Industrial Hemp Now Legal in North Carolina.
Thanks to a completely game-changing move, North Carolina has just passed a bill providing for the legalization, manufacture, and cultivation of hemp for industrial use.
The city of Spring Hope, North Carolina, has one of the only huge hemp decortication facilities in the entire United States. What is Decortication exactly? It is the process in which the bark or (long fiber) is stripped from the stalks, which in turn allows this crop to be better utilized for production.
This facility in North Carolina has been able to process hemp due to the obvious mounting legal issues with hemp. Though now being legal in North Carolina, this facility is able to pump out 40 million pounds of hemp each and every year, helping to then pave the way for the production and employment opportunities that this simple legalization of hemp will bring.
Governor Pat McCrory passed Senate Bill 213 on October 31, 2015, that would allow farmers in North Carolina to have a brand new option for growing various crops. At the stroke of midnight, the production of industrial hemp thus became legal.
This new bill passed the House and Senate both in late September by a landslide vote of 101-7 and 42-2, respectively; it has been awaiting the approval of Governor McCrory to sign it turning into a law.
The North Carolina General Assembly:
“…finds and declares that it is in the best interest of the citizens of North Carolina to promote and encourage the development of an industrial hemp industry in the State in order to expand employment, promote economic activity, and provide opportunities to small farmers for an environmentally sustainable and profitable use of crop lands that might otherwise be lost to agricultural production.
The purposes of this Article are to establish an agricultural pilot program for the cultivation of industrial hemp in the State, to provide for reporting on the program by growers and processors for agricultural or other research, and to pursue any federal permits or waivers necessary to allow industrial hemp to be grown in the State.”
Currently, the United States stands as the number one importer of all hemp products in the world, due to its being illegal to cultivate in most states. The United States thus spends millions a year to import hemp products from other countries who have not banned this highly valuable crop.
Known industrial uses of hemp include:
Paper
Plastics
Clothing
Jewelry
Rope
Building materials
Cooking (hemp oil)
Medicine
Food (seeds, Hempola for bread, etc.)
Skin care products
Animal and bird feed
Animal bedding
Water and soil purification
Weed control
Clean fuel
At: http://www.healthfreedoms.org/win-industrial-hemp-now-legal-in-north-carolina/