Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may seem like an unlikely champion for an illegal substance, but the Kentucky Republican just added the legalization of marijuana鈥檚 non-psychoactive cousin, hemp, to the . The industrial hemp business is increasingly seen as an economic savior and substitute for vulnerable industries like mining, especially in Colorado, one of the first states in the nation to make hemp legal at the state level.
For over a decade, Cory Colombo worked in farming and construction in the town of Nucla, Colorado. Now, he has a new job at Paradox Ventures.
I meet him inside a large greenhouse that鈥檚 chock full of baby hemp plants. Noisy, giant fans whir above to circulate the air. He tells me they usually have rock music playing for the plants too. It makes them happier, he says.
Colombo鈥檚 family and community are steeped in the region鈥檚 older industries. His grandparents grew up in the town of Paradox and entered the mining industry in the nearby town of Nucla during the uranium boom. But the uranium and coal mining jobs that used to sustain the region have waned and the Tri-State power plant is .
鈥淭hat feeds a lot of families there in Nucla,鈥� Colombo said, referring to the power plant and the mine. 鈥淢y goal is that if I can get ten families in Nucla involved in hemp and save ten farms then I did my job.鈥�
He says Paradox Ventures is making progress. Last year the operation started out with 50 hemp plants and this year they鈥檙e cloning and transplanting nearly 50,000.
Planting time is just around the corner. Don Coram, the founder of Paradox Ventures, takes me out to one of their farms.
Coram is no ordinary farmer. He鈥檚 actually a Republican State Senator from Colorado. He represents mostly rural districts in the of the state; communities like Columbo鈥檚 hometown of Nucla.
鈥淚 just saw what I thought was going to be an already devastated community and said, 鈥榊ou know I think if we can put this together, we can make it work,鈥欌�� Coram said.
Coram actually that formally regulated industrial hemp in the state four years ago. Since then, Colorado has become the top producer of hemp in the country.
have legalized it now and researchers have identified at least uses for hemp ranging from textiles to animal feed to medicine to something Coram hopes will become this area鈥檚 specialty: building materials.
Coram said you can make a shingle out of hemp that's 3/60ths of an inch thick, but has a 1,200 pound breaking point. 鈥淪o the hail damage that you're getting on the roofs in Denver and northeast Colorado,鈥� he said, 鈥測ou could eliminate by putting that product on.鈥�
For now, though, Coram is focused on cultivating plants that will yield cannabidiol --or CBD-- oil to get the business off the ground. CBD oil is used medicinally and has a higher market value than the fibrous material.
When I ask him how long he thinks it might take to establish the industry in the region so that it provides an actual economic opportunity for people losing those power plant jobs, he says maybe two years.
He acknowledges there have been obstacles. Water, for example. Hemp is a less thirsty crop than say, corn or wheat, but farmers have run into trouble with authorities for using federal water on a federally illegal crop. Coram fixed that last year with that says anyone with a legal water right here can use it anyway they want. But there are other obstacles to overcome.
For one, getting people on board to grow a plant related to marijuana.
Sandy Head is with the Economic Development Corporation in Montrose, Colorado. She grew up on a farm in this area and as part of her job here, she does promote the potentials of hemp. She even uses the CBD oil on her arthritic hands.
鈥淪o I personally did not have a problem,鈥� Head said laughing, 鈥渂ut I have wore myself out explaining it to a lot of people.鈥�
Another very serious obstacle, said Head, is banking.
Since hemp is still considered a controlled substance on a federal level, Head said, 鈥測ou can't get a bank loan to start up a company. And that's been a glitch.鈥�
Industrial hemp plants also can鈥檛 legally surpass a .3% level of THC, the primary psychoactive component in marijuana. If it does, a farmer will have to destroy the crop. And there鈥檚 no insurance for that.
Finding workers can be problematic too. Hemp is still a very labor-intensive crop.
鈥淥ne of our farmers that has sweet corn,鈥� Head said, 鈥渃hecked to see if he could bring his migrant workers to work on the hemp and he can't. It will threaten his ability to have those visas to bring the workers in.鈥�
Plus, Head said, in order to make the crop profitable, they have get processing facilities in place.
Right now, there are a handful of hemp processors in the state but only one in Montrose County. As it鈥檚 crop production grows exponentially, Paradox Ventures hopes to help open a processing facility in Nucla.
All in all, though, Sandy Head, has a measured view of what they can accomplish. 鈥淚 don't think hemp is taking things by storm,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think what it is is it's an option.鈥�
It鈥檚 an option with quite a few strings attached. And the road to federal legalization of hemp could be a rocky one. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may have added hemp legalization to the senate鈥檚 version of the but that legislation has its own rocky path to navigate.
This story was produced by the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, Yellowstone Public Radio in Montana, KUER in Salt Lake City and KRCC and KUNC in Colorado.
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