hempderived Omega 3 and 6. And Trait has developed glycosylated CBD technology that Levy says makes it easy to add the substance to drinks.

“You know, the last three years everyone was just focused on people building massive production facilities,” Levy says. “I think the next wave is people who are figuring out how to do everything really efficiently, safely, and with purity.”

When the Cannabis Act came into force on October 17, reporters flocked to document the very first recreational cannabis sales in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in Eastern Canada at Water Street’s new Tweed store.

Canopy, which owns Tweed, flexed its consolidated, firstmover advantage muscles yet again: CEO Bruce Linton posed for photos with Ian Power and Nikki Rose, the first Canadians to buy legal weed in the country. It was an important moment, but also a major PR coup in a hyper-regulated marketing environment.

There are close to 1000 cannabis cultivators waiting for licenses, according to Health Canada. The competition will be ruthless, and increasingly, Canadian companies are looking for international partners to sustain growth.

And yet despite the stark fact that among the winners, there will be far more losers; despite the regulatory headaches and delays, and the uncertainty abroad, Canada’s cannabis industry can sometimes feel like one of the more optimistic atmospheres one could surround oneself with in otherwise dark times. As corporate and tough as it is, almost everyone you talk to is focused on the opportunity to shape not just a post-prohibition Canada, but a post-prohibition world.

“I’m absolutely in love with the industry as you can hear from my voice I’m super passionate about making a difference,” says LiveWell’s David Rendimonti. “We’re the privileged few to be at the starting line of something amazing that’s growing so quickly.”

#hempmag 37

Plant the seeds to

Cannabis Marketing for Mobile | Outdoor | Social Media

grow your brand.

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Hudson Hemp’s farm, named Old Mud Creek Farm, as viewed from above.

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REGENER ATIVE FARMING & THE PUSH FOR SOCIAL EQUIT Y AT HUDSON HEMP

In an industry that often seems disproportionately male and white, Hudson Hemp Company is bucking that trend, committing themselves to social and environmental justice.

PHOTO PETER CROSBY

By K . Astre

#hempmag 41

Hudson Hemp company has a lot to look forward to this year. Like most other hemp cultivators, the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill has given the New York-based company the green light to expand in ways that didn’t appear possible just a few short months ago.

Melany Dobson, the company’s chief administration officer, says she is optimistic about what the future holds for small hemp farmers, even if the Farm Bill didn’t clarify everything.

“What brings us hope is the redefinition of hemp. With this newfound understanding, hemp is poised to be utilized in its entirety and now investment will be made into research, development, and infrastructure,” Dobson says.

Dobson acknowledges that her outlook is complicated by the ongoing uncertainty around the legality of CBD extracts, as the FDA develops regulations around the substance.

In her view, regulation is welcome — but with a crucial caveat: “Regulation of hemp must be tethered to restoring justice for the impact and damage of the war on drugs on minority communities,” Dobson insists.

In 2019, New York’s agricultural regions are likely to see an explosion in hemp farming. The state’s hemp program launched in 2015, and in 2017 the state eliminated its cap on the number of farms it would authorize to grow the crop. Last year, farmers grew approximately 3,500 acres of hemp — and the state government promised $10 million in research funding for hemp and a grant to help establish a $3.2 million processing facility.

Dobson says that Hudson Hemp is doing its best to work with local small farmers, particularly women and people of color, with an eye on how cannabis prohibition affected certain groups disproportionately.

42 thehempmag.com

PHOTOS JEREMY SACHS-MICHAELS

“Regulation of hemp must be tethered to restoring justice for the impact and damage of the war on drugs on minority communities.” — M e l a n y D o b s o n

CLOCKWISE from top left: Satori, an ambassador for Hudson Hemp; Melany Dobson, chief brand officer; Ben Banks-Dobson, CEO; Keith, field leader (PHOTO Sara Wallach).

#hempmag 43

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PHOTOS JEREMY SACHS-MICHAELS

“As New York prepares to open an extremely lucrative market, it is Hudson Hemp’s responsibility, in affiliation with New York Small Farm Alliance of Cannabis Growers, to ensure that the generated capital recirculates within the state to optimize benefit to residents through increased jobs and wages and increased social and environmental impact,” Dobson says.

The woman-owned company sees their commitment to both social equity and environmental sustainability as tied together, Dobson says. They aim to replenish the ecosystem through their regenerative farming techniques, while incorporating social equity, environmental justice, and cultural health into their business practices.

CEO Ben Banks-Dobson says the company sees hemp as a way to help preserve resources while reinventing industries and economies. One of Hudson Hemp’s biggest goals is to

demonstrate the powerful role of hemp in reviving a culture dependent on fossil fuels.

“Although hemp is, at present, heavily associated with CBD, we feel that over the next five years, several other important uses of the plant will emerge,” Banks-Dobson says, noting that they are growing hemp for production of fiber, grain, and building materials — not just CBD. “We understand this production to be critical to re-tooling key supply chains that are currently big polluters and often no longer operate within the United States,” he says.

For Brandon Curtin, the head of cultivation at Hudson Hemp, regenerative farming is a simple concept: leave more than what you found. It aligns with the company’s vision for a world where plant medicine restores the Earth, the people, and their industries.

#hempmag 45

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PHOTOS HUDSON HEMP

“It’s using biological systems to benefit the soil and atmosphere and overall ecology. Each year the soil’s web of life grows rather than being depleted,” says Curtin. “The larger picture is that hemp sequesters carbon, produces food, fiber, medicine, and its waste is used for building material. Rural and small communities and regional industries can be revived while sequestering carbon.”

This year, Curtin says that Hudson Hemp is planning to expand in the agricultural hub of the Hudson River Valley. “We will be cultivating 40 acres of CBD-rich hemp in 2019,” he says. “We are excited to be working with a multitude of small farmers in the surrounding county to start building this new regenerative model.”

Part of the regenerative model is using more of the plant than simply flower for CBD, says Dobson.

“Trends will move away from CBD products toward full-plant extracts that represent a variety of cannabinoids and terpenoids, stimulating the entourage effect,” she says. “As more research emerges, bioavailability, dose, and ingestion methodology will bear greater understanding.”

For now, Dobson says that the company is working on launching a line of whole-plant products, and “will continue to innovate on our farm with intelligent land design that honors nature’s cycles.”

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KENTUCK Y ’S BIG MONE Y HEMP Inside GenCanna: The vertically integrated company with massive investment looking to set the industry standard.

B y J u l i a C l a r k- R i d d e l l | P h o t o s by B e n D r o z

The hemp industry of 2019 is filled with opportunists, cure

hawkers, and grail seekers. This makes it difficult to determine who is actually on track to manifest anything concrete, given that a good portion of the industry is concerned with proving their path is the right path.

So, when the Kentucky heavy-hitter GenCanna Global called me in California and said they were making cutting-edge advancements that I should see, I wasn’t sure if I was falling for a trick older than hemp parchment and carbon ink. I’d seen the blue helix of GenCanna’s branding at conferences and read their press releases about the fancy processing partnerships they’d secured and the corporate positions they’d filled with investment bankers. From hempsters in Lexington, I’d heard the occasional comment about how GenCanna seemed shrouded in an abnormal degree of secrecy. No one was entirely sure what they were up to, out on their big campus in Winchester, in historic hemp country.

But, over two days in Kentucky during last year’s harvest, I saw that the company was no empty crusade. From their

Hemp, destined for GenCanna’s processing facility, is harvested on Kenneth Anderson’s farm.

vertically integrated production line to their decades-deep ties in the medical marijuana movement (and the reason why they’re secretive), GenCanna was achieving responsible, regulated hemp production at a massive scale, working with the political players behind federal hemp legalization, and anticipating what it would take for them to be global trendsetters in the hemp industry.

When, in January, GenCanna announced they’d achieved the first 0.0 percent THC, non-GMO hemp genetics, the headlines came rolling in. The local paper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, declared: “‘Holy Grail’ of hemp: Winchester company announces new genetic advancement.”

WELCOME TO BLUEGRASS COUNTRY

I landed in Lexington, Kentucky at sunset, with golden light illuminating a patchwork of bluegrass pastures, grazing horses, and white picket fences permutating in acre plots across the rolling hills. The next morning, on the drive from Lexington to GenCanna’s corporate headquarters 30 minutes away in Winchester, the landscape was just as idyllic. The grass, a

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“Moving forward, we need to make sure that the rest of the hemp industry is able to come up to compliance, so that there’s more consumer trust in hemp products.” — S t e v e B e v a n

near-neon green, was mowed to uniform length for miles. The houses along the road all boasted pristine front porches. On the freeway, billboards for horseraces shouted about weekend specials and the radio broadcasted an advertisement to invest in High Times.

As we got closer to GenCanna’s complex, the roads narrowed.

Being October, the trees wept orange leaves in front of carved pumpkins. Hoop houses and silos and rows of crops — mostly tobacco, cabbage, and onions — poked out from behind the trees framing the well-paved road.

The story of this land is now almost an intra-hemp-industry cliché: In the 1800s and early 1900s, it was prime hemp growing land. Kentucky was a leading international hemp cultivating state until federal prohibition pushed the state’s farmers further into the arms of the tobacco companies. But since Kentucky helped lead the push for industrial hemp in 2013, local farmers are increasingly turning back to hemp. The Bluegrass State is green again, so they say.

Out in the middle of this legendary land, GenCanna’s headquarters, accented with powder blue trim, emerged. Alex Green, GenCanna’s chief of staff, met me at the front door. In the lobby, a local Kentucky farmer was waiting to interview for a job.

The headquarters had a good amount of open and empty space, waiting to be filled. At the time of my visit, GenCanna had 90

employees total, with 22 based in Kentucky. (Today, they have 178. They say they’ve brought $100 million of economic impact to Kentucky.)

“At the turn of the 20th century, 75 percent of the hemp in the US was grown in Kentucky, so this is a strategic idea to be in this state, because it is likely to have the comparative advantage again,” Green told me.

In 2018, Kentucky grew 6,700 acres of hemp, just over 8 percent of the nation’s total of 78,126 acres, according to the Vote Hemp 2018 crop report. The state is likely to see significantly more this year, as Kentucky’s agricultural commissioner has stated over 42,000 acres of hemp have been approved in 2019.

Green came to Winchester after being recruited from a cushy New York job, as did Roberto Felipe, who is part of the company’s strategic advisory group, which Green leads. Felipe, in a shearling bomber jacket and dark sunglasses, joined us at the headquarters to drive out to one of GenCanna’s farms.

“Our ethos is to help the farmers farm,” Felipe said, as we drove onto farmer Kenneth Anderson’s land. Anderson used to grow tobacco, and he still has some hanging in a drying shed on a hill above his hemp plot.

GenCanna’s farming system is relatively straightforward: The farmers own the land, and GenCanna pays them to grow the

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Kentucky air is too moist to air-dry the hemp, so after harvesting it is transferred straight to processing.

company’s proprietary genetics. Throughout the growing process, GenCanna’s corporate team is hands-on, tracking cannabinoid levels and testing for pesticides and moisture.

The plants themselves are stout and sturdy CBD-producing varieties, bushy and toppling over each other in their rush out of the soil.

“This year, the data will drive the process around when we’ll harvest,” Green said. During the flowering stage, they tested a variety of data points each week from multiple places in the field.

Chris Stubbs, GenCanna’s chief science officer, explained that his team is always pushing to bring more traditional agriculture technology into the hemp industry.

“The reality is that hemp for CBD is a food ingredient, so we meet and exceed best practices for food and dietary supplements,” Stubbs said.

Stubbs said this means making sure the growing practices and the manufacturing processes are complaint with a variety of initialisms: the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) certification, and the FDA’s Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP).

“To date, we’ve been reliably achieving high-quality, sustainable hemp, without any recalls or down marks on inspections. We think that establishing these ‘best practices’ for hemp companies is about raising the tide for all of the boats,” Stubbs said. “But the reality is, we’ve long recognized that what we do that is special in the hemp industry isn’t special in the eyes of the real federal regulators.”

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THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPLIANCE CONTROL

The message from GenCanna’s top brass last fall was such: When the federal government legalizes (which, of course, it did), very little will actually change for the company. Not only were they meeting standards for the food and pharmaceuticals industry, they were working with regulators to write those new regulations.

“Federal legalization is an evolutionary step for the industry, but for those of us well along the way, it’s not that big of a step,” said Steve Bevan, GenCanna’s president.

According to Bevan, the company has been working with regulators in Kentucky, the FDA, and the USDA — along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — to discuss what sort of standards the industry should set. This effort is largely through the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, the industry lobby group launched in 2017 of which GenCanna was a founding member and has been highly involved. (HEMP is also a member of the Roundtable.)

“Moving forward, we need to make sure that the rest of the hemp industry is able to come up to compliance, so that there’s more consumer trust in hemp products,” Bevan said. “We can meet the high standards we’ve set for ourselves, but without the rest of the industry following along, we have no real context for what we’re selling.”

GenCanna is vertically integrated because it had to be when it launched under Kentucky’s pilot hemp program in 2014.

“If we started today, we wouldn’t be vertically integrated because so many people are now coming into the business and doing

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Tobacco dries on Kenneth Anderson’s farm.

a great job at various different places,” Bevan said.

However, Bevan says this vertical integration has given them a unique position to understand regulatory needs up and down the supply chain. And vertical integration does make it easier for the company to be compliant, Green said, given that they’re aware of what’s happening to the hemp at every step of the way.

“The consumer deserves to know where their CBD is coming from,” Green said. “When you’re vertical, you can let customers know.”

After visiting Anderson’s farm, we drove over to GenCanna’s processing facility at the 150-acre Hemp Research Campus they share with Atalo Holdings, another one of Kentucky’s vertically integrated hemp companies. (GenCanna recently purchased a minority stake in Atalo Holdings, and the two companies announced in December 2018 that they had formed a “hemp partnership.”)

I wasn’t given much time to look around or get close to their proprietary extraction machine, dubbed “Big Blue,” which comprises an entire warehouse. The machine takes the wet hemp flower straight from the field and dries it (as Kentucky air is too moist to let the buds air dry). The bud is then extracted, including through subcritical C02 extraction.

GenCanna primarily sells bulk CBD, and provides private label products to clients. For example, in November, multi-state cannabis company MariMed announced they’d invested $30 million in GenCanna in return for GenCanna becoming its primary CBD supplier.

“We’ve been pretty quiet about talking about ourselves up until recently, because if you’re doing this right, there’s not a lot of time to talk about yourselves,” Green said. “A lot of folks talk about compliance and going vertical, but few have actually done it in a meaningful way.”

THE MAN BEHIND THE COMPANY

Back at the GenCanna headquarters, I was shuffled into a conference room while I waited to meet with Matty MangoneMiranda, the company’s CEO. By this point, I was wary about who was behind this operation. In all honesty, the corporate culture and scale of the company was daunting. The company’s employees seemed focused on dominating the hemp industry, and with their investment money and their connections leading all the way up to McConnell, I was unsure whether or not the company was interested in being a benevolent leader.

When I finally met Mangone-Miranda, a stocky, middle-aged man in a zip-up jacket with the fatigued eyes of someone who’d been working late for years, he gave me an overview of his career and the company’s obsession with regulations started to make sense.

In the 1990s, Mangone-Miranda started working in the medical marijuana industry in California under Proposition 215. But he said it was like “spinning wheels” given the quasi-legal nature of California’s market, so in 2009, he moved to Colorado when he got a sense that it was heading towards legalized adult-use cannabis. There, he partnered with Josh Stanley (related to the now renowned Stanley Brothers) in the dispensary business and worked on lobbying the state on a series of bills that set up the state’s new adult-use laws.

“We had our main flagship store, a doctor’s office, and clinic where we were doing lobbying and donating flower and oil to sick folks,” Mangone-Miranda said. “We explained to the state about how you want to have vertical integration so that you can have control over the quality and product leaving the state. For people who have been looking at this as medicine for decades, you really have to be mindful.”

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A big part of drawing the distinction between hemp and marijuana is now possible through GenCanna’s 0.0 percent THC hemp genetics.

Mangone-Miranda was one of the first founders of Charlotte’s Web with the Stanley Brothers. It was Chris Stubbs who met Charlotte Figi, a young girl suffering from a rare form of epilepsy, and brought her family to the Stanley Brothers, where he created the formulation and safety profile on the medicine (before going on to serve as GenCanna’s chief science officer). The subsequent 2013 CNN documentary about Figi and the Stanley Brothers was pivotal in bringing the idea of medical marijuana to the mainstream.

“I look at the CNN documentary as the B.C./A.D. moment for the industry,” Mangone-Miranda said. Charlotte’s Web was originally made from cannabis with more than 0.3 percent THC, and he said, the “real smart sleight of hand we did — which led us to Kentucky — was to say that Charlotte’s Web could be grown as hemp.”

“We knew CBD was real, we believed in cannabis, but what was evident to us was that we realized we didn’t have the infrastructure to meet the need,” he said.

In 2012, Mangone-Miranda was considering making the move into the global cannabis game via Jamaica. At the same time that his team was traveling to Jamaica, he took a last-minute flight to Kentucky and decided that the future was in Kentucky hemp.

He had been married to a woman from Kentuckiana, Barbara Filburn-Miranda, who now works for GenCanna, and he’d been visiting the state for years.

“I envisioned the perfect hemp state and Kentucky was a perfect storm: tobacco waning, the Farm Bill coming up,” he said. “I wanted to move outside of the confines of medical marijuana because I think it’s bad for the marijuana industry’s image.”

Mangone-Miranda explained that he saw legal hemp as an opportunity to build the cannabis industry anew, but leaving behind the legal convolution of medical marijuana and instead modeling it after more mainstream industries.

“The medical marijuana model is a failed model, and I know I helped build it, but it’s a failed model,” he said, citing large taxes and burdensome regulations. “We could be growing hemp in the dirt out under the sun. We’re growing a few million plants right now, and you can’t accomplish that outside of a traditional agricultural model.”

Since GenCanna established itself in 2014, it’s been working towards this traditional model. In their first year, they acclimated their genetics to the new climate, experimenting on that bottom level of the supply chain. In 2015, they harvested 100 acres of biomass and worked on improving their processing facility. They continued to refine their practices over the subsequent years, moving up the supply chain and building their “industry IQ,” as Mangone-Miranda puts it. Now, they’re building their farming network in different states and opening a new $40 million processing plant in western Kentucky.

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GenCanna uses standard agricultural equipment to harvest their large 2018 crop.

Mangone-Miranda said that only now, after four years of work, does he feel ready to announce what the company’s been up to.

“We’re going to launch the business when we can launch it right,” he said. The Charlotte’s Web/CNN experience, he explained, was a lesson in the dangers of getting public attention too quickly, before they were ready.

“In Kentucky, we’ve taken these years of learning about greenhouses, and extraction, and refining, and genetics,” he said.

“Now we really truly understand them well, and we’re trying to implement [that understanding] here at the highest level.”

KENTUCKY HEMP IN 2019

In February, Kentucky’s agricultural commissioner Ryan Quarles told a group of hemp farmers in Madison County, Kentucky that he’d approved nearly 4,200 applications for farmers to grow up to 42,086 acres of hemp in 2019, according to the Richmond Register. Of those 42,000 acres of hemp, 20,000 acres are allotted to GenCanna and Atalo.

Quarles told the farmers that he was going to Washington, D.C. to talk to politicians and regulators, “making sure that

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they understand what hemp is, and, more importantly, what hemp is not.”

A big part of drawing that distinction is now possible through GenCanna’s THC-free hemp genetics. Quarles was present in January, when GenCanna made the announcement that they had — in partnership with the University of Kentucky’s College of Agriculture — developed non-GMO hemp genetics that reliably produced zero percent THC and retained high CBD levels.

“It could be a revolutionary game changer to industrial hemp production,” Quarles said at the time.

When I was visiting GenCanna in October, three months before they announced the development of the THC-free hemp, every employee I spoke with referenced the revolutions brewing behind the scenes. They all spoke of the long hours they were working, the wide scope of the plans they were pursuing. I wondered, as I flew home from Lexington, whether I had been wrong to question if GenCanna was one of the hemp holy grail chasers. Today, knowing that THC-free hemp genetics were one of the secret projects GenCanna promised I’d hear about soon — and that they’ve actually achieved it — I don’t think they are. Is it really a holy grail if it can be obtained?

Sunshine hits verdant fields at the Rodale Institute, where they’re hoping regenerative organic farming techniques can help stem the tide of worldwide environmental degradation.

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FAST FASHION, HEMP TEX TILES, AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS What we wear can either help battle climate change or exacerbate it.

B y J o e l H a t h a w ay

We’re killing our planet. That shouldn’t really be news to

anyone now.

Unless you choose to utterly reject science and bury your head up your … well … in the sand, that’s a current reality, not a future projection.

Whether it’s climate change, environmental degradation, or simple resource exhaustion, we’ve been hearing for decades that our current models of production and consumption as humans have to be modified. If you’re brave enough to frequent the news these days and push past hyper-partisan debates, you’ve probably noticed that study after study from the U.N., the U.S. government, and nonprofits are ringing the town bells, begging the public to understand and care.

Visualize the causes of this situation and what do you see?

Deforestation in the Amazon, billowing smoke clouds from coalfired power plants, the Pacific’s plastic soup?

What we wear doesn’t pop up in the mind so quickly. But, our clothes — and how they’re produced — play a significant role in adding to the planet’s problems.

IS HEMP THE SOLUTION WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR?

According to a Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report in 2017, agriculture accounts for roughly 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions each year. The FAO number is similar to previous reports from multiple agencies regarding the percentage of emissions coming from agriculture.

What this tells us is that year after year, emissions from agriculture are rising.

The impact of livestock is by far the largest contributor to those emissions. While the FAO report doesn’t explain what percentage of ag emissions are due to textiles, an Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) study found that by 2015, the global textile industry’s percentage of worldwide carbon emission had risen to 2 percent.

That number is on the rise, however. “Currently, steady production growth is intrinsically linked to a decline in utilization per item, leading to an incredible amount of waste,” according to the same EMF study. “It is estimated that more than half of fast fashion production is disposed of in under a year, and one garbage truck full of textiles is landfilled or burnt every second.”

We’re also using more plastics in our fabrics, and globally people are buying way more clothes than they used to. The EMF study

estimates that if we don’t alter the way we produce and use textiles, the industry will account for 26 percent of global emissions by 2050.

Obviously, something has to change.

Now’s the part where I tell you that hemp will save the planet, right? I’ll say that cotton is the culprit and ‘the fabric of our lives’ uses twice as much water as hemp to produce half as much fabric?

Sorry, but not so fast, my friend.

Yes, evidence points to the fact that hemp is indeed a more environmentally friendly crop than cotton. And expanding its cultivation and further integrating it into our textiles would be beneficial, particularly if the hemp is raised in a responsible manner. But when it comes to the climate crisis, the problems that we face are incredibly complex. So, no, on its own, hemp will not save the planet. That’s a bumper sticker, not a plan.

But thankfully, there are people with plans, and those plans do involve hemp. To understand what needs to be done, first you have to understand how our clothes contribute to the climate crisis.

THE SOIL PROBLEM

What we wear has to be planted, harvested, and grown prior to being processed, produced, shipped, and put on a rack. The farming practices employed to produce those preliminary crops play an enormous role in the environmental impact of producing those goods. And whether we’re talking about ag for food or textiles, one of its most profound effects is on the soil.

Topsoil might not be a sexy topic, but it’s an important one.

Globally, we’re projected to run out of it in the next 50 years or so — depending on which study you read — if current methods and consumption level projections don’t change. And because it can take anywhere from 200 to 1,000 years (depending where you are on Earth) to produce three centimeters of topsoil, that’s a serious problem.

Topsoil is incredibly useful in carbon sequestration. What scientists didn’t know until recently is that by tilling topsoil, farmers both release carbon into the atmosphere and kill the beneficial microbes that help plants grow. When you kill those microbes, you need more fertilizers and pesticides to produce. And that opens up another bountiful basket of environmental problems.

Combatting this, says Zoe Schaeffer, media relations specialist at the Rodale Institute, is one of hemp’s primary benefits.

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J.I. Rodale, an early advocate for organic farming practices, and founder of the organization that would later be named the Rodale Institute.

“One of the great things about hemp is that it has so much biomass.

Just physically, it’s bushy, and tall, and it grows fast and is low maintenance,” she says. At the Rodale Institute, Schaeffer says they use organic no-till methods, which means they harvest by cutting the base of the plant to kill the plant and then leave all of the plant matter on the field. “[The plant matter] then naturally decomposes, feeds the soil, builds the soil, and also helps suppress weeds that would otherwise grow,” she says. “We’re finding that hemp grows super fast and is super low maintenance, which makes it one of the best tools for building soil when it’s managed organically.”

The Rodale Institute, along with companies such as Patagonia, Dr. Bronner’s, and others, are looking at more than hemp and soil though.

They’re looking to completely transform the way that we produce crops, whether for food or fabric, with a new framework called the Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC).

MAKING ORGANIC GREAT AGAIN

Over the last two decades, the organic movement has gone from a small group of dedicated enthusiasts, to a catchy buzzword, to a megaindustry, where the very word “organic” is more marketing than ethos, according to Schaeffer.

“The problem with organic is that I don’t think that the founders of the movement knew how large a movement it would become,” she says.

“So now, whereas the early adopters still passionately cared about the philosophy of doing right by the Earth and building the soil for future generations — doing things in lockstep with nature — now all of the sudden there’s this whole other group of people that are like ‘Hey, that makes me more money. I’m just going to go and do that and sort of scrape by the rules in any way that I can.’”

To illustrate the issue, she says, “For example, a farm can raise 2,000 chickens in a small space and give them a little door and say that’s outdoor access, because in order to be certified organic, there has to be access to pasture. People are finding all these loopholes. People in the organic community agree, that’s not organic, that’s not the philosophy behind why the organic movement was started.”

In large part then, ROC is an attempt to bring the organic movement back to its roots while creating additional pillars to further mitigate agriculture’s negative effects.

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“The problem with organic is that I don’t think that the founders of the movement knew how large a movement it would become.” — Z o e S c h a e f f e r

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Chickens spread out under the sunshine at Spring Creek Farms, which is focusing on the regenerative model.

What we wear has to be planted, harvested, and grown prior to being processed, produced, shipped, and put on a rack.

“It’s very holistic. There’s no agriculture standard out there like it,” says Cara Chacon, vice president of environmental responsibility at Patagonia.

“It covers the building of soil health so you can sequester more carbon and have healthier plants that are resistant to climate change,” she says. “There are a lot of economic benefits tied into that for farmers: higher yields, less inputs, less usage of water.”

Chacon says that beyond soil health and land management, ROC addresses additional concerns within the world’s agricultural systems.

“There’s an animal welfare aspect required if you have animals that you raise for commercial purposes. And then there’s also fairness for farmers and farm workers, which is the social responsibility pillar of the standard,” she says.

Schaeffer echoes the sentiment of ROC going above and beyond.

“We see regenerative practices as a way to address this whole suite of concerns,” she says. “It’s not just that my food or my fabric was grown without synthetic chemicals. Not only that, but this product was grown in a way that actively regenerates the resources that are being used and makes them better for future generations.”

Launched at Expo East, a Baltimore-based trade show featuring “natural products” in 2018, ROC is currently in a pilot program

phase with the goal of getting products to consumers in 2019. The initiative currently has “90 different farms, brands, and companies interested in piloting the standard, and we narrowed that down to 21 across food, personal care products, fiber, beverages — all sorts of different products there,” Chacon says.

While no hemp companies signed up for the pilot program, Chacon is hoping that will change in the near future.

“Hemp is a really resilient crop,” she says. “The way it grows, it has regenerative properties in it. It regenerates soil, so it’s a perfect crop for [ROC].”

HEMP IS HELPING IN NEW, INNOVATING WAYS

Beyond hemp improving topsoil, a few companies creating hemp textiles are also working to mitigate climate damage in other ways.

At Thomas Jefferson University’s Lambert Center, Mark Sunderland, was conducting research on industrial hemp in collaboration with Ecofibre USA and Jefferson Strategic Ventures a few years ago when he discovered that similar properties existed in hemp and biochar made from hemp. Biochar, a type of charcoal created by applying heat without oxygen to organic material, is a

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Ross Duffield, farm manager at the Rodale Institute, works in one of their fields.

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Can hemp (or anything) save the planet? By being part of a larger drive to change the way that we cultivate and process crops, the answer is a hopeful maybe.

highly permeable, absorbent, carbon-rich biomass.

Most biochar is made from wood, but Sunderland has been one of the few people to research hemp biochar.

“The biochar of hemp is significantly different in weight, mass, and surface area than other biochars,” he says. “That led me to the path of asking, ‘Well, what is somebody going to be able to use this biochar for?’”

Sunderland is now the chief innovation officer at Hemp Black, a U.S.-based clothing company and subsidiary of Ecofibre, which is using hemp-derived biochar in its textiles.

Like the Rodale Institute and Patagonia, reducing the negative environmental impacts of producing textiles is central to their mission, as is proving that hemp can be a difference-maker.

“I was really trying to move away from that crunchy, scratchy, ‘I’m gonna smoke my t-shirt’ idea,” says Sunderland. “People talk about hemp being sustainable, but nobody really proves it. There’s a good message there, but nobody really has the data to back it up. The data comes from hemp organizations. There’s bias in that.”

So using their proprietary process, along with organically grown hemp, Hemp Black is attempting to prove that hemp can be planet-beneficial, while also creating high-performance textiles.

Sunderland explains that the process to produce a textile out of hemp-derived biochar is new and complex. While they’re not giving away any of their secrets yet, in its most basic form, Sunderland says “The biochar and full extract hemp oil are integrated into a variety of substrates and textiles platforms delivering advanced performance.”

“The whole time we’ve been doing that we’ve been keeping our carbon footprint in mind,” he adds. “We’ve been growing our own hemp in Kentucky, we’re processing our own hemp in Kentucky, we’re going to be biocharring our own hemp in Kentucky, and our fiber producer is here in North Carolina. So we have a really wonderful carbon footprint. The outcome will be that the heat and energy generated from the biochar process will be used in other subsequent operations, or on the farm itself.”

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STEPS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

With an increasing number of clothing manufacturers considering their environmental impact and hemp cultivation now completely legal throughout North America, it’s likely that even though acreage for CBD will dominate, hemp grown for textiles will see an increase.

In both Hemp Black’s hemp biochar-to-textile process and the new ROC designation, we have the possibility to start to move the textile industry’s needle in the right direction. Both consumers and companies are increasingly thinking about how their choices effect the planet, says Chacon.

“The main reason that Patagonia, and I think others, got involved in ROC is the climate crisis. We’re all trying to figure out what is the best way to mitigate climate change. And we know scientifically that soil can sequester carbon if it’s taken care of. There are hundreds of ways that you can mitigate climate change, but it’s near the top of the list,” she says.

“Intensive agriculture farming is ruining our planet,” she continues. “All of the stakeholders involved with this standard want to change that paradigm. With the climate crisis, we can’t do anything less than that because of the seriousness of the situation that we’re in.”

Schaeffer says that the Rodale Institute’s decades of experience prove that ROC can make a difference.

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“We’ve been running something called the farming systems trial here on our farm for the last 40 years,” she says. “It’s the longest running side-by-side comparison of organic and conventional farming on the same plot. What we’ve found is that organic both reduces greenhouse gas emissions and consumes less energy by 40 to 45 percent. And that’s just looking at organic. ROC goes above and beyond, so you can imagine that those numbers could increase.”

So, can hemp (or anything) save the planet? By being part of a larger drive to change the way that we cultivate and process crops, the answer is a hopeful maybe.

But it isn’t as simple as hemp replacing cotton, says Sunderland. “In our sustainability mission, we’ve looked at all the fibers and not only compared them to hemp, but taken a really granular look at how they fit in with the sustainability mission. We don’t want to say cotton is bad and we love hemp.

That’s not the whole point.”

If there is a point, it’s simply that something needs to be done.

Chacon says, “That millennial generation and Gen Z, they definitely know so much more and they’re demanding so much more.

They want to have jobs that have purposes. They want to have clothing that has a purpose. It’s a different world. I think they’re going to be the ones that are going to turn things around. But man, our generation, we have to give them a big head start.”

PHOTO LEFT JIM RICHARDSON PHOTO RIGHT COURTESY PATAGONIA

Regenerative farming techniques, particularly when paired with plants with fine root systems, can create topsoil and improve soil health.

CBD-INFU SE D COC KTA ILS:

T HRE E R E C I P E S F O R A HA P P I ER H A P PY H O U R

The art of the CBD-infused cocktail is gaining popularity, and for good reason. Adding CBD to your nightcap has a few not-so-surprising benefits that are totally worth raising a glass. R e c i p e a n d P h o t o s B y L i z S c h o c h

won’t get you high doesn’t mean a few drops will go unnoticed (or unappreciated) in your weekend cocktail. Who wouldn’t love a little relaxation added to their rum and coke? Not to mention its rumored benefit of a somewhat reduced hangover, which for me, makes it worth a test drive.

Adding CBD to food, beverages, and even beauty products is all the rage nowadays, but because CBD affects everyone differently, it’s a good idea to start slow when pairing it with alcohol. Pay attention to how your body reacts to a CBD-spiked drink and adjust your drinking habits accordingly.

Just be mindful of the alcohol by volume in the drinks you choose (it’s still alcohol!) and remember that less is more. One or two servings may be all you need to feel its euphoric effects.

JUST BECAUSE CANNABIDIOL

SHAKEN, STIRRED, OR SPIKED?

You don’t need to hop a plane or even venture to the corner bar to try one of these super chill cocktails. Mixing

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one at home can be as easy or as difficult as you want to make it. Some enjoy creating CBD-infused simple syrups or even CBD-infused spirits, while others simply add a drop or two (or three) of CBD oil to their favorite cocktail, which works just as well and is highly customizable. Adding a few drops of a CBD tincture is another option if you’re interested in a seamless mixture. Because the tincture is alcohol-based, the CBD will disperse through the drink, as opposed to floating on top like the oil.

When picking your poison, keep in mind that the earthy flavor of CBD tinctures, oils, and syrups pair well with herby spirits like gin and amaro. Citrus can help round out the flavor, adding an acidic element as well as a hint of sweetness. And just like a typical cocktail, fruits like blood orange, pink grapefruit, and Meyer lemon can all help brighten up a strong drink.

When it comes to CBD cocktails, there’s something for everyone. Start experimenting with your own favorite drinks, or try one of these revamped classics!

BLO OD ORANGE “NUGRONI"” A chilled-out negroni with a boost of Vitamin C and CBD. INGREDIENTS – SERVES 1 1 oz gin 1 oz campari 1 oz sweet vermouth ½ oz blood orange juice 15 mg CBD oil or tincture

DIRECTIONS Stir ingredients in a mixing cup with ice until chilled.

Strain into a rocks glass with fresh chipped ice.

Garnish with a slice of blood orange.

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DUDE, WHERE’S MY SIDECAR The classic sidecar is made a little more mellow with floated CBD oil and sweeter Meyer lemon juice.

INGREDIENTS – SERVES 1 1 ½ oz brandy ¾ oz orange liqueur ¾ oz Meyer lemon juice 15 mg CBD oil

DIRECTIONS Add brandy, liqueur, and lemon juice to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake.

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Float CBD oil on top and garnish with lemon peel.

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PINK GRAPEFRUIT GIN & CHRONIC” This crisp and clean gin and tonic is brightened with pink grapefruit and a sprig of woody rosemary.

INGREDIENTS – SERVES 1 1 ½ oz gin 4 oz tonic water Pink grapefruit wedge 15 mg CBD *A tincture is recommended for complete

dispersion, but feel free to use CBD oil as a substitute.

DIRECTIONS Add a small amount of fresh ice to a cocktail glass.

Pour in gin and top with tonic.

Drop in CBD oil or tincture and stir.

Garnish with grapefruit wedge.

Liz Schoch is a nutritionist who runs the Inspector Gorgeous blog, where she creates plant-based, low-sugar recipes at inspectorgorgeous.com.

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THE LIST: HE MP FOR SE LF-C AR E Here are HEMP’s top picks for 2019’s best hemp-based products for regenerative relaxation — because you deserve to be pampered.

of CBD-infused and hemp-based beauty and self-care products are hitting the streets (and even the shelves of Nordstrom’s) en masse in 2019. From bath bombs, to crystal-charged elixirs, we’ve created a list of some of our favorite products to help you ring in spring with a little self-love.

THE LATEST CRAZE

1.

CANNASMACK LUXE HYDRATING CLEANSING OIL AND SOAP-FREE BODY WASH $20 each / cannasmack.com

PHOTOS TODD HEATH

Start your self-care journey by cleaning up!

Cannasmack’s hydrating cleansing oil is not only paraben-, sulfate-, and phosphate free, but it also battles the difficult task of cleaning skin without drying it out. In fact, this cleansing oil might even be best for people with dry skin, as it leaves quite a good amount of oil behind after use. Its ingredients consist of various oils, including hempseed oil, argan oil, and rosehip oil, all of which claim to promote skin hydration, reduce acne, and even potentially alleviate skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis. Both the cleansing oil and the body wash from Cannasmack are soap-free, which might sound contradictory, but surprisingly works as a combination that is both effective and nourishing. The secret to this is the fact that the body wash won’t lather up, as it mostly contains oil-based ingredients, which includes the vitamin-rich moringa oil. All skin types are welcome with this body wash.

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2.

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LIFE FLOWER HERBAL BLISS BATH CRYSTALS $40 / lifeflowercare.com Perhaps you need more than a clean — you need a soak! The perfect before-bed bath treat, these bath crystals contain 500 mg of hemp-derived CBD and are chock-full of delicious-smelling lavender and eucalyptus essential oils, which open airways and improve deep breathing. This handcrafted bath treat contains Himalayan sea salt and Epsom salt to soothe muscles. Life Flower has even taken the extra step of infusing the salts with rose quartz, following along with the trendy logic of crystal proponents who claim the quartz will enhance and amplify the healing vibrations within the tub. Regardless of whether or not the rose quartz enhances the experience, bathers will feel pampered as they admire flower petals floating in the water, but be warned: This relaxing experience requires some significant clean-up afterwards.

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3.

LEEF ORGANIC NOOKS AND CRANNIES SOAP $22 / leeforganics.com Hand-crafted, organic, cruelty-free soap made by Leef Organics has all the added benefits of a premium CBD-infused soap and is gentle enough for sensitive skin types. Your skin is your largest organ, covered in pores that absorb the products you put on it, and it’s evident how seriously Leef Organics took that idea when creating their premium products. Plus, the soap even comes in plantable packaging, which when cared for will grow into organic, non-GMO tomatoes. Talk about a package deal!

4.

GRON FACE MASKS $40-$50 / groncbd.com Grön’s CBD products are not actually derived from the cannabis plant, which originally gave us pause. That’s because Grön is one of a handful of companies synthesizing CBD from evergreen tree bark and lemon peels, combined and placed under high heat and pressure to create an odorless CBD molecule. When added to cocoa butter and essential oils to make these moisturizing face masks, the result is a product that could be comforting for someone interested in, but still wary of hemp and willing to risk an experience with synthetic cannabinoids in the process.

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5.

DRAM ADAPTOGENIC DROPS $14 / dramdose.com Adaptogens are natural supplements that assist the body with adapting to various stressors, and these adaptogens from DRAM now come in flavored tinctures — gingergrass, lemongrass, and sweetgrass — that you can add to anything from adult beverages to tap water. Each flavor has a distinct blend of herbs with a correlating goal that ranges from immunity boosters to better stress management. Each 2 oz bottle contains 300 mg of Colorado-grown CBD and is the perfect accompaniment to any drink that needs a little extra kick.

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from the archives

W H AT H A P P E N E D T O T H E 3 8-M I L L I O N-H E M P-P L A N T H A RV E S T ?

In the cover story for our last issue, “The New Faces of

PHOTO ANDREW MARTIN

Hemp: Traditional Ag Bets Big in Montana,” we featured Montana farmer Colby Johnson and his crop of 38 million hemp plants. At the time, Johnson was unsure what to he was going to do with such a massive crop and no guaranteed way to process it.

With harvest over and Johnson about to start calving season, we called him to see what happened to his crop.

“Right now, we’re still trying to get our processing facility up and running in the next few weeks,” says Johnson. That facility, which will be located in Conrad, Montana, will allow Johnson and other nearby farmers to process their hemp without incurring large shipping costs.

To harvest 2018’s crop, Johnson says they “swathed it, pretty much just like you would with hay, let it dry on the ground in swathes, and then round-baled it.”

They then wrapped the bales in plastic, like you normally do with hay to seal out moisture and oxygen. Sitting in a snowcovered field, “they pretty much look like giant marshmallows out there right now,” he says.

Colby Johnson discusses his crops just prior to 2018’s harvest season.

When we featured his farm, Johnson’s crop was testing at about 3 percent CBD in the field, which is significantly lower than most hemp farmers, who instead use varietals bred for maximum CBD production. But Johnson says that “we did a test on crude, and it turned out pretty good” in terms of CBD content.

Perhaps more importantly, according to Johnson: “Now, with the Farm Bill, we can sell across state lines. But both the THC and the THCA have to be below 0.3 percent, and a lot [of the hemp] being grown in Colorado and Oregon has above 0.3 percent THCA, so they can’t ship it. Ours is below, so we can. We’ve got a lot of people contacting us wanting biomass, so maybe we’ll sell 50–100 tons.” Johnson says their total is about 700–800-tons.

So, what about next year?

“We’re looking to do about 1,000 acres,” Johnson says. “The majority will be the same varietals, but we’ll try some new ones on smaller plots as well. With the Farm Bill, I bet you Montana has around 100,000 acres [of hemp] next year.”

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Hemp

H I N DS I G HT

three generations of Justice women are working together to grow hemp on the family farm.

Grandmother Deborah Justice spent most of her career growing ornamental flowers. Today, with the help of her daughters — Amanda Justice Schell and Dr. Allison Justice, head of cultivation for a California cannabis company — and Schell’s three daughters, the women are bringing hemp cultivation and processing back to the Carolinas. They’ve named their farm, The Hemp Mine.

“We see the future as us handing down this legacy, of farming basically, to my sister’s kids,” says Allison Justice. “They have been so excited. They are getting really involved, and what I hope is, one day, they will be the ones to take it over and hold down the fort for women farmers.” — Robin Kelley For more on the Justices and hemp farmers around the nation, visit thehempmag.com.

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PHOTO THE HEMP MINE

IN SOUTH CAROLINA,

RAW Black is double pressed extra-fine for the thinnest, unbleached rolling paper we have ever made. This unique artisan paper is produced in Alcoy when the dry Valencian winds make humidity optimally low. ÂŽ