On Aug. 9, 2019, a legal pathway for farmers and businesses in New Jersey to grow hemp was created when Governor Phil Murphy signed a bill that became the New Jersey Hemp Farming Act, N.J.S.A. 4:28-6 et seq. (NJHFA). This law legalizes hemp production in New Jersey, permitting farmers and businesses to grow, handle, process and sell hemp for commercial purposes, pursuant to an application process that is being established by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture (NJDA). Previously, farmers and businesses were only legally permitted to cultivate hemp under New Jersey’s Industrial Hemp Pilot Program, which restricted hemp growth to academic or agricultural research. In a step forward for hemp farming in New Jersey, the NJFHA repeals and replaces this restrictive pilot program.
The NJFHA became possible after hemp was removed from the definition of marijuana under the Federal Controlled Substances Act when President Trump signed into law the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (also known as the 2018 Farm Bill). Additionally, the federal Farm Bill expanded the definition of hemp to include not only “the plant Cannabis sativia L. and any parts of that plant” but also the “seeds thereof and all derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, salts, and salts of isomers, whether growing or not, with a delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of not more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis.”
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