Hemp Industries Association® Issues New Statement with "Hemp Is Legal" Campaign
The HIA® continues its "Stop Denying Hemp" project taking aim at Facebook & banking.
The Hemp Industries Association® (HIA®), in association pushes forward on their national campaign aimed at addressing Facebook's advertising policy that prohibits the marketing and promotion of industrial hemp to an even bigger objective. Now, they're taking aim at the financial sector and law enforcement nationwide.
In May, the HIA launched its "Hemp is Legal" campaign aimed at pressuring Facebook to implement an advertising policy change starting with a digital call to action in Times Square that reads: "Facebook: Stop Censoring Hemp." Facebook has since issued policy updates including an announcement eliminating the restriction on CBD topicals on their marketing platform. Now, the HIA draws attention to another critical challenge facing hemp entrepreneurs – discrimination from financial institutions and law enforcement.
According to Federal law, states should not prohibit the transport of hemp across state lines. Yet commercial drivers continue to be stopped and arrested by police who cannot distinguish the crop from Federally illegal marijuana. Even hemp-derived CBD vendors have found themselves victims of police raids, with owners being arrested and charged for the felony distribution of marijuana. The only way to correctly identify hemp from marijuana is to test and measure tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and most police departments are not currently equipped with the technology required to do so on the spot.
Hemp contains less than 0.3 percent THC, which is non-intoxicating and is legal under the U.S. Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946. Current field tests used by law enforcement only test for the presence of THC, with no indication of the amount, and even drug-sniffing dogs will alert on both plants. However, law enforcement is not the only issue the hemp industry still faces.
Despite the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, in which hemp was redefined as an agricultural commodity, explicitly removing it from the purview of the Controlled Substances Act and the jurisdiction of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal banks and financial regulators have yet to provide clear direction to prevent banking discrimination toward the legal hemp industry. This lack of clarity leaves banks uncertain about whether they can legally provide services to industrial hemp businesses.
For more information about the campaign, visit:www.HempIsLegal.org
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