What is the difference between the approach to the crops of technical hemp by officials in the United States and in Ukraine

It's time to raise the issue of stopping the work of this feeder of individual "officials in uniform", as well as bringing to justice those who create and sign departmental orders that negatively affect the conduct of economic activities of national companies specializing in industrial hemp growing and those who allow themselves use for personal purposes a worthless document that directly contradicts the current legislation of Ukraine. 

We will provide our dear reader and listener with the opportunity to get acquainted with the facts from the life of US cannabis growers and compare them with what is happening in our country.

Growing plots of industrial hemp in Detroit

Greg Pavlovsky (Detroit, Michigan Municipal Official) has developed and is implementing a project to grow industrial hemp in urban wastelands. This project was born out of the analysis of individual items of the city budget, which showed that the city authorities spend about $ 3.5 million annually on mowing grass on empty land plots. At the initiative of Mr. Pavlovsky, a memorandum was prepared to make a decision on the city mayor, which substantiated the economic feasibility of cultivating local crops of industrial hemp on these sites, which will not only provide the municipality with the opportunity to organize dozens of jobs, but will also help fill the Detroit budget with significant financial resources. due to the fact that hemp raw materials are actively used by several companies at once. The idea of ​​growing raw hemp in Detroit immediately led a number of entrepreneurs to voice their desire to use the various constituents of the plant for their use in the hemp business they do.

Mike Duggan not only supported the initiative to grow industrial cannabis in urban wastelands after reviewing the above memorandum by G. Pavlovski of Detroit mayor. At the urging of the Detroit mayor, a group of municipal officials has been formed to prepare a number of test sites for planting. In particular, this concerns urban zoning and the registration of the necessary permits, which is necessary to ensure that this kind of cultivation of technical hemp in the largest city of Michigan does not cause any misunderstandings. 

According to Mr. Pavlovsky, at the moment, test plots for sowing in 2021 are selected from 35 thousand urban wastelands that remained vacant after the demolition of city buildings and structures. One of the main criteria for the cultivation of industrial hemp in urban conditions is the fact that the plant is one of the best phytoremediates in nature, therefore, crops will be carried out in the most contaminated areas in order to cleanse the soil of toxic chemical elements, and the hemp raw material obtained during cultivation will be sent to local automakers who are ready to produce biocomposite materials from it that are in demand on the market, but with which open areas of human surfaces will not come into contact. Those. the above raw materials in any way will not be able to negatively affect either the urban ecology or the health of city residents.

To implement this project, agreements have been reached with the Wayne County Community College, which will train specialists involved in the cultivation of industrial hemp in the wastelands of Detroit. At the initiative of the city authorities, several non-profit organizations are being created at once to manage the hemp fields planned in 2021 in the city. Despite the fact that Mr. Pavlovsky, for family reasons, decided to leave the post of city planner, given the relevance of the project for Detroit, the mayor of the city invited him to work in the city hall as a special adviser on the hemp industry.

In the suburbs of Chicago, they regulate the possibilities for growing technical hemp both in warehouses and on the roofs of buildings

The Planning Commission for Skokie, a northwestern suburb of Chicago, has received a request to change zoning in order for municipalities to allow the cultivation of industrial hemp in the industrial zones of the community. The applicant declared the need to cultivate therapeutic hemp in Skoki for the purpose of further extraction of drug-free cannabinoids from the resulting raw materials, in particular cannabidiol. Despite the fact that the applicant subsequently withdrew his application, the municipality decided not only to revise the zoning, but also to create conditions so that various agricultural crops, including drug-free cannabis, could be grown in the village.

According to representatives of the Skoki municipality, certain types of agricultural activities are already permitted in the territory of the settlement, however, the changes made will allow the practice of growing technical hemp on an industrial scale. In particular, the chairman of the Skokie Planning Commission, Paul Luc, argues that the widespread use of permits for additional crop cultivation indoors or on rooftops will work for many local industrial buildings. An explanatory note prepared by him states that expanding the available areas for the above goals is in line with one of the objectives of the Skoky Sustainable Development Plan, which aims to support local and regional efforts to reduce the distance of transportation of food from the field to the consumer. 

According to the head of the planning department of this settlement Steve Marchiani, “In our industrial zones, it is possible to use large storage facilities for growing crops, including closed rooms for the needs of modern cannabis growing. In addition to the most highly profitable agricultural crop, it is planned to grow other non-food crops either indoors or on the roofs of buildings, for example, the adoption of such documents will allow floriculture to become significantly more active in Skoka. Urban farms often use this kind of technology to grow perishable crops such as lettuce or herbal herbs, which benefit from shorter time to market. ”

Departmental normative legal document, certain provisions of which directly contradict several by-laws of Ukraine

At the beginning of 2018, one of the departments, which is indirectly related to industrial cannabis growing in our country, in pursuance of certain provisions of the Licensing Conditions, which confirmed the removal of any restrictions for the cultivation of industrial crops of technical hemp in 2016, adopts a departmental order that not only artificially introduces restrictions , but also directly contradicts the current legislation of our country. Unlike American officials who create favorable conditions for the rapidly developing industry of modern cannabis growing, Ukrainian “servants of the people” think about how to artificially create “Chinese walls”, overcoming which a given “bubble in uniform” earns its 30 silver coins. The flight of thought of “managers hired by the people to perform certain state functions” and who receive salaries, including from taxes of agricultural producers, does not rise to the level of understanding that by his illegal actions he not only scares away investors from Ukraine who do not want to invest resources in enterprises, capable of creating great added value, but also make national hemp growing uncompetitive even in relation to hemp products imported to Ukraine. 

It seems that the time has come to raise the issue of stopping the work of this feeder of individual "officials in uniform", as well as bringing to justice those who create and sign departmental orders that negatively affect the conduct of economic activities of national companies specializing in industrial hemp growing and those who allow themselves to use for personal purposes a worthless document that directly contradicts the current legislation of Ukraine.