by francopoli
Posted in a comment and I realized I never posted it on Hubski.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has backed the legalization of hemp since 2013, even going so far as to call in the head of the DEA for a face-to-face meeting when it tried to shut down a pilot hemp-growing program he had helped set up in Kentucky. Now, Comer, who was the state’s agriculture commissioner at the time, and McConnell are leading efforts to remove hemp from the government’s list of most addictive drugs, known as Schedule 1 controlled substances as part of the pending farm bill. Next to the fierce debate over whether to tie work requirements to food stamps, the so-called “descheduling” of hemp just might be the most controversial aspect of the massive spending bill.The DEA and a handful of conservative legislators might be anxious about legalizing hemp, but because McConnell continues to signal his strong support, Republicans have kept their heads down. “There may be some real anti-hemp people in the House, but we didn’t have much problem getting the pilot programs through the last farm bill,” Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told me. “Mitch McConnell is a lot of things, but one of the things he’s best at is engineering legislation. … He’s the world’s greatest tightrope walker.” It’s not hard to see how hemp could be legal before Election Day.