Vote Hemp Report - CA Bill Passes Senate Ag Committee

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The Vote Hemp Report
Volume 1, Number 5
June 29, 2006

Dear Karen,

When AB 1147, the California Industrial Hemp Farming
Act,
passed the Senate Public Safety Committee, we
thought the bill
had seen its last policy committee and would sail
from there
right through the Appropriations Committee to the
Senate floor.
When we learned the Senate Agriculture Committee was
taking
up the bill, we knew we had hit a bump in the road. The
vote was too close to call and there was a danger
the bill could
be passed over to die in committee.



The bills authors, Assemblymen Mark Leno (D-San
Francisco)
and Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine), their staff members,
and the
Vote Hemp lobbying team pulled out all the stops to
prepare a
presentation that would prove to the five Senators
on the
committee that entering the growing market for
industrial
hemp would be a boon for California agriculture.

Testifying in favor of the bill were Patrick Goggin,
John
LaBoyteaux, Charles Meyers, and Kevin Friesen.
Goggin, one of
the lawyers who helped the Hemp Industries
Association beat
the DEA's ban on hemp food, spoke as a Vote Hemp Board
Member. LaBoyteaux, an organic farmer, spoke on
behalf of the
California Certified Organic Farmers. (He also
happens to be
the president of the Humboldt County Farm Bureau.)
Meyers, a
Kings County cotton farmer and life long
conservative, explained conventional farmers'
interest in industrial hemp. Friesen, the Seed
Production
Manager for Hemp Oil Canada, offered his experience
managing 100 farmers growing 11,000 acres of industrial
hemp.



No one testified in opposition.

The hearing earned us a surprizing 3-0 victory. Vice
Chair
Denise Ducheny (D-San Diego) and Senators Sheila
Kuehl (D-
Los Angeles) and Edward Vincent (D-Inglewood) voted
for;
Chair Jeff Denham (R-Central Valley) and Senator
Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) abstained.


Vote Hemp owes this victory to your support! Please
stay with
us as we continue our work. When the California
Industrial
Hemp Farming Act is law, the right to farm
industrial hemp will
be affirmed by state law. But first, the bill must
be approved
by the Senate Appropriations Committee and win a
vote on the
Senate floor. It may have to go through another
Assembly
committee and the full Assembly will have to approve
amendments passed in the Senate. Last, but not
least, it needs
the governor's signature.

There is work yet to be done and we need your
support more
than ever!

Sincerely,

Eric Steenstra

President

Vote Hemp


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