More executive overreach? Lawmakers say Obama hemp policy is a buzzkill for research | McClatchy Washington Bureau

You can’t get high from smoking hemp, but a bipartisan group of lawmakers says states and universities growing it for research could get busted if they cross state lines with it.

Three Kentucky lawmakers — Republican Sen. Rand Paul, Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie — have asked the Obama administration to remove or revise August guidance that prohibits the shipment of hemp plants and seeds across state lines even for research.

Industrial hemp only contains a fraction of the intoxicating chemical associated with its cousin marijuana, and it is grown worldwide to produce fabrics, carpets, paper, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and even auto parts.

While federal law prohibits farmers from growing hemp for a profit, it can be grown in some states for research purposes.

Joining 16 of their colleagues in a letter dated Thursday, the Kentucky lawmakers told the Drug Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration that its guidance has sown seeds of confusion among state agriculture departments and universities that have hemp research programs.

Kentucky and 27 other states have authorized the production of industrial hemp. The 2014 Farm Bill enabled those states to establish pilot programs.

This year in Kentucky, 135 growers and 4,500 acres have been approved under the state’s pilot program. Kentucky had led the nation in hemp production until after the Civil War.

The Farm Bill also says the Executive Branch may not use appropriated funds “to prohibit the transportation, processing, sale or use of industrial hemp” that is grown in accordance with the law.

The three agencies do not have the authority to issue the guidance they did in August, the lawmakers wrote.

“We request that you please remove the attempted prohibition on transporting plants and seeds across state lines,” they wrote.