[TRANSCRIPT] Iowa Press Roundtable March 15th 2019 Discourse Over Current Marijuana/Hemp Initiatives At Des Moines Capitol Thus Far In 2019

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Yepsen: Erin, marijuana issues are in the offing up there. I have three of them. Industrial hemp, recreational use of marijuana and increasing the level of THC, the chemical that gives you the high, in marijuana. What is the status of those?

Murphy: So, start with recreational because it’s the easiest. That’s not happening. There’s just not support among the legislative field for it so we can get that out of the way. The medical cannabis program got a big expansion this past year but there are some who still feel, as you noted, that the THC level needs to be increased so it can be more effective, treat more ailments. As with past years there is kind of divide, Senate republicans are on board with making some of those changes, House republicans are a little less so. So it will be whether they can, those two sides of the same coin, can come together and find agreement. And the hemp debate has been interesting too and Jim, I think you covered it a little bit more. But there’s ag industry leaders who are saying this could be a useful product for us and other states are looking at it too but other states have pushed back on it too. I think it was the South Dakota Governor who just vetoed a hemp bill. So it will be interesting to see how that goes the rest of the session.

Lynch: There’s some concern, there’s support for industrial hemp as a third option for farmers, a third crop option. But there’s some concern about making sure that the seed can be certified because you can only have .3 percent THC in industrial hemp. And as somebody pointed out it’s going to be hard to get your banker to finance your crop if you can’t guarantee, if there’s some question about the THC level in the end product. There’s also concern about sort of the posers who might be trying to raise some high THC marijuana in those hemp fields. But there’s support in the House, there’s support for moving this forward. I don’t think it’s on the must do list.

Yepsen: Go ahead, Kay.

Henderson: And it is also complicated by the fact that people often refer to cannabidiol, which is cannabis oil, as hemp oil. So the wording of this is also a problem for those who support it.