While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would like to think that, in addition to being the \u201cGrim Reaper\u201d of Capitol Hill, he hung the moon and is perhaps even the savior of American morality, it turns out that he\u2019s probably not as smart as he\u2019d like to believe. Because while he was scrambling around last year trying to become the godfather of industrial hemp legalization 2.0, not he, nor any of his lackey goons, stopped to consider that legitimizing a plant in the United States that is a first cousin to marijuana would somehow come back and bite him in his Kentucky tuchus.<\/p>\n
But how?<\/p>\n
Well, since weed and hemp are of the cannabis sativa classification, law enforcement is now having a heck of a time telling the two plants apart. It is a situation that has forced prosecutors all over the country to dismiss marijuana-related cases. They simply cannot determine without laboratory testing if a person is connected to illicit drugs or whether they are part of the nation\u2019s newfound hemp trade. In fact, it is possible that this little snag in the system could eventually force the U.S. government to throw its hands up and finally\u00a0legalize the leaf<\/a>\u00a0once and for all.<\/p>\n Indeed, marijuana prohibition is becoming more difficult to enforce nationwide. It\u2019s a bit of a conundrum that is just now starting to become realized in the 47 states that have put hemp laws on the books. The passing of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized industrial hemp in the U.S. for the first time since 1937, is really causing some trouble for those officials in charge of busting people for pot.<\/p>\n Smart boy McConnell,\u00a0who still opposes legal weed<\/a>, didn\u2019t realize just how similar the two plants were when he rallied to spearhead hemp production. The only difference is, one gets people high and the other, with\u00a0only .3% THC<\/a>, can\u2019t. But scientifically speaking, the two plants are the same \u2014 they are similar in appearance and have the same odor \u2014 which is\u00a0throwing off K-9 units<\/a>\u00a0and field drug tests during those ever-so-popular roadside shakedowns. In fact, the only way law enforcement agencies can distinguish between hemp and marijuana is by sending questionable products to the crime lab for analysis.<\/p>\n Yet, not even this drawn out process is a reasonable solution to this debacle. These tests are expensive and, more importantly, they create a backlog for labs. Since nobody has time for all of that, some jurisdictions, including parts of Ohio and\u00a0Texas<\/a>, are trying to either find alternative measures for lab testing (perhaps farming these cases out to private firms) or they are simply pulling the plug on minor pot possession charges altogether. Because if they moved forward with prosecution, the alleged offenders would walk.<\/p>\n \u201cThe prosecution of marijuana possession charges would require drug testing that distinguishes hemp from marijuana,\u201d Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the Columbus Dispatch. \u201cWithout this drug-testing capability, the city attorney\u2019s office is not able to prove misdemeanor marijuana possession beyond a reasonable doubt\u201d since \u201cour current drug-testing technology is not able to differentiate.\u201d<\/p>\n If we\u2019re honest, it\u2019s not like a slew of prosecutors across the country have all of a sudden stood up and said to hell with marijuana cases. If only we were that lucky. But we are starting to see more jurisdictions, including parts of Florida and Georgia, where this sort of retreat on the reefer is happening at the local level. We suspect the trend will continue to grow, eventually forcing state lawmakers to either give consideration to the decriminalization of marijuana or full blown-legalization. Meanwhile, it isn\u2019t going to take long for the confusion over hemp and marijuana to land smack dab in the middle of Washington D.C. And if Grim McConnell is still in his seat following the 2020 election \u2014 of course with a new staff because he fired the old ones for being too stupid to see that his hemp mission was going to inadvertently lead to marijuana legalization \u2014 we imagine his attitude over\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0cannabis plants will change in the spirit of good old fashioned politics and there will finally be a push to bring the stoner cousin out of the underground.<\/p>\n If that transpires, Mitch McConnell could end up being the best thing to ever happen to marijuana.<\/p>\n Yep, it\u2019s a weird world.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong>\u00a0do you think that hemp being legal, but cannabis being illegal will hold for much longer?<\/p>\n The post Hemp Makes Marijuana Crimes Difficult to Prosecute<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would like to think that, in addition to being the \u201cGrim Reaper\u201d of Capitol Hill, he hung the moon and is perhaps even the savior of American morality, it turns out that he\u2019s probably not as smart as he\u2019d like to believe. Because whileContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,6846,296,90,687,3764],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38117,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38116\/revisions\/38117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nRead More: Hemp Makes Marijuana Crimes Difficult to Prosecute<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"