West Virginia House Unanimously Approves Commercial Hemp Farming

By Ryan Cristián

Guest writer for Wake Up World

The West Virginia House has unanimously passed a bill that would significantly expand the state’s hemp licensing program, opening the door for anybody in the state to produce or process industrial hemp for commercial purposes. Final approval would set the foundation to end federal prohibition in practice.

Del. Jeff Eldridge (D-Alum Creek) and Del. Jim Butler (R-Henderson) introduced House Bill 2453 (HB2453) on Feb. 15. The legislation would remove language in the current hemp licensing program restricting it to the Department of Agriculture and state institutions of higher learning. Under the proposed law, any person with a license could plant, grow, harvest, possess, process, sell, and buy industrial hemp.

The licensing program is “shall issue,” meaning the Department of Agriculture would be required to issue a license to any person meeting statutory requirements. Without this section, the department could deny applications for a myriad of reasons.

HB2453 passed the House by a 99-0 vote.

“I think West Virginia is kind of in the center; we could have the industry move here to process hemp, the plant itself, and extract all of the derivatives from the plant you can,” Eldridge said in an interview.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting reported that the limits of the current program, due to its conformity with federal law, has hindered the development of a hemp industry.

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