Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chairman, officials in my home State of Kentucky were recently forced to file a lawsuit in Federal Court to compel the DEA to release industrial hemp seeds intended for a university research pilot program. What a waste of time, money, and the court system's limited resources.

States can't launch industrial hemp pilot programs if the DEA seizes the seeds before they reach their destination. And although the DEA did recently agree to release the seeds, they still insist that they have the authority to regulate industrial hemp--which was clearly conveyed to the States in the farm bill.

Isn't it ironic that thousands of pounds of cocaine and heroin are somehow passing across our borders every week, yet the DEA thinks that seizing hemp seeds, industrial hemp seeds, is a worthwhile use of its time and resources? I say it is not.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment.

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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I am not here to talk about brownies and biscuits. I am here to talk about a serious medical issue, cannabidiol, the CBD oil that comes from the cannabis plant. It is very low in THC and is nonpsychoactive. Research has shown very promising results in children with epilepsy, autism, and other neurological disorders. CBD oil is also showing promising results in adults with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and PTSD.

We need to remove the roadblocks to these potential medical breakthroughs. This amendment would do that. The Federal Government should not countermand State law. In this case, the absurd result of that is that medical discoveries are being blocked.

I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.

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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today with four of my colleagues to offer a bipartisan amendment that simply requires the DEA to comply with Federal law.

Despite clear language in the recently passed farm bill that specifically allows State agricultural agencies and universities to grow industrial hemp for research, the DEA decided to ignore the plain text of a Federal statute.

Officials in my home State of Kentucky were recently forced to file a lawsuit in Federal court to compel the DEA to release industrial hemp seeds intended for a university research pilot program. What a waste of time, money, and the court system's limited resources.

States cannot launch industrial hemp pilot programs if the DEA seizes the seeds before they reach their destination, and although the DEA did recently agree to release the seeds, my amendment ensures that this type of DEA action won't happen again.

If this were simply about seeds, I wouldn't be here. We have got that resolved, but there are further issues. There are more issues.

For instance, the DEA has been very ambiguous on whether they are going to assert authority to say that hemp can't be grown on private property. Listen, where else are you going to grow it? It is not like the government has farms.

The farm bill is clear on this language. The farm bill says that the State authorities shall register these sites, not the DEA; yet the DEA refuses to acknowledge that.

Furthermore, with regard to the seeds, the DEA requires--and this I find ridiculous--that the seeds--and these are industrial hemp seeds with no active THC--must be kept under lock and key, with only three keys available.

The way we have got these stored in Kentucky now is you put your handprint on the door and you can get into these hemp seeds. You want to know how ridiculous that is?

By the end of this growing season, we are going to have thousands of pounds of hemp seeds, not 250 pounds of hemp seeds. The question is: What is the DEA going to do going forward?

We just want them to simply obey the law. The fact is that growing hemp for research purposes has always been legal. So why hasn't it been done? Because it required interfacing with the DEA, and the DEA purposely used regulations to stop any of this research.

The farm bill that I cosponsored was to clear the way for hemp industrial research, not to perpetuate a broken process where the DEA obfuscates and delays, but to give that freedom to State and local governments.

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Mr. MASSIE. I hope the chairman will vote for my amendment. Basically, it just says that we are going to enforce the farm bill, the language of the farm bill, and the farm bill is very clear in its language. It says no other Federal law withstanding.

Isn't it ironic that thousands of pounds of cocaine and heroin are somehow passing our borders every week? Yet the DEA thinks that seizing industrial hemp seeds in Kentucky is worthwhile use of its time and resources.

Furthermore, what are they going to do this fall when we harvest the hemp seeds?

There is no import-export there. These are Kentucky hemp seeds once they are grown in Kentucky. There is no Federal nexus this fall, so I hope that the farm bill and the language in the farm bill will be honored. We voted for it. It was signed by the President.

Our amendment is simple. It states that no funds may be used by the Department of Justice or Drug Enforcement Administration to violate the clear language of the farm bill, which says: States are allowed to grow and cultivate industrial hemp if the industrial hemp is grown or cultivated for the purposes of research conducted under an agricultural pilot program or other agricultural or academic research.

The DEA is not above Congress. It is not above the law. Executive branch agencies like the DEA must follow the laws passed by the legislative branch.

Please join us in support of this commonsense, reasonable amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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