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The post WHO committee delays review on global status of cannabis appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

A World Health Organization (WHO) Committee has delayed until January its review of the global legal status of cannabis, which was expected to be delivered during a meeting last week in Vienna.

The WHO’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) said it needs until January to sort out volumes of input it received ahead of the review’s release.

Highly anticipated

The highly anticipated review is one of the final steps in the process of determining whether cannabis will continue to be in the most restrictive international drug classification. A recommendation on such rescheduling is expected at a meeting of the UN’s Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) set for March 2019 that will take the WHO review into consideration.

A UN CND recommendation for cannabis to be removed from international control would impact national reform efforts around the world.

The post Hemp ‘compromise’ in U.S. Farm bill: Create 2 classes of felons appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Negotiations to eliminate a proposed rule that would ban drug felons from joining in the industrial hemp boom are reported to have moved off center, but latest proposals arising out of U.S. Farm Bill negotiations would still force those with federal drug convictions to sit on the sidelines for a decade.

In what critics will no doubt see as a tepid move, a “compromise” is reported to have emerged that would let such felons grow hemp beginning 10 years after their convictions, McClatchy reported.

Grandfathered into hemp

Oddly, negotiators have also apparently agreed that felons already growing hemp under an earlier Farm Bill (2014) would be allowed to continue, thus creating two classes of felons for the American hemp industry.

Congressional negotiations over the long-awaited 2018 Farm Bill – key to cracking wide the American hemp markets – are expected to result in final legislation next week.

The post Outlook: Taking stock of hemp a decade after the financial crash appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

By Steve Allin | International Hemp Building Association – The materials we obtain from the hemp plant can help us get back to basics but how about the basics of hemp? The original aspects of hemp are promoted as being able to provide great improvements to our environment, our quality of life and essentials such as food, clothing and shelter.

As we pass the 10-year commemoration of the Great Crash of 2008, it is time to take stock of where we now find ourselves from a society and community perspective. Many media outlets have been reviewing the situation as we pass the decade mark since first Lehman Bros. and then the rest of the financial world very nearly completely collapsed. What is often forgotten is how we managed to avoid a complete disaster. Some people will remember terms such as “quantitive easing” or “debt restructuring” being banded about at the time, and up until recently you might be forgiven for thinking that these seeming solutions worked at least partly to fix things.

The reality, unfortunately, is far from that. In fact, the underlying picture is getting far worse. The main reason for that is that all the money created and put into the global economy was in reality debt, and debt has not only to be paid back but paid back with interest; and here is the problem.

The post Blocking of hemp as animal feed angers farmers in New Zealand appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Hemp farmers in New Zealand have reacted angrily to the news they are unable to use hemp as an animal feed. The news has come as a shock to the industry which has seen a number of positive changes in recent months.

A document released by the Ministry for Primary Industries informed farmers that feeding hemp to any animal is in breach of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act. The message contradicts documents the Ministry released previously, including one in 2004, which said feeding hemp to animals was permissible.

Restricted by 2 Acts

As hemp contains cannabinoids it comes under New Zealand’s Medicines Act and the Misuse of Drugs Act. Officials are concerned that cannabinoids from the plant could transfer to meat and milk if animals are fed hemp. The head of New Zealand Food Safety, Bryan Wilson told media “MPI’s position on the use of hemp in animal feed is in line with other countries.”

Tom Welch, a dairy farmer, planned to feed hemp to his cows until he was informed it’s illegal to do so. “These constant roadblocks by government are killing our industry’s future. We need government to help, not hinder, for hemp to flourish to its economic and ecological potential.” Welch told local media.

The post Ex-doctor found innocent in Australian cannabis treatment case appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

An ex-doctor in Australia has sucessfully defended himself in a landmark medical cannabis trial, arguing that his unauthorized treatments with cannabis compounds were of “medical necessity” to the patients he served.

Andrew Katelaris, who lost his medical license in 2005 under a previous case in which he prescribed cannabis in Australia, was acquitted last week after choosing to defend himself in the case before a jury.

Gripping testimony of parents

“The evidence from the parents of epileptic children was just too overwhelming” for the jury to convict him, Katelaris told the UK’s Daily Mail after he was found not guilty at the end of the four-week trial.

Katelaris, who called the parents of sick children as well as medical experts to give testimony, was charged after his May 2017 arrest following a police raid on his Sydney home during which authorities found 8 kg of cannabis oil, 10 kg of cannabis leaf, and $10,000 cash.

Iowa's five CBD dispensaries open for business Saturday to serve roughly 1,000 patients in one of the nation's most limited medical cannabis markets.

Iowa medical CBD sales set to begin Saturday under cloud of confusion is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

The post U.S. lawmakers ‘close’ to consensus on bill that would free hemp appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Lawmakers in the United States say they are close to reaching a consensus on the U.S. Farm Bill, Reuters reported. The measure is eagerly anticipated by hemp stakeholders who see it as the gateway to a full-fledged hemp industry in the USA.

The bill is expected to include language that will categorize hemp as an agricultural commodity and remove it from the Drug Enforcement Agency’s list of schedule 1 drugs. Passage is expected to significantly boost CBD sales and advance other hemp sub-sectors

The U.S. Farm Bill would fund a total $867 billion in food and agriculture programs. Lawmakers have not offered details of what the Washington Post termed an “emerging compromise.” One Senator, Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas, said word of any “complete agreement” is “premature.”

The post With pre-fab hempcrete house, Dun Agro sets another milestone appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

By Brian Houlinan | HempToday – Legacy European hemp firm Dun Agro will mark another industry milestone tomorrow (Nov. 30) at a ceremony celebrating completion of a pre-fabricated hempcrete house.

“This is the first hemp building that is completely built in this new prefab technique,” said Albert Dun, founder at Dun Agro, Netherlands, which put up several smaller demo structures during development of its HempCal modular building system.

Walls and roof elements for the two-story house were formed in Dun Agro’s facility in Oude Pekela, in northern Holland, and demonstrate the feasibility of building with hemp on a large scale, Dun said.

Moving hemp mainstream

“For me, it was important to create a process that makes hemp building accessible to the regular building industry,” said Dun, who has visited many hemp building projects around the world, most of which he noticed are private and small-scale.

The post Italy tells EU it will set maximum THC levels for hemp foods appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

The Italian Ministry of Health has informed the European Commission (EC) of its plans to set maximum levels of THC in food and food supplements. The regulation is aimed at providing clarity to authorities and the food sector.

In a letter sent to the EC in October, the Italian government outlined its intentions and their rationale for the move. The Italian government notes that they sought the advice of a number of bodies including the Italian National Institute of Health in May 2017 before proceeding. They also outline their intent to sample and analyze products for THC levels as per European Union guidelines.

Clarity on food

The regulation proposed by Italy provides clarification for the authorities and the food sector on which foodstuffs derived from hemp can be produced and placed on the market. It also provides instructions for authorities and the food sector on the application of regulations on food hygiene and official inspections. It also

It’s proposed the maximum THC levels would be as follows: Hemp seeds and flour obtained from hemp seed should have a maximum of 2.0 milligrams per kilogram. Likewise, supplements containing foodstuffs derived from hemp would also have a maximum of 2.0 milligrams per kilogram. Oils obtained from hemp seeds can have a maximum of 5.0 milligrams per kilogram.

The post Second study of European CBD products reveals deficiencies appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

A recent round of tests among CBD products on the European market uncovered several deficiencies, according to the International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute (ICCI), which recently performed the second such independent sampling this year.

ICCI performed the assessment of 35 products under ISO 17025 standards in cooperation with the first European laboratory certified under the Patient Focused Care (PFC) regime, administered by the Department of Food Analysis and Nutrition of the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague. (VŠCHT).

THC risk levels

ICCI said 9 samples in the latest round of testing had THC levels “involving risk,” while only 10 samples reviewed had correct labels on their packaging regarding THC content. Thirty samples fulfilled requirements concerning CBD content, according to ICCI.

Excessive THC content in the blood after using CBD oils represents unexpected risks for customers, said Pavel Kubů, ICCI managing director. Even relatively low amounts of THC can cause changes in perception, and can threaten consumers’ capacity to drive and make decisions in general, ICCI noted.

The post North Indian startup aims to help beleaguered farmers’ appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

When five friends at Panjab University in the Indian city of Chandigarh became aware of an alarming suicide rate among the nation’s farmers, they decided to do something about it.

“All five of us belong to a farming background, and knowing that farming in India has played an important role in our development and identity as a nation, we realized that something needed to done for the backbone of the country,” remembers William Pal Singh.

Their answer was to form Esperanza Global Eco Solutions, a startup that’s exploring the agricultural, industrial and commercial potential of hemp as a multipurpose crop in India, with the ultimate goal to lift the fortunes of struggling Indian farmers.

Farmers on the edge

Nearly 70% of India’s 90 million agricultural households spend more than what they earn on average, pushing them towards debt, which is the primary reason for more than half of all suicides by farmers nationwide, statistics show.

The post Searching for high-CBD hemp seeds? Don’t look to Europe appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Desperate to find certified high-CBD hemp planting seed? Don’t look to Europe. The uninitiated don’t seem to know this secret: There are no high CBD strains registered in the EU plant variety database, and European breeders have virtually no incentive to develop such strains as long as the continent is restricted by the EU benchmark 0.2% THC content rule.

European hemp varieties are developed and registered for seeds yield and/or fiber content — to serve sectors that have been the historical focus of European hemp producers since the revival of the industry in the mid 1990s.

Low THC means low CBD

It was only in the last few years, with the rapid rise of the global CBD market, that Europeans started to harvest the compound from their certified crops. But because CBD content is directly proportional to THC in a plant, Europe’s highly restrictive 0.2 THC limit means European plants have relatively low CBD in their makeup.

Furthermore, Europe’s focus on seeds and fiber means breeders on the continent have not set out to raise and stabilize CBD content in their cultivars. There are some high-CBD seeds produced by marijuana seed banks. But these are sold mostly as collector’s items, and the strains have not passed any approval process by a third party, so there are no guarantees as to quantity or overall quality with respect to CBD yield.

The post Despite struggles with the law, Greek hemp advocate is upbeat appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

By Brian Houlihan | HempToday – The Greek hemp industry continues to grow since it began five years ago. However, in the past year, there has been a crackdown on hemp farmers, producers, and consumers, Michalis Theodoropoulos, the President of Kannabio Hemp Cooperative told HempToday.

“The police during the past year have arrested producers, retailers, and customers of hemp products, the result of the incomplete and ambiguous legislation and due to misinterpretations of the law,” Theodoropoulos said.

One of the most profound cases involved Kannabio founding member, Serafeim Kandylas, who was arrested last June and charged with the possession of illegal substances. Kandylas was charged for being in possession of Kannabio’s packaged dried hemp flowers, hemp flour, hemp pasta, and hemp soap.

Bust is a bust

Similarly, Greek police in July announced they had destroyed 10,500 cannabis seedlings and detained the grower. The police statement said it was “the biggest cannabis plantation ever found in the country.” However, their joy was short-lived when it turned out the 3.5-hectare farm was actually a legal hemp cultivation.

The post New Zealand stakeholders are forming hemp interest group appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

A recent food conference in New Zealand has earmarked hemp as having the potential to impact the food industry and to boost the economy. While the laws around hemp foods are only now opening up, following the example of Australia, its hoped this will lead to an explosion of new companies and products.

More than 170 delegates from the New Zealand food industry met and discussed the global future of food and the opportunities for the country, and more specifically the Hawke’s Bay region where the conference took place. Delegates decided to form a hemp special interest group to explore customer oriented opportunities in the fibre, medicine and food categories.

James Cameron growing hemp?

Hemp has only recently returned to New Zealand with the rules being relaxed in 2001. However, restrictions on the industry have limited its capacity to grow. Nonetheless, there has been growing interest in the crop and even well-known figures are taking part in the hemp revolution. Film director James Cameron is among those growing and researching the crop in recent years through his company T base 2.

Previously, hemp producers could sell hemp oil but not the by-products like hemp seed meal. Earlier this year Andrew Davidson of Midlands Nutritional Oils told local media “We are going from being able to sell 25 percent of the raw material for human consumption to 100 percent, so that is a big change.”

The post ‘Fast, radical, different’: Hemp and the next industrial revolution appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

INTERVIEW: Phil Warner is CEO and Chairman of Ecolife Science, which works to advance new-era products for a sustainable future. He has more than 20 years hemp industry experience in China, Bhutan, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Africa and North & South America. Warner set up the world’s biggest most diverse cannabis gene seed bank. His former company, Ecofibre is an internationally recognized enterprise in hemp production and market development which invested more than $15 million into research and development of new high-yield commercial plant varieties, agriculture and processing.

HempToday: What’s your take on the whole question of using hemp bio-mass to create fuel? Is that a viable long-term winner?
Phil Warner: I think there are far better, more economically viable uses of hemp biomass than for fuel. Globally we are in desperate need of recyclable bio-materials that can be grown and supplied domestically for day-to-day consumer products. The issue really is that we haven’t developed technologies and systems to convert bio-materials that can do this better than hydrocarbons yet. This “system” is what I intend on researching. A device that can deconstruct bio-materials and reconstruct them in the forms we desire, then recycle them again and again.

What I imagine is the use of the science of “Chemurgy” using high tech equipment, sort of like a 3D printer but instead of hydrocarbon based materials, the raw materials are bio-based and recyclable, several times over. It is not going to be easy to achieve this but it is inevitable that something like this has to be done otherwise climate change will change our lives well beyond what is already anticipated. However, if we are able to recycle domestically, even locally, we will see a reduction of over 50% of the need for materials we presently dump in landfills.

The post Western Australia grants provide spark to hemp stakeholders appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

The government of Western Australia is providing $200,000 (US$145,000) in grants to support the state’s hemp industry.

“There are immense opportunities in hemp and it is early days in the industry – the time in which government can give a little assistance to help the industry take off,” Agriculture and food minister Alannah MacTiernan told local media.

Boosting the value chain

“The feedback we are getting from growers, processors, manufacturers, and businesses is that they need support to establish processing facilities, develop markets and to identify varieties suitable for WA conditions” – issues the grants are designed to address.

Currently, most of the region’s hemp farmers who can expect to benefit from the scheme are based in Jindong, Margaret River and Manjimup.

The post More happening in Chinese hemp than meets the eye appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

The opening of the Chinese hemp market will no doubt be significant for the industry globally. While little is known about the world’s biggest hemp producer, glimpses of what’s being done are tantalizing.

Take SkyGreen, an offshoot of NASDAQ-listed Sky Solar Group, a solar panel maker that builds photovoltaic power stations internationally.

SkyGreen has rapidly moved into industrial hemp, with activities in farming, processing and extraction of CBD, and with an aggressive R&D program that is exploring applications for hemp from low tech to high. The company now has a huge fiber hemp planting base and processing workshop in Hei Longjiang Province, China’s hemp capital.

Shrouded in mystery

But much about the Chinese hemp industry is shrouded in mystery. This enigma has as much to do with communication problems as it does anything else, according to Japanese consultant Riki Hiroi, who recently attended the 60th convention of China’s Institute of Bast Fiber Crops at the invitation of Chinese officials.

The post Belarus hemp stakeholders push back against strict enforcement appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

By Brian Houlihan | HempToday – Belarus has some of the most restrictive cannabis and hemp laws in Europe. Yet despite the fears of reprisals, activists in the country are continuing their push for legal reforms.

”Cultivation, possession, purchasing, selling or transporting (hemp) is a criminal offense,” Piotr Markiełaŭ of Legalize Belarus told HempToday. “There is no distinction in the law between hemp and heroin, possession of either can cost you up to 5 years in prison. If a hemp plant accidentally grows up on your land you can face a fine.”

History of hemp in Belarus

Markiełaŭ said hemp was once widely used in Belarus and the wider region. “Hemp thread, fabric, flour, oil, paper, and other products were produced,” he notes. However, Markiełaŭ laments the current situation as “No hemp products are made in Belarus and everything we have available to buy is imported from abroad.”

Markiełaŭ recounts how in the 1950’s farmers in Belarus were encouraged to grow hemp in reclaimed bog-land. Posters were produced by the Soviets with a slogan which roughly translates to ‘Expand hemp crops on peat bogs!’.

The post NGO calls WHO committee’s report ‘unethical, surrealistic’ appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

International cannabis activists have expressed concern over a guidance document from the World Health Organization (WHO) that will be under review during the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) meeting Dec. 5-7 in Vienna. WHO representatives are to give the definitive outcomes and recommendations for the re-scheduling of cannabis, and guidelines for cannabidiol (CBD) to the UN’s Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) during the meeting.

The concerns emerged this week in Geneva during a meeting of WHO’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD), which contributed the guidance, essentially a scientific review that covers of cannabis, resin, extracts, THC, and CBD extracts.

‘Unethical, surrealistic’

“The disappointment relates to the important, repeated, unethical – and I tend to say surrealistic – bias in the (ECDD) documentation,” Kenzi Riboulet Zemouli of FAAAT wrote in a four page letter to the Expert Committee, citing passages in the WHO documentation that address pharmacology and epidemiology, which FAAT says are key to the overall review.

FAAT specifically criticized pharmacology sections in the guidance which it says contain “dozens of methodological fallacies and terminological bias. “Misinterpreted studies outcomes and even some presentation of false conclusions seem to imply an intention to introduce bias,” the letter charged.

The post Uttar Pradesh is second Indian state to allow hemp cultivation appeared first on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

In Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India, the government recently announced it will issue permits to allow the cultivation of hemp in the region. The announcement follows the recent reforms elsewhere in the country which are already leading to serious investments.

A government spokesperson, Srikant Sharma, told Indian media the introduction of hemp growing could help improve farmers income. According to the decision, farmers will be allowed cultivate hemp under the supervision of the Excise Department. The UP government has committed to doubling the income of farmers by 2022 and hemp is part of the plan to achieve this.

Things moving in Uttarakhand

The move follows the lead of Uttarakhand, which last year became the first state in India to allow farmers to grow hemp. Uttarakhand, which is also located in northern India, borders Nepal and China and officials in the region believe hemp has the potential to revive Indian agriculture and create numerous jobs.

Now the Uttarakhand region now set for serious investment in the hemp industry which could significantly impact the state. The Indian Industrial Hemp Association (IIHA) recently announced an investment of Rs 1,100 crores (about $150 million) for expanding hemp cultivation, research, and other initiatives to grow the industry in Uttarakhand.