Stacey Peterson’s 12-year-old son, Jeriah, suffers from epilepsy. When she took him to the hospital for treatment, they were turned away because Stacey had been giving her son hemp CBD oil.
“I had a neurologist tell me that if I was going to take matters into my own hands and give my son CBD oil, she would no longer oversee her care,” she said.
Hemp was illegal in Missouri until 2018. As the main ingredient of CBD oil, hemp comes from the same plant as marijuana but contains a different level of THC. However, hemp does not contain the same psychoactive properties as marijuana -- in other words, you can’t get high from consuming hemp.
Hemp is used as an at-home remedy by parents with children who suffer from diseases like Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and various sleep disorders. Parents with children who suffer from these medical conditions say the legalization of hemp in Missouri is instrumental for their care.
In 2014, U.S. Congress passed a farm bill that no longer categorized hemp as a controlled substance and legalized the research of industrial uses for the plant. As lawmakers recognized the potential, Missouri enacted House Bill 2034 to start a hemp pilot program in Aug. 2018. The bill allowed farmers to grow industrial hemp up to 40 acres. Congress also passed the 2018 farm bill and removed hemp from the statutory definition of marijuana. Missouri followed the national trend.
Under the new Missouri law, individuals with epilepsy can now use hemp extract upon the recommendation of a neurologist.
Peterson said she was glad to see this legalization because it helps with the lack of education and the stigma on hemp-made products.
“My son has benefited from medical hemp or CBD oil,” said Peterson. “I feel like marijuana and hemp should be totally legalized, kind of like what Colorado and California have done.”
However, hemp has duel uses. For farmers and entrepreneurs, the hopes and efforts of investors lie in its agricultural use.
Kevin Corlew practices business law in Kansas City and he is very familiar with the changes in policies regarding industrial hemp. He says this brand-new industry has opened the doors for Missouri.
“The Missouri area has been known historically to be a great area to grow hemp,” he said. “It did open up a whole new crop to them [farmers] that they can benefit from.”
Corlew said small farmers would benefit from joining together and cooperating to bring out the economy of scale—more profits that come with a large level of production.
Similarly, William Cook, executive director of the Missouri Hemp Association, showed his enthusiasm for the hemp industry.
“Opportunities like this come along very very rarely, and people that have lived and loved agriculture in this state and country want to see this commodity treated with the respect it deserves,” he said.
Mitch Meyers, CEO of BeLeaf, owns one of the two licensed companies in Missouri that currently cultivate and produce hemp CBD oil.
“As a result of the farm bill passing last year, we have made available a consumer brand that's being sold at pharmacies and doctors’ offices,” Meyers said.
Jeremy Roth, a researcher and farmer from Cape Girardeau, said the legalization of hemp only became a problem when the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 banned the cultivation of industrial hemp, as well as marijuana.
“When you look at the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, hemp was considered a food and was never illegal,” Roth said. “If you can leverage the tariff system, you can import hemp into the United States.”
With no other alternatives for treating her son, Peterson did just that.
“We had our hemp shipped over from France along with the binder and everything, because, at the time, you couldn't get industrial hemp in the United States,” she said.
However, according to Meyers, farmlands in the Midwest alone would be able to surpass the world’s supply of hemp in a pretty quick period of time. Missouri is hoping to be a part of it.