As the county supervisors continue to choke on secondhand political smoke generated by Santa Barbara’s emergent cannabis industry, county regulators are bracing for a new onslaught of interest in the cultivation of hemp, which the federal government legalized for commercial purposes a year ago. Before that, it was classified as a dangerous Schedule I drug like heroin or LSD. Hemp is virtually identical to cannabis, except it has much lower amounts of psychoactive THC compounds. As a designated agricultural product, hemp is not subject to the same oversight and restrictions as cannabis.
To date, 77 would-be operators have already expressed interest in obtaining county approval to grow hemp on an industrial and commercial scale. Right now, federal rules allow hemp production only if done under the auspices of a research institution. Currently, there are 10 hemp research operations in 21 different locations throughout the northern and central parts of Santa Barbara County.
Longtime Republican politician and farmer Abel Maldonado, the scion of a large family agricultural operation in Santa Maria, and lieutenant governor under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, it turns out, runs one of those hemp operations.