American grown hemp
I just got off the phone with the North Dakota Department of Agriculture. The idea is all but dead now, so I might as well let the cat out of the bag.
Some of you may remember me dropping hints about an ultra ultra top secret project that kinkyropes.com had been working on. Back in April of 1999, the state of North Dakota legalized the cultivation of industrial hemp. Licenses were issued to David Monson and Wayne Hauge if any of you want to google their names for more details. They were the first permits issued to anyone in 50 years. Monson is actually the Republican Assistant Majority Leader of the North Dakota House of Representatives and was critical in drafting the legislation. His full time job is in corn oil and sunflower oil production and his farm is only 30 miles away from another farm (in canada) that was turning handsome profits growing industrial hemp.
The problem, however, was that even though it was legal at the state level, there was still a federal permit to get. Monson went ahead and applied for a federal permit. At this point nothing happened. The DEA did not reject the application. The DEA did not accept the application. The application just sat on a shelf someplace. Planting season came and went with still no answer either way.
So a lawsuit gets filed in order to force a yes/no answer from the DEA. Wednesday of this week a federal judge dismissed the case. Although an appeal is technically possible, the people who I have been in communication with in North Dakota say that is unlikely. The best possible course of action now would be to lobby congress, but the money to do so is unlikely to become available.
Even if the idea had worked, the first few crops would have probably been for oil production anyway. American hemp bondage rope would have still been years away, but there could at least have been American hemp seed oil to condition your hemp ropes with. But I am sad to announce that the idea is now all but over.
Sorry to anyone who I had given false hope to about a great new product on the horizon.