On May 15, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed a bill authorizing the growth and production of industrial hemp, as well as mandating the state’s Department of Agriculture to license farmers. With passage of HB2445, Tennessee is set to become the country’s second state to actively produce hemp.
Legislatures in Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, and South Carolina have also passed similar bills authorizing hemp farming, but Colorado is currently the only state where the process has already started.
Tennessee’s HB2445, lobbied for by the Tennessee Hemp Industries Association and the Tennessee Tenth Amendment Center, sets a deadline in order to ensure the law is followed through without bureaucratic delays:
The department shall initiate the promulgation of rules … concerning industrial hemp production within one hundred and twenty (120) days of this act becoming law.
Source: Ben Swann.