Business
Sen. Chuck Schumer Welcomes Major Cannabis Company To New York’s Hemp Industry
Canadian marijuana giant Canopy Growth Corporation will enter the nascent U.S. hemp industry by building a massive farming and production center in southern New York, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced on Monday.
Canopy has yet to finalize its plans for an exact location—a contract could be signed as soon as Monday, Schumer said—but the company could eventually support “up to 400 jobs” in hemp cultivation, processing and product manufacturing at what would be a “first of its kind” center for the just-legalized U.S. hemp industry, the senator said.
Once a key American crop—George Washington famously grew hemp at Mount Vernon, and there was a stand of hemp plants in northern Virginia where the Pentagon now stands—the U.S. now lags far behind other countries in hemp production, a result of the country’s broad outlawing of cannabis decades ago.
Eventually, Canopy plans to invest “between $100-$150 million” into a New York State-based industrial hemp farm, Schumer said, with other companies potentially drawn to the sector by such a prominent anchor business.
“Hemp is a very valuable product and a burgeoning crop here” in southern New York, said Schumer, offering a very brief remedial education in the plant for those present at a press conference he convened. “I’m not kidding when I say this, but hemp is everywhere.”
“This is going to be a major shot in the arm” for the area, he added.
“Hemp” is more of a legal than a botanical distinction. Under U.S. law, cannabis sativa with 0.3 percent or more THC is considered “marijuana” and falls under federal drug-control laws. Cannabis with less than 0.3 percent THC is considered industrial hemp.
Hemp has been legal to import and process, but until very recently, hemp cultivation was mostly illegal in the U.S.
That prohibition that ended when President Donald Trump signed the 2018 Farm Bill into law last month. The previous 2014 version of the Farm Bill created a pilot program for states that wished to legalize small-scale hemp cultivation as part of research programs.
Based on that success and on growing support for an end to cannabis prohibition nationwide, the 2018 Farm Bill legalized cultivation of hemp outright. Almost immediately, politicians began touting the crop’s potential as a miracle product and an economic boon with enthusiasm once reserved only for acolytes of hemp evangelist Jack Herer.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who championed the hemp legalization provisions, signed off on the final version of the Farm Bill with a hemp pen—but for now, Schumer, his Democratic counterpart, may have stolen the top Republican’s fire.
“I’ve always believed that states should be the laboratories of democracy,” he said. “I’ve been very eager to have the hemp industry grow in New York and the Southern Tier.”
Photo courtesy of Senate Democrats.
